Tools for Marketing and Content Creation

You open Instagram to grab a trending audio for a reel. Just one quick thing. Two hours later, you're still scrolling. You haven't created anything. You haven't even saved the audio you meant to find. And now it's 10 p.m., and you're mentally exhausted — and a little sad, tbh — from consuming content instead of making it. (Seriously, why is Instagram's search function on the Explore page?) Oh, wait, that was me. Hi. 👋 High up on the list of Things I Do Not Have Time For (along with low-carb diets, marathons, and the new season of Stranger Things) is doomscrolling. I'm a mom with a full-time job, and I'm an active creator. I also have ADHD. For what it's worth, I actually …

At the start of the year, we asked 11 experts to share their social media predictions for 2025. They pointed to big shifts — world-building, private communities, AI in everything and everywhere, LinkedIn’s rise, and a creator economy moving toward more sustainable businesses. Now that the year is behind us, it’s a good moment to pause and check the tape. Some predictions held up almost perfectly. Others played out more slowly or looked different than expected. That gap between prediction and reality is where the most useful lessons live. In this article, we’re revisiting seven themes from our original piece, from what actually happened, to where expectations missed the ma…

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…

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…

We recently started a small project to clean up how parts of our systems communicate behind the scenes at Buffer. Some quick context: we use something called SQS (Amazon Simple Queue Service. These queues act like waiting rooms for tasks. One part of our system drops off a message, and another picks it up later. Think of it like leaving a note for a coworker: "Hey, when you get a chance, process this data." The system that sends the note doesn't have to wait around for a response. Our project was to perform routine maintenance: update the tools we use to test queues locally and clean up their configuration. But while we were mapping out what queues we actually use, we fou…

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…

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…

If you’ve spent any time on social media lately, it’s easy to believe that video is the be-all and end-all. Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikToks, LinkedIn’s video feed: it’s everywhere, and it feels like every platform is building for it. If you’re looking to build an audience, “more video” is often touted as the answer. But is that true? It turns out — as is often the case with social media — it depends. Video certainly performs best on some platforms, but it’s not quite as cut-and-dried on others. This data comes from our 2026 State of Social Media Engagement report, which analyzed millions of posts across all major platforms. And, at the risk of sounding like a cli…

For years, Alexandrea Browman's team had two options when it came to responding to client comments and messages on social media: log in with the client's credentials (a security risk), or navigate Meta Business Suite (time-consuming and clunky). Neither was great. And community management wasn't a nice-to-have for her boutique agency, Sapphire Social — it's their specialty. So when she found a tool that solved it, it was a no-brainer." With Buffer, it's just all in one place," she says. "It's so easy." Alexandrea has been working in social media for over a decade. For the last three years, she's been running Sapphire Social, an agency based in Oregon. She manages around …

Today, we're introducing our refreshed design across Buffer. Our new navigation, and updated visual language give creators and businesses more flexibility as social media continues to evolve. Our goal has been to make Buffer feel calmer, clearer, and easier to work in every day. A few weeks ago, we wrote about our aim to offer a smarter, more insightful Buffer: a toolset that helps more creators and businesses make smarter decisions around their social media strategies. But that’s only one part the story of Buffer in 2026. As creators ourselves, we at Buffer believe we can do more to help build momentum when working on social media. And momentum is not created by forcing …

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 …

Your tools can make or break productivity (especially when you’re on a fully remote team!). At Buffer, we're fully distributed across multiple time zones, so our collaboration tools are ✨ essential ✨ for staying on track. Put simply, a social media collaboration tool is software that lets everyone on your team plan, create, review, approve, and publish posts together — all in one shared workspace. Our suite of tools is extensive, especially on the Marketing team, and our curated selection helps us fill our queues, manage social channels, create graphics, and generally stay organized. In this article, I’ve listed some of the tools we use that make collaboration on social…

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…

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…

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…

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…

While it’s entirely possible to have a strong social media marketing strategy without a stack of tools, the right ones can make your life a lot easier. With social media more fragmented than ever — new platforms popping up, AI reshaping content creation, and algorithms constantly shifting — there's a lot to keep up with. Social media marketing tools can help you create content, schedule posts, engage with your audience, analyze performance, study competitors, keep up with trends, search influencers … phew, I could go on. Whether you’re flying solo or working with a team, having a few good tools in your toolbox can save time and help you focus on what really matters: creat…