Buffer helped us craft and schedule social media posts for our different accounts, view our scheduled and published posts on a calendar, and keep track of engagement on posts. Our use was limited to three social media accounts and the free version was still very good, even with just that scope.
Pros
Scheduling posts
Drafting posts
Social calendar
Cons
Drafting features (e.g. links)
Limited content features
Some calendar issues
Likelihood to Recommend
Very well suited for the big social platforms: Facebook, IG, LinkedIn, X. The software isn't as suited for content creation outside of social media, but it is mainly a social media app so I wouldn't use it first for other things (blogging, newsletter, website copy) anyway.
Alternatives
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is good if you have the budget for social media baked into your communications budget/a communications budget in and of itself. Buffer is better for small teams, teams that may have a more limited budget or organizations that don't have a large social media presence/need to schedule too many posts per month/multiple accounts.
VU
Verified User
Former Employee in Marketing (Non-profit Organization Management company, 11-50 employees)
Buffer is used in the nonprofