Reviews and expert opinion Buffer

A leading Social Media Management platform

Buffer is a simpler and easier way to schedule posts, track the performance of your content, and manage all your accounts in one place. Although fairly new on the market, Buffer has managed to overcome some tough competition, and now has over 4 million customers worldwide.  With an outstanding international support team and a fast growing feature list, Buffer helps marketers and businesses to gain more control over their social media activity, increasing popularity while saving precious time.

Why Choose Buffer? 

• Free forever plan
• Dedicated app for Android and iOS
• Bulk schedule posts
• RSS feeds

Wondering if Buffer is the best option for your social media strategy?
Let us tell you about it!

Performance and Monitoring for Business Plans Only

One of the most important aspects of social media marketing is listening to people and monitoring brand and keywords. Buffer, along with their advanced scheduling feature, focus heavily on analytics, monitoring and engagement, and you will see this from the outset. As soon as you login to the Buffer dashboard, you will be greeted with an Analytics tab at the top which houses some important statistics on how well your posts are performing. You will be able to see how many times they have been retweeted, mentioned, clicked and favorited, as well as a handy bit of data called “Potential”, which will show you the kind of reach your post could have. Of course, all of these features are not included in either the free plan of the Awesome plan.

Unfortunately, that is far as the analytics and monitoring goes, so you won’t be able to dig deeper into demographic data or sentiments to help tweak your social strategy, and you won’t be able to follow conversations. If these kinds of features are important to you, I would suggest looking at tools such as Sendible.

However, if measuring engagement is enough for you then Buffer is the tool for your social kit.

Buffer offers all the standard features you can expect from a social media management platform, and more.

Firstly, it supports all popular networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest and Google+. Mind that a Facebook profile and a Facebook Page would count as 2 different social accounts, so make sure you choose a plan that accommodates for all your existing accounts.

The team management feature allows for several people to publish content through Buffer, which is ideal if you have a large marketing team.

There are also numerous extensions that you can use to integrate Buffer with 3rd party services like WordPress, YouTube and Tumblr, to name a few.

The most unique feature on Buffer is the ability to create and edit images using the Pablo Image creator, incorporated with all plans, including the free one.

Below are a few additional features included in the premium plans.

Great usability for mobile and desktop

Buffer is a slick, clean and well designed platform to manage your social accounts. The signup process is really quick and easy, and once you’ve entered the web-based interface, you’ll be able to find your way around in no time.

One thing I didn’t like about the Interface is that while all features are labeled and accessible, many of them require an upgrade, so you end up going back and forth just to find that out.

The mobile app for iOS and Android makes it easy to publish posts and reply to comments in real time, wherever you are. Likewise, the browser extension for Buffer makes a handy tool that you can use as you browse the internet.

Buffer prides for it’s outstanding support, provided by team member all over the world to enable faster response times in multiple languages.

Their extensive FAQ section can probably answer all of your questions in detail. Although they do not have their own tutorial videos, many such videos have been published by third parties and can be found on Youtube.

To request support, all you have to do is tweet Buffer using hashtag #BufferSupport, and a local representative will get back to you.

• Twitter support
• Extensive FAQ
• No phone support
• No email support
• No live chat

Affordable pricing for businesses and individuals

Buffer’s freemium pricing model can cater for the needs of any business, large or small.

The free plan only allows you to have 1 team member, add 3 social accounts, and schedule up to 10 posts on each of your social profiles, but nevertheless it’s a great way to test their service and decide which upgrade is most suitable for you. You can also try out any of the plans for 14 days absolutely free.

The number of team members, social accounts and posts grows with each upgrade, with additional features like analytics, RSS feeds and shortlinks included in all business plans.

Non profit organizations get 50% off the Buffer platform, given they can provide appropriate documentation.