Tools for Marketing and Content Creation

Have you ever wished you could just skip the Instagram algorithm altogether and guarantee your content gets seen by your target audience? Or, rather than asking folks to click over to your bio to find your products, content, or website, just include a link right in the post? Well, meet Instagram ads. They are paid posts on the platform that you can use to promote your business, product, or services and reach new people. Ads appear in the same format as organic posts across Instagram Stories, Reels, Explore, and in-feed posts. But unlike organic Instagram posts, Instagram ads have a link to redirect users to a website to shop for your products or check out your services. …

When it comes to social media platforms, Facebook is as crowded as they come. The social network currently has a staggering 3 billion active users — so almost a third of the world population has a Facebook account they use regularly. Crowded as it may be, it’s still a powerful social media marketing platform for businesses and creators — if you have the right social media strategy in place. Part of that content strategy involves figuring out the best time to post on Facebook for maximum engagement. When it comes to the Facebook algorithm, engagement — reactions, comments, shares, and the like — is a strong signal that your content is valuable and that more people will enj…

Everyone talks about how different social media platforms are, and it’s not hard to see why. X is treated as the town square. Threads wants to be the friendly alternative. Bluesky champions decentralization and user control. But when we analyzed 1.7 million posts, a surprising pattern emerged: posts on X, Threads, and Bluesky get the same median engagement. In other words, whether you posted on X, Threads, or Bluesky, the median engagement lands at exactly four interactions. At first glance, this might make these platforms seem more alike than we’d expect. But a closer look tells a different story. Beyond that baseline, their engagement dynamics diverge dramatically, reve…

Ever wondered how to increase your reach and engagement and, in turn, grow your following on Instagram? Your Instagram captions could hold the key. Yes, Instagram is a visual social media platform, but your caption carries more weight in the Instagram algorithm than you think. A strong visual can catch users' attention, but carefully thought-out Instagram captions can do more heavy lifting when it comes to growing your following on Instagram. For another, your caption can be crucial in prompting engagement from your followers. For example, you could use those 3,000 characters to: Authentically connect with your followers in a meaningful, vulnerable caption.Ask them a que…

Social media marketing is using social media platforms — like Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, etc. — to promote your business and build a community. It also includes paid social media marketing, like running ads and influencer marketing. But what’s the difference between a social media calendar and a social media marketing strategy? A content calendar is the place where you slot your social media posts. It shows what content will go live, when, and on which social media platform.A social media marketing strategy is the driving force behind why you post what you post and choose the social media platforms you’ve selected. It outlines your social media goals and the metric…

Remember the days when ‘likes’ were the gold star metric on Instagram? Now, you’re spoiled for choice when it comes to the sheer volume of data available to help you measure the performance of your content. Impressions, views, comments, shares… It’s exciting — if a little overwhelming. Instagram analytics can be a goldmine of insights for you as a creator or small business owner. These numbers can shape your Instagram strategy, helping you pinpoint exactly what kind of content will boost your reach and help grow your audience. But how do you get these insights? How do you spot patterns, connect the dots, and use your performance numbers to inform your strategy? And — bes…

If newsletters have a million fans, then I am one of them. If newsletters have only one fan, then that is me. If newsletters have no fans, I am no longer on earth. Drama aside, email newsletters are such a fascinating medium because they come in so many shapes and sizes. With the right combination, you get a wide range of experts in your inbox periodically, sharing news, insights, and advice. There are a ton of great newsletters to choose from – almost too many. So for this list, we focused on newsletters relevant to our audience of social media managers, creators, and small businesses. With the newsletters on this list, you can stay on top of all things social media and …

At Buffer, we are always looking for ways to help our team work more effectively and creatively. Our latest investment in productivity is a company-wide AI Tools Stipend of $250 per teammate per year. This initiative reinforces our ongoing commitment to supporting innovation while giving our teammates the autonomy to choose tools that best fit their individual workflows. Here's why we're introducing this stipend and how we expect it to impact our work. The evolution of AI in our workflowsOver the past year, we've seen AI tools rapidly transform how many of us work. What started as occasional experimentation with tools like ChatGPT has evolved into more regular integration…

Substack has a reputation. Depending on who you ask, it’s either the best place to build a newsletter business or a platform that only works for big-name writers. The truth? It’s somewhere in between. While Substack has helped established journalists and authors go independent, it’s also a powerful tool for up-and-coming writers, niche creators, and anyone looking to build an audience without relying on social media algorithms. But is it the right platform for you? As a newsletter writer myself, I know how tough it can be to settle on a platform. There are plenty of great options, and choosing one feels like a commitment—especially if you’re planning to grow long-term. I …

If your Instagram profile looks a little different, you’re not alone. Instagram is rolling out a new 4:5 aspect ratio for post previews, replacing the classic 1:1 square grid. This means posts now appear taller, bringing the profile grid in line with the vertical-first format already used for feed posts and Reels. …

So many factors contribute to the success of your videos on YouTube: your video title, thumbnail, YouTube SEO, and (perhaps most importantly) the quality of your content. It’s a lot to consider, and it’s often not easy to pinpoint what will resonate with your YouTube subscribers the most. But thanks to our analysis of more than 1 million videos shared on YouTube, we can offer a little more concrete guidance on at least one of those factors: the best time to post on YouTube. As we’ll get into later on, this is not a magic bullet for content success — the factors I mentioned above have an outsized impact. But compared to all the work that goes into the rest of these process…

Let's be reel real: no matter how well-thought-out your Instagram strategy is, you can never predict exactly how it’s going to perform. Your followers (and potential followers) are human, after all, and there is so much nuance in the way folks behave online. This is why I often advise aspiring Instagram creators and social media marketers to experiment. Try new things. Take risks. Don’t ignore those wild ideas. And, while this might not feel like much of a hurdle on platforms like TikTok, it’s a little easier said than done as an Instagrammer. The platform is a lot more focused on a curated, aesthetic feed than others. It’s also a place where followers are hard-won. Takin…

AI chatbots like ChatGPT have become ubiquitous and vital to how many knowledge workers, content creators, and business owners operate. But as powerful as ChatGPT is, it’s not the only player in the game — and sometimes, exploring alternatives can reveal new ways to streamline your workflow. That’s where this guide comes in. Instead of just rating chatbots based on generic criteria like accuracy, speed, and creativity, I wanted to see how they perform in a real-world content workflow. So, I paid for the subscriptions (courtesy of Buffer’s AI Tools stipend that will help me recoup those costs) and fed them data from my own social media, and gave a structured challenge to e…

Creating content on social media can be powerful, both for businesses and aspiring creators — but it can be tough to figure out where to begin. You’re hemming and hawing over which social media platforms you should be on, which content creation tools you should use, and building a social media content strategy. It’s all too…overwhelming. Where do you even start? As it happens, right here. We've created this guide to be a one-stop shop: your action plan to start, scale, and maintain your social media content creation. Content formats and the social platforms that support itBefore we get down to business, you must know which social media network supports what content form…

Conferences have been on my mind a lot lately—specifically, the ones that bring together the brightest marketers and creators in the industry. After sharing the list with my Marketing team, one thought echoed across the board: "Our readers would probably love this, too." So, why are conferences on our radar in the first place? Well, being a remote team has some huge perks—working with people from around the globe, for starters. But there's something about meeting face-to-face that simply can’t be replicated through a Zoom call. Plus, the right conference does two things at once: gives you access to top-tier education and opens doors to incredible networking opportunities.…

Picture this: Your boss is asking you about the business impact of your social media strategy. You know you’ve moved the needle — brought in website visitors, converted some of them, and nudged brand awareness. But how do you prove it? This is where a social media dashboard comes in handy. It’s a visual representation of the key metrics that prove the impact of your social media efforts. Your job as a social media manager is to convert the raw data of social media metrics into something easily understandable for you, your team, and your executives. But that’s not all it is. A social media marketing dashboard also helps in: Uncovering actionable insights about what kind of…

As a consultant, having a flow of high-quality clients is a must for steady, sustainable business growth (and making the rent every month). Thankfully, LinkedIn can make this a whole lot easier. While many lead generation channels need constant investment in ads or sales (things that solo consultants often don’t have the budget for), LinkedIn offers a way to bring new clients to you. In my three years as a consultant, I've found LinkedIn consistently delivers the highest quality leads with the least ongoing cost — once you understand how to use it effectively. In around that time, I’ve built up an audience of 14,000 followers on LinkedIn, which has been crucial in helping…

