Social Media Marketing + Buffer
Today we’re going to talk about Buffer.
Buffer is one of my favorite tools on the web today. Buffer allows you to pre-schedule tweets, posts, and Facebook messages. In addition to that there's other analytical tools and bulk upload tools that allow you to schedule your tweets months ahead of time. Today were to talk about some of these features and how to optimize them best for your own business.
If you don't have Buffer yet, don't worry. I also included my free social media marketing plan which you can download at any time. Feel free to print that out and work on it as we go along this post. Every business is different but this plan should cover some of the basics for you.
Best posting times + content
FACEBOOK: 1 – 2 POSTS PER DAY (BEST TIMES BETWEEN 1-4 PM)
PEAK TIME: WED. 3PM // WORST TIME: WEEKENDS
Any business can use Facebook; it’s the most popular social media channel. It can be used for ads, online content and events.
TWITTER: 5X PER WEEK (BEST TIMES BETWEEN 1-3 PM)
PEAK TIME: MON-THURS 9AM-3PM // WORST TIME: FRIDAY AFTER 3PM
Everyone should use Twitter. It’s used to interact with brands and consumers.
LINKEDIN: 2-4 POSTS PER WEEK (BEST DAYS ARE TUESDAYS - THURSDAYS)
PEAK TIME: 12PM AND 5PM-6PM // WORST TIME: 10PM-6AM
Great for Business to Business, to find employees or job search. LinkedIn can also for establishing your brand in a professional way.
GOOGLE+: 1 POST PER DAY (BEST TIMES BETWEEN 9-10 AM)
PEAK TIME: WED. 9AM // WORST TIME: EVENINGS
If you’re on all social networks, you should join this. Great for bloggers and B2B. It’s more professional than Facebook but has easier search capabilities.
PINTEREST: 4-5 PINS PER DAY (BEST TIME IS SATURDAY MORNING)
PEAK TIME: FRI. 3PM // WORST TIME: WORK HOURS
If your audience is majority women and/or you have lots of images, you need to be on Pinterest. It’s a search engine for visual and creative content.
INSTAGRAM: 1 POST PER DAY (BEST TIMES BETWEEN 5-6 PM)
PEAK TIME: WED. 5PM // WORST TIME: WEEKENDS
Instagram is similar to Pinterest, the links don’t convert as well, but it’s a great way to keep in-front of potential customers. Image and hashtag heavy.
Buffer Overview
Buffer can be accessed from their site, their mobile app or with the Chrome Extension.
What can Buffer do?
- You can schedule your social media post ahead of time
- Share content from blog feeds that you follow
- Bulk upload post tweets and Facebook statuses
- Set up a schedule to auto post at specific times during the day
- Find the best times to post on your social media channel
- Review analytics of your best posts and worst posts
- Post across multiple platforms with the power scheduler
- Use the phone app or the chrome extension to quickly share and post your thoughts on the go
- Automatically shortens your links using Bit.ly, Buff.ly or j.mp
- Easy to re-share your old content
Prices + Plans
Buffer has a free account, you can add up to 5 profiles (not including Pinterest), Queue up to 10 posts per account and access all the basic features.
The Awesome plan is the plan I use for $10 per month or $102 per year. You can have up to 10 profiles, 100 posts in your queue (per account), use up to 15 RSS feeds, as well as see additional analytics. Click here to see more about the awesome plan!
They also have multiple business plans where you can see all analytics, add team members, schedule up to 2000 posts in your queue per account. Business plans start at $50 per month and go up to $250. Click here to see all their plans.
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGdyXgK0Zyw&w=854&h=480]
If you tweet out 10-20 times per day, you probably need a quick way to add posts to your accounts. There's one way to bulk upload content using a tool called BulkBuffer.
- Check your scheduled settings on each account
- Make any changes to the auto-scheduled times
- Open up an Excel file or Google Spreadsheet
- Type in one tweet/post per line, all in the first column
- Save the final list as a Comma Delimited file type (.csv)
- Login to Buffer through "BulkBuffer"
- Choose your account channels to post to
- Upload your .CSV file
- Watch as all your posts are automatically queued for you.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTI52TXdXCc&w=560&h=315]
Coming up with content for a bulk upload doesn't have to be hard. You can pull content from previous Buffered posts (export data from your buffer analytics page) or from analytics pages like Twitter's page.
This is a great way to re-use old content that was popular in the past few months.
Another option is using the RSS feed tool to post content from your own blog and blogs that your audience will also enjoy. This also makes it easy to Pin and share content from your favorite sites.
Feel Ready to Social Media?!
Buffer is a fantastic tool, but you also need a great strategy to make social media work for you. The Social Automation eCourse is now open. You'll learn how to develop a social media strategy, grow your audience, post consistently and do it all in just a hour or two every week.
