Tools for Marketing and Content Creation

Remember when social media content was limited to Facebook statuses and, er, “pokes?” Even a few years later, cutting-edge content was limited to a blurry photo with an oversaturated filter on Instagram. It seems bizarre now, given how much you can do with social media today. With the ever-growing list of platforms releasing new features daily, it's an exciting time to build a following online — but it's not an easy one. With the plethora of social media content options available every time you open your favorite app, it can be difficult to know what type of content your audience most wants to see. Short-form video? A carousel? A good old-fashioned selfie? Well, that all…

Social media shifts every year — with new features, algorithm changes, and more competition for attention. And a lot of it is beyond your control not what the algorithm prioritizes, nor what goes viral, nor how people respond to your content. However, you’re in luck: even with so much outside your influence, two actions you can do, remain reliable for growth: showing up consistently and engaging with the people who show up for you. In this guide, we’ll break down why these two actions matter, how to strengthen each aspect, and the additional layers, like how often to post, when to post, and what formats to prioritize, that can help you accelerate your results in 2026. Eng…

This is probably going to age me, but remember when adding a link to an Instagram Story required you to have at least 10,000 followers? Thankfully these days, it's a whole lot easier with Instagram's link sticker — and you can use it no matter how many followers you have. It's well worth doing, too, particularly if you want to monetize your work on Instagram. Over 60 percent of Instagrammers use the platform to research brands and products, and including links in your stories is an excellent way to get them over to your website or products. Convinced yet? Here's exactly how to add a link to an Instagram Story, using the platform's handy link stickers — along with some exa…

Delivering consistent mobile experiences is hard. Between iOS and Android's distinct design languages, different versions of native components, and Buffer's own design language, mobile apps can sometimes feel fragmented. Designers and developers end up speaking different languages, duplicating work, and shipping experiences that feel inconsistent across platforms. At Buffer, we really felt this friction. Our mobile design workflow wasn't as efficient as it could have been. We spent too much time reinventing the wheel, manually patching together screenshots, and playing catch-up with our web app counterpart. We knew we needed a better way. So we built one. Meet 🍿 Popcorn T…

LinkedIn used to be the place you'd dust off your resume and hunt for your next job. Today, that’s just a sliver of how people are using the social platform. A quick scroll now throws up founders building in public, creators sharing their wins, and hot takes on everything from positioning to pricing to — of course — AI. And while businesses are still hiring on LinkedIn, many are also pulling back the curtain to show what life inside their company really looks like. This evolution has opened up serious opportunities for both brands and creators. With over 1 billion users, LinkedIn has grown into a place where B2B professionals, creators, and businesses alike can grow thei…

If you use Buffer, then you’re familiar with our Composer. It’s where every post begins. Where you draft, tweak, preview, and hit publish. It’s the most-used surface in the entire product, and it’s the core of our value. For a while now, though, the composer has been showing its age. Not necessarily to users (it worked!), but under the hood, it was built on legacy code that made it increasingly difficult to maintain, improve, and extend. Every small change carried risk. Every new feature required navigating layers of complexity that slowed us down. So we decided it was finally time to do something about it. Over the past few months, a small team at Buffer has been moder…

Tried and tested strategies for growing your following on Threads, with insider tips from the Threads team. There's no doubt about it: Threads is here to stay. After a record-breaking start, Threads is fast proving that it was no fly-by-night fad but a force to be reckoned with among the other social media giants. Threads by Instagram now has 400 million monthly active users and counting. To put that into perspective, that's a little over a third of X's (formerly Twitter) monthly active users of 550 million — and X has a good 16 years on Threads. If you’re a creator, marketer, or business owner, growing an audience on the platform is well worth it. Especially if you’re in…

These days, it feels like Threads is dropping new features every week. Whether it's small quality-of-life improvements or game-changing updates (we see you, Trending Topics), the Threads team has been busy since their rocketship launch in 2023. The only potential downside to all that fun new stuff for its 400 million monthly active users to play with? It's not easy to keep track! Which is where this guide comes in. Here, I’ll unpack some of the top new features on Threads by Instagram — plus how to use them to grow your following. Let's make sure you're getting the most out of Threads, shall we? Jump to a section: 1. Topics, not hashtags 2. Trending Topic…

Threads has over 150 million daily active users. Great for reaching new audiences. Also, a discovery problem. How do you get seen when millions of conversations are happening at once? Enter: Trending Topics for Threads, right in Buffer. It brings real-time trending conversations directly into Buffer's composer. Built in partnership with the Threads team, Trending Topics surfaces what's trending on Threads to anyone, no matter your location, through Buffer's API access. The discovery challenge on ThreadsThe Threads algorithm rewards genuine conversation and authentic engagement. Success comes from joining discussions people actually care about, at the moment they care abou…

With more than 40 million registered users, Bluesky is fast becoming a decentralized force to be reckoned with — and with good reason. Among the new wave of fediverse platforms and decentralized networks, Bluesky is possibly the easiest to get to grips with, thanks to its clean interface and ever-increasing community of all sorts of creators. From science to K-pop, there’s a space for everyone on the network. If you’re new to Bluesky and the world of decentralized social media, here’s a quick summary: Bluesky was created by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and is a decentralized social network built on an open-source protocol called AT Protocol. With the protocol, Bluesk…

Here's something worth knowing upfront: You don't need millions of followers or superstar status to make money on Instagram. Micro and even nano-influencers on Instagram are supplementing — or even replacing — their income with content creation. I now have over 15,000 followers on Instagram, but when I started experimenting with monetization, I had no idea what would actually work. And I tried everything. Affiliate links that made me a few bucks, brand partnerships that weren't really sustainable, and eventually a few income streams that started stacking up month after month. One of the most important things I've learned is that there no ‘easy money’ switch here — turning…

Hootsuite is a pretty powerful social media management tool. But its $99 per month starting price puts it out of reach for a lot of creators, entrepreneurs, and small businesses — and that's before you even get to the plan most people actually need. Hootsuite's free plan was discontinued on March 31, 2023 — so there's no way to get Hootsuite for free beyond the 30-day trial. When the free plan was axed (RIP), existing users were nudged toward the $199 per month Standard plan — billed annually, which means a lump sum of $2,388 upfront. Some customers chose to upgrade to keep their access to the social media scheduling tool. But for a lot of creators and small teams, $199 a…

Scheduling is what Buffer is known for, and fair enough. But there's way more going on under the hood! Buffer has grown into a pretty comprehensive toolkit over the past few years, and some of the newer features (some of my personal favorites) are super useful in ways that go well beyond the queue. Here's what else it can do. Reply to comments across platforms, from one placeIf you've ever posted something, disappeared, and come back three days later to a pile of unanswered comments, this one's for you. Community is Buffer's unified comment inbox. It pulls in comments from Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, and X, so you can see and reply to everything wit…

Threads doesn’t just reward replies — it was built for them. Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, has said this more than once, and he hasn’t minced words on it, either: "The sum of all your replies is about as valuable as the sum of all the value of all your posts," he told Platformer. Turns out, he wasn't exaggerating. We have data to back up just how powerful responding on Threads can be. Replying to comments on your Threads posts can boost engagement by around 42% — the highest lift we've seen across any platform — according to Buffer data scientist Julian Winternheimer's analysis of over 128,000 Threads posts. Julian found that when creators and brands engage back in the…

Paid advertising on social media can be incredibly powerful if you're battling to reach the right audience — especially when you need to tap into very specific demographics. Which is where Facebook really shines. With over 3 billion monthly active users, it's no surprise that Facebook is the go-to social media platform for running ads. The Facebook algorithm can be tricky to figure out, especially when you're just starting out as a small business owner, creator, or social media manager. That's where Facebook advertising comes in — it helps you reach your audience more reliably. That's why, when it comes to social media strategy, understanding how to advertise on Facebook…

Most social media tools — including Buffer, historically — operate on a pretty simple model: you give us your content, we publish it, we show you some charts. If you want to improve, that's on you. Go look at the analytics. Figure out what's working. Adjust your strategy. Come back and use the tool again. The problem is the gap between the data and what you're supposed to do with it. It’s where most people get stuck. Take posting times as an example. It's one of the most common questions we hear: "When should I post?" And the honest answer has always been: "It depends. Look at your analytics. Test different times. See what works for your audience." Which is technically co…

For a word that determines so much of how social media and the creator economy operate, engagement can be pretty hard to pin down. So, we looked at the data. This report documents how engagement works across social media in 2026. Not how we wish it worked or not how platforms market it — but what the data shows. To understand what's actually happening across feeds right now, we dug into tens of millions of posts published through Buffer — looking at engagement baselines, reply behavior, posting frequency, and how different formats perform across platforms. The short version: If you're spending more energy looking for the perfect time to post than you are replying to the p…

On March 21, 2006, founder Jack Dorsey set up his “twttr”: Since then, some of the most important, world-changing moments have unfolded on Twitter in real-time for all to see, react to, and engage with. A lot has changed since those early days, including the platform’s name. When Elon Musk officially acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022, for $44 billion, he renamed it X. Almost four years later, people are still calling the platform Twitter, so, in this article, we’ll jump around between the two names or use both. just setting up my twttr — jack (@jack) March 21, 2006 If you’re new to X, or feel like you’re no longer sure how to use Twitter after all the changes, this a…

I have three kids under five — and getting them out of the house regularly is essential. I'm always scouring Google Reviews for new and interesting kid-friendly things to do in our neighbourhood. I look for great reviews, of course, but you know what stands out even more? Reviews with responses from the business. There's a "kids' cafe" not far from us that responds to every review. That tells us they care about their customers — and we go there often. I know I'm not alone in this, either. BrightLocal's research found that 88 percent of consumers would use a business that responds to all of its reviews, both positive and negative. Here's the data on why you should be repl…

Pinterest is one of my most used social media sites. While I love the buzz of TikTok, the inspiration I find on Instagram, and the opportunities for learning on LinkedIn, I often need to take breaks from the major platforms. But never Pinterest. No matter where I'm at in my life, there's always something I need from the visual search engine. I’ll often hop onto the app or website with a specific query in mind — “living room decor,” “capsule wardrobe,” and “productivity tools” are some of my most recent searches. As you’ll have guessed from those examples, I usually open up the Pinterest app with one of three goals: Find inspirationFigure out how to do somethingBuy someth…

I've wanted to be a social media creator for years. Six months ago, I finally started — and almost quit before I posted a single thing. I had plenty of ideas — the problem was that every piece of advice I found was written for a brain that works very differently from mine. I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2019 and level one autism in 2020 — and not one article I read addressed what it takes to stay consistent when your brain fights you on it. So I stopped following everyone else's advice and built a system that works for my brain instead. My brain doesn't naturally see the steps between "start a social media account" and "become a successful creator." I see the end goal, but …

Facebook wasn't really on my radar as a place to make money. Instagram, sure. TikTok, absolutely. But Facebook felt like the platform I used to keep up with my high school friends, rather than the one I'd turn to for creator income. But things are changing! Facebook has been making a lot of effort to lure over creators from other platforms — especially when it comes to monetization. As a nano creator, I’ve been keeping a close eye on this for several months now. Brand partnerships make up a small part of my income, but most platforms’ native monetization features are woefully out of reach for me as a small creator. So Facebook piqued my interest. The idea that I could ear…

A video I posted to Instagram on a whim hit 110,000 views this month. I originally made it for LinkedIn as part of my content pillars: a simple video on where to find remote jobs. Somewhere in the middle of exporting it, I thought, why not just post it everywhere? So I did. And Instagram was where it really took off. Which was strange, because I've been on Instagram since 2016. That's 10 years of birthday carousels and travel photo dumps, and never once treating it like somewhere I could actually grow. If you've been following my Proof of Concept series, you know I've spent the last few months trying to grow on Threads. I had a plan, complete with a follower goal, a deadl…

Facebook is a new frontier for me. I've been having loads of fun over the past few months experimenting with the shiny new features Facebook has launched to woo creators. Facebook itself may not be all that shiny, but there’s no denying that it's enormous. And for a lot of creators, small business owners, and marketers, it's a great place to find new audiences. I'll be honest, though: even Facebook has over three billion monthly active users, and I'm... not reaching even a teeny tiny fraction of them. My content performance has been hit and miss. So when Buffer's senior data scientist, Julian Winternheimer, dug into over a million Facebook posts as part of his cross-platf…

Not sure where to start with social media marketing? This guide walks you through everything from choosing platforms to building a strategy that sticks. Marketers, social media is where your audience already hangs out — and it's one of the best ways to connect with over 5 billion of them in a real, meaningful way. And it’s not just about staying in touch. Social platforms have become powerful discovery engines. A growing number of people actively use TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and others to research products, read reviews, and decide what to buy next. In fact, 63% of Gen Z and 49% of millennials say social media ads or recommendations influence their purchasing…