Buffer

Score8.5 out of 10

389 Reviews and Ratings

What is Buffer?

Buffer is a social sharing tool. When browsing content, clicking on the Buffer icon automatically stores the content and schedules posts to social media channels throughout the day.

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Screenshot of Customizable posting schedule

Screenshot of List or calendar view of scheduled posts

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Screenshot of The Buffer dashboard

Content planning and scheduling
Users can easily plan content and schedule posts to various social media channels and profiles from one interface.
Category average: 9.1
Role-based user permissions & privileges
Permissions to perform actions or access social accounts are assigned to roles, which are then assigned to users, reducing complexity of administration.
Category average: 8.7
Mobile access
Users can effectively use the software through a mobile or tablet device.
Category average: 8.1

Workflow management
Users can share assets through asset libraries, assign tasks, and approve or edits posts through the tool’s interface.
Category average: 8.2
Campaign success analytics
Users can analyze the success of campaigns through metrics such as likes, shares, retweets, followers, clicks and conversions.
Category average: 8.6
Content optimization
The tool can suggest content, as well as the best days and times for content publication and customer engagement.
Category average: 8

Lauren Rich, aPHR™View profile

Social Media Manager in Social Media at Best sales talent (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I used Buffer to help automatically schedule social media posts on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus when Google Plus was still a thing. It was used by me for a sole proprietorship business client. It helped us put consistent content out of social media without having to babysit social media every day. We can frontload the content by the week.

Pros

Schedule multiple platforms at once
Offers multiple platforms to choose from
Can schedule across time zones

Cons

Translation of links need works sometimes the images if an article will not translate to a post when it buffers

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Sprout Social

Verified User

Employee in Marketing (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use multiple social media platforms across the board, which means metas calendar isn’t enough. this is where Buffer comes in, it allows us to post on multiple channels at the same time, while also letting us adjust the post for each one.

Buffer also has a nice tagging system where each post can be tagged, as a distributor this is really helpful because it makes us able to create reports by brand

Pros

Tagging your posts with customized tags, and then being able to create reports with them
letting you adjust the post for each channel, including pictures and captions
hashtags groups, i can create groups of hashtags which makes posting much quicker!

Cons

The tagging for instagram is not as sophisticated as the one for facebook. you have to make sure no typos are used or it won’t work, while facebook shows if the tag is correct or not
the way you plan posts can be a bit confusing, for example im not sure what the time slots are

Return on Investment

Increasing good contact with the brands we make social posts for, as we can show them reports.
Speeding the process of adjusting posts for each channel, with the hashtags groups and the ability to change captions and media.
Making it easier to track your posts (for us which brand the post is related to) for good oversight and reporting.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Meta Business Suite

Other Software Used

Meta Business Suite

Verified User

Employee in Marketing (5001-10,000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Buffer significantly helps us schedule our social media posts and also plan our feeds across multiple platforms which is critical since we use several social media channels.

Pros

Scheduling and posting scheduled posts
Highly intuitive user interface
Analyzes post performance clearly and visually

Cons

Functionality overall is fairly basic compared to other platforms
Limitations in handling certain content types like Reels and certain carousel posts
Provides top line analytics but doesn’t go super in depth

Return on Investment

Saving loads of time
Planning ahead posts proactively
Running quick analytics reports

Usability

Alternatives Considered

HeyOrca, Later Social, Hootsuite and Sprout Social

Other Software Used

monday CRM, Slack, Dayforce

Verified User

Team Lead in Marketing (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Buffer helps our company stay organized and on top of social posts. I am the only marketing employee, and I often forget to post social posts until it's too late. Buffer helps me plan ahead and schedule posts ahead of time so I don't have to worry about it as much. I just spend one day scheduling all of our posts for the month and Buffer does the rest for me.

Pros

Scheduling Social Posts
Multi Platform Posting
Clean, Easy to Use Dashboard

Cons

We don't get as much engagement from Buffer posts on LinkedIn for some reason.
Wish we could seamlessly connect to Hubspot

Return on Investment

No ROI yet, we actually get less engagement form Buffer posts from some reason.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot Marketing Hub and Meta Business Manager

Other Software Used

Adobe Illustrator CC, Atlassian Jira, Google Drive, Adobe PhotoShop, Figma, HubSpot Marketing Hub

Penelope (Crescibene) Hamilton View profile

Director of Client Relations in Marketing at AV Social Strategies (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Buffer for various clients who need to start scheduling their company social posts for B2C or B2B. We like to introduce our small startup clients to Buffer because it’s not over complicated. When clients begin to realize they need help juggling the hats they wear, Buffer helps take some of their worry away. Hiring a social media manager is financially out of reach for many startups and Buffer is affordable.

Pros

Free version for up to 3 platforms
Connects very easily to social media platforms
Allows you to customize your post for each platform
Has a great Google extension that allows you share articles and news quickly from your browser.
Includes a calendar view for content management.

Cons

I can’t seem to Tag companies on LinkedIn anymore. At one time I was able to. Perhaps my client needs the paid version.
I still find posting to Instagram confusing at times and need to tag.
Scheduling seems easy but it never fails that something gets messed up when setting up new accounts. Especially when the account holder has a different time zone than the place they are posting. I’m sure it our error but still frustrating.

Return on Investment

I really don’t have specifics for this since I set others up more than use it for our own company anymore. At one time we used it to mainly schedules news and it was very well worth the return.
Social media ROI is difficult to measure in my opinion. Unless you are running ads to a landing page or shopping cart and have very specific CTA’s in your copy , it can be difficult to set KPIs. As far as Brand awareness- social media is more of a necessity these days. Like it or not, your company should be represented.

Usability

Other Software Used

Divi Essential, Canva, Semrush, WordPress, Google Drive, Slack, Asana, Google Analytics

Buffer

What is Buffer?

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Key Features

Top Performing Features

Content planning and scheduling

Role-based user permissions & privileges

Mobile access

Areas for Improvement

Workflow management

Campaign success analytics

Content optimization

Reviews

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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Other Software Used

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