Tools for Marketing and Content Creation

Building your presence across multiple social media platforms is incredibly valuable for brands and creators — but it doesn't have to mean spending all day creating unique content for each channel. In fact, many successful creators and brands have a secret: they crosspost across platforms to get more mileage out of their content. Our data shows this approach is remarkably common — 59% of posts created in Buffer are posted to more than one social media platform. Crossposting a game-changer for busy creators and small businesses who want to maintain an active presence on social media without burning out. Instead of starting from scratch for every platform, you can adapt and…

Dark Mode is now available in Buffer! And we timed it perfectly for spooky season. This has been our second most-requested feature, with 352 upvotes from our community. We heard you loud and clear, and we're thrilled to have it ready for you! As a creator, you know the feeling: it's late at night, inspiration hits, and you're ready to plan your content for the week. Or maybe it's early morning, and you're catching up on comments before the day begins. Dark Mode is designed for precisely these in-the-zone moments. It's about creating a calm, comfortable workspace that protects your focus and reduces eye strain. More than just flipping a switchWhen we set out to create Dark…

For years, creators have shared the same warning: “Don’t post links — they’ll harm your reach.” But numbers to back it up have been hard to come by. That’s what we set out to test, this time on X, formerly known as Twitter. With the help of our data scientist Julian Winternheimer, we dug into 18.8 million posts from 71,000 X accounts, and the results are clear: links really do hurt performance. For creators and brands who rely on sharing links as part of their content strategy, the data points to something bigger than a small algorithm tweak. Let’s get into the numbers. 💡If you’re interested in seeing Julian’s analysis, check out his blog for a deep dive.Do posts with lin…

X has been more open lately about how its algorithm works. In its own documentation, the platform notes that engagement is the strongest signal for visibility — replies, profile clicks, and dwell time top the list — but Premium subscribers also get an extra lift. In a recent breakdown from Social Media Today on the X algorithm, verified accounts (which come with a Premium subscription) benefit from this boost, alongside other factors like video watch time and conversation depth. On the flip side, link posts, all-caps updates, and “offensive” content see sharp penalties. In other words, X has made it clear: if you want reach, you need to be engaging and verified. This insi…

What if you could read your audience’s mind? You could create the products your customers need, improve your profits, and save many hours. You’d become the creator or brand that just “gets it.” Ding, ding, ding! Your wish is granted. 🧞 There is a way to keep your pulse on the market and proactively anticipate what your audience wants — through social listening. What is social listening?Social listening is observing what your audience is saying about your brand and industry online to understand their needs. Let’s say you’re a skincare company. You want to launch a new product but have no idea what your audience is struggling with. Along with interviewing your current custo…

I recently wrote about hitting 20,000 followers on LinkedIn and what comes next. In that article, I shared that Threads would be my next frontier, and now, I want to share why and how I plan to make it so. After years of posting within a structured framework on LinkedIn, I started wondering what would happen if I loosened the rules. I’ve tested formats, frequency, and monetization, but always through the lens of performance. I didn’t want to move into a new phase of growth using the same tactics. What if I treated content less like a system to optimize and more like a sandbox to play in? And so, the Proof of Concept series was born, and with it, my first experiment: growi…

Buffer is a social media productivity tool for creators, small businesses, freelancers, and agencies. A place to schedule posts, manage comments, and track performance across Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, Facebook, X, TikTok, YouTube, Mastodon, and Google Business Profiles without getting sucked into the feed. Most social media tools are built for brands with big budgets and dedicated teams. We build for everyone else: the creator just starting out, the small business owner doing everything themselves, the freelancer building a personal brand between client work, and the agency managing multiple clients without the enterprise price tag. In 2025, we shipped a lot.…

You're spoiled for choice when it comes to Facebook ads — from images and videos to carousels and collections, there’s a format (and placement) for just about every goal. Advertising on Facebook also gives you the chance to experiment and find just the right approach for your brand. But with so many options, it’s important to keep up with the latest Facebook ad specs. Facebook offers a world of creative opportunities, and getting the specs right is your first step to making the most of them. If you’ve ever found yourself Googling “Facebook ad sizes” or “Meta ad specs” five minutes before launching a campaign, we’ve got you covered. In this fully updated guide, you’ll fin…

Barry Greene has spent the past three decades helping students master the art of jazz guitar, both as a professor at the University of North Florida and through his own online lesson platform. His teaching journey took an unexpected turn in 2007, when he uploaded a casual video to YouTube. What started as a fun experiment quickly gained traction. As Barry recalls, 'within months, I was teaching masterclasses overseas.' Over time, Barry built a thriving online community of guitarists who rely on his lessons to develop their technique, explore jazz harmony, and stay inspired. With growth came a challenge: keeping up with social media demands without sacrificing time for cre…