Social media marketing has become a necessity in most businesses' toolkits today. And B2B companies are no different. If you’re saying, “But we sell to other businesses, not individuals, why do we need to practice social media marketing?” remember there’s still a human behind every B2B purchase, too. Numbers tell the same story: 75 percent of B2B buyers use social media to make buying decisions60 percent of B2B marketers say social media is the most effective channel for driving revenueThat said, there are key differences between how you formulate a B2B social media strategy and a B2C social media strategy. This article will highlight those and help you create a solid soc…

Funny, poignant, catchy — trending sounds are the backbone of TikTok virality and can often make or break a video’s success. According to TikTok research, “sound is the anti-scroll on TikTok”. With their data, it’s not hard to see why. Eighty-eight percent of TikTok users said that “sound is essential to the TikTok experience,” while 73% admitted they would "stop and look" at ads on TikTok with audio. Both of these stats are significantly higher than other platforms, TikTok said (though they didn’t offer a comparison). Of course, it’s not always easy to find TikTok audio at the peak of its popularity — and no one wants to add a phased-out sound to a video clip that’s tak…

While it’s always a good time to watch TikToks — globally, users spend an average of 34 hours on TikTok per month — figuring out the best time to post a TikTok is a bit more complicated. And yet, knowing when to post on TikTok can be super helpful for content creators and small business owners alike. After all, creating TikToks is tough work (trust me, I know), so it makes sense to figure out your best time to post on TikTok. This is why we tapped into Buffer’s data — analyzing more than 1 million videos, carousels, photos, and text posts — to pinpoint the best times to post on TikTok. This guide will walk you through all the best practices for posting on TikTok for maxim…

Last year was Buffer’s first profitable year after two years of losses. This turnaround has been a huge accomplishment for our team. Given our focus on long-term sustainability and growing through revenue from customers rather than funding, it was a symbolic achievement in service of the path we’ve chosen. We closed 2024 with a net profit of $202,459. But perhaps the most exciting part for me of achieving a profit is that we were able to distribute our profit share bonus again. Read on to learn more about our philosophy as it relates to profitability and profit sharing. The journey back to profitabilityLooking at how we achieved profitability in 2024 tells an interesting …

If you have a business and you choose not to use TikTok for business, you’re actively sleeping on a goldmine. TikTok has a massive user base of over 1.69 billion (!!) monthly active users — and the number of Americans using TikTok weekly has quadrupled since 2021. Let’s get rid of the top two objections before I tell you how to use TikTok for business. 👉 “TikTok is only for businesses who serve younger demographics.” The audience demographics on TikTok are evolving, including older age groups. The social media site isn’t limited to younger users anymore. The latest U.S. TikTok report showed weekly TikTok users aged between 35-44 have only grown since 2022. 👉 “TikTok won’t…

I took my first foray back into AI video generators when the first version of this article came out in mid-2024. I was pretty impressed with what was on offer at the time, but my initial assessment was that, while there were some helpful AI-driven features in the world of video, nothing could really change the game for me just yet. As I updated this article in 2025, let me tell you — I’ve just had my socks knocked off by some absolutely incredible AI video generators and tools. What's pretty cool, too, is that there is a huge spectrum of functionality when it comes to AI video generators, too. The artificial intelligence tools on this list can do everything from helping y…

If there’s one thing every creator wishes for, it’s more hours in the day. Between brainstorming ideas, creating content, engaging with audiences, and keeping up with trends, it can feel like the to-do list never ends. But here’s some good news: you may not be able to get more time—but you can definitely get smarter tools. 2025 is shaping up to be a year of massive opportunities for creators, but staying ahead means working efficiently. That’s where these tools come in. I asked my LinkedIn audience which tools they’re loving in 2025, and they delivered. This list has everything you need to save time, focus on what you do best, and absolutely crush it this year. Each tool …

Instagram Stories are one of the first things I tap on when I open the app. I love seeing the more authentic, in-the-moment content creators and brands post there, rather than the polished Instagram feed. Many Instagrammers will spend hours creating beautiful Instagram Reels and photo posts, but ignore their Instagram Stories — and they’re missing a trick here. The Instagram Stories feed appears right at the top of your followers’ screens when they open the app. And if they’re anything like me, tapping on the lit-up profile pictures is tough not to do. "Stories is designed to really connect people with others that they know in real life, their friends," Instagram Head, …