I joined LinkedIn in 2020 as an eager freelance writer, but I didn’t get the hype. Everyone looked so polished, and I felt like I had nothing valuable to add. So I left, convinced the platform wasn’t for me. When I later niched down into SaaS writing, something shifted. My ideal clients — marketers, founders, content leads — were all active on LinkedIn. If I wanted to reach them, I had to show up here. At first, I wasn’t sure what to post or how to stay consistent. But five years after that first attempt, I’ve: Done a 90-day posting streak from January 1 to March 31, 2025Posted every weekday since thenRecently landed a freelance writing gig with Userpilot, through a refe…

As an Engineering Manager at Buffer, I write a lot — Slack messages, proposals, code, documentation, and feedback. And as AI tools became part of my workflow, I found myself writing even more. I've always been slow at typing, and I think better by talking than by writing. It never felt like a big limitation before, but with AI tools, I started feeling it more and more. I'd keep prompts short even when I knew I should add more detail, because typing it all out felt tedious. Then I tried ChatGPT's voice feature and something clicked. I could include all the context and nuance that I'd normally skip. I wanted that experience everywhere, not just in one app. So over the last …

Most creators use Buffer to schedule posts. I turned it into a creativity lab — and in 90 days, my impressions tripled and my newsletter passed 1,700 subscribers. After 12 years of working at Netflix, I assumed I knew how to handle content systems. But stepping into the creator economy was a different game. I needed more than a scheduling tool — I needed a way to capture ideas as fast as they came to me. That’s when Buffer shifted from a scheduler into the missing piece of my creative process. With it, I built a system that turned scattered thoughts into consistent content. In 90 days, I went from 3,500 followers posting sporadically to reaching 100K+ people every month. …

I’m a mom with a full-time job, and I’m an active creator. I also have ADHD. That combination of factors can make getting stuff done… complicated. But with the help of (many) handy systems, tactics, and tools, I feel as though I’ve made juggling all that with my neurodivergent brain a whole lot smoother. It’s certainly not easy, but it’s very, very doable. I’ve been actively growing an audience on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok for a few years now. I have around 20K followers across all platforms, and I’ve even been able to monetize my work. Now, consistently creating content when it’s not your full-time gig can take a lot of time, energy, and focus for most folks. Addin…

I’ve been freelancing for two and a half years. And that’s exactly how long it took me to make LinkedIn work for me as a tool to grow my network and get clients. For a long time, I’ve gotten sporadic results. Discovery calls that led nowhere, very few leads, and a single client with a one-off project. But looking back at how I approached my LinkedIn presence, it all makes sense. I combined short, impulsive bursts of creativity with months-long escapes from the platform. And my results reflected that. As a freelancer, it’s easy to get lost between 20 different acquisition strategies, client work, and administrative tasks of running your business. Without a structure in pla…

I’ve written plenty about how creators can monetize their social media — from general to platform-specific advice. But a few months ago, I decided it was time to stop just talking about it and actually put my theories to the test — starting with LinkedIn. Honestly, I had no clue if sponsored content would even work on LinkedIn — or if brands would care. So, I decided to find out publicly, and my community immediately responded with helpful feedback. However, I wouldn’t take any meaningful action until January of 2025, with what I called my #LinkedIncome Journey. I shared my goal to make $20,000 in 2025 from LinkedIn brand partnerships, and within two weeks, I got my first…

I'm not TikTok famous. I don’t have a blue checkmark on Instagram, nor am I a LinkedIn Top Voice. But I have a modest following across all three platforms, which I have been able to monetize. I’m what some influencer marketers might call a nano-influencer, comfortably in that under-10K follower range. (I prefer the term nano-creator, but potato, potahto.) It’s not a full-time income — this year, I’ve netted around $3,000 directly from my content. But that’s if you don’t consider the spin-off work that has come from my social media presence, like freelance writing gigs and podcast hosting. Since I create content outside of my full-time job at Buffer and don’t spend more th…

Let’s start with the facts: I don’t usually create content this way. Most weeks, I post 3–5 times across LinkedIn, Threads, and TikTok — usually planned a few days in advance, sometimes the same day. I like having the flexibility to post when I’m inspired, not just when something’s scheduled. But ahead of a month-long trip — part retreat, part travel — I knew I couldn’t rely on my usual workflow. I would be adjusting to new environments, exploring new cities and attending full-day team sessions. I wanted to stay visible online without scrambling to come up with new ideas mid-trip. So I gave myself one focused day to get ahead. Not to create 30 fully polished posts — but t…

As a freelancer, I always wondered, “What would happen if I needed to take an extended medical leave?” I’m not the kind of person to take a month-long trip, and I’ve never taken more than 7-10 days off at a time (which requires meticulous planning ahead of time!). If I don’t work, my revenue is $0. I run a solo business, so my income is 100% dependent on me. So what would happen if I couldn’t work? Would my clients understand? Would my social media engagement take a nosedive? Would my business crumble? I found out this year when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Not exactly what I was expecting. I needed brain surgery, and recovery was expected to take a minimum of six…

Like any other creator, I am no stranger to getting ideas at random times. But remembering them or actually publishing? That’s a different story. If you’re trying to be consistent and grow your personal brand, you know what it’s like to get an idea while you’re scrolling on LinkedIn or in the middle of a conversation. You think to yourself, “I should write a post on this.” But life gets busy, work gets complicated, and the content takes the back seat (as always). I know how discouraging inconsistency can feel. I’ve been there too. In this article, I’ll share the simple 3-step system that helped me break the cycle, stay consistent, and double my reach in under 2 months.…

I have a tendency to treat coming up with content ideas as a solo sport. I’m used to sitting with my thoughts, combined with a post format I saw that I loved and want to recreate. And when I’m stuck, I scroll through my bookmarks with hundreds of post ideas for something to remix. I’ve been fortunate that that system works time and time again for me — but it’s not the only way to create. So, a few weeks ago, instead of forcing it, I tried something different that I should be doing way more often: I asked my community. Not in a vague, “what should I post about?” way — but with a specific, open-ended question. And what followed was a flood of thoughtful, deeply relatable re…

LinkedIn’s algorithm has always been a bit of a mystery — until now. The LinkedIn team has been pulling back the curtain on the algorithm in interviews with Entrepreneur, talking about how it works and why going viral isn't the goal. We've looked at two: On the website, with Editor-in-Chief and VP of Content Development, Dan Roth, and Alice Xiong, Director of Product Management.On the podcast, with Senior Director and Executive Editor at LinkedIn News Laura Lorenzetti.In this article, we’ll highlight the key points from the team’s interviews about the LinkedIn algorithm and share practical tips for applying this knowledge to your content. Jump to a section: …

Spend five minutes on the “how to grow” side of TikTok, and you’ll quickly learn one thing: if you’re not posting multiple times a day, you’re doing it wrong. Or so the algorithm experts say. As a fledgling TikTok creator, I’ve always been a bit sceptical of this advice. I managed to build a small audience within about a year by posting a couple of times a month, rather than daily. But… would I have been able to get more views on TikTok if I had? I put the question to Buffer’s data scientist, Julian Winternheimer. And because he never does anything by halves, Julian analyzed a massive dataset to find the answer: 11.4 million TikTok posts from over 150,000 accounts. We (b…

“How often should I post on social media?” is a question that has plagued marketers and creators since the invention of social media marketing. So, what’s the right number? In this guide, I’ll share data-backed tips on how often you should post on the most popular social media platforms. Jump to a section: At a glance: How often you should post on every social media platform How often should you post on Facebook? How often should you post on Instagram? How often should you post on TikTok? How often should you post on X (formerly Twitter)? How often should you post on Linked…

The first rule of the Instagram algorithm means understanding that there is no single algorithm. In fact, according to a blog post shared by the Meta-owned platform, “a variety of algorithms, classifiers, and processes, each with its own purpose,” ensure that IG users see the content that most interests them. “We want to make the most of people’s time, and we believe that using technology to personalize everyone’s experience is the best way to do that,” Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri wrote in the update. Now, a “variety of algorithms, classifiers, and processes” may sound a little confusing, but fear not — it’s not quite as intimidating as it sounds. In this article, I’l…

As a type A perfectionist, there are few things that give me more satisfaction than a good old spring clean. Come change of seasons, I’m always overcome with the urge to clear out drawers, declutter cupboards, and rearrange shelves. Doing it is a bit of a slog, of course, but that feeling you get after a good tidy-up? Worth every second I spend cursing over piles of old clothes on my bedroom floor. Now, wouldn’t it be neat if we could do the same for our online spaces? (You see where I’m going with this) As it happens, you can — on Instagram, at least. And, unlike spring cleaning, it won’t do a number on your back. In November 2024, the social media platform quietly launc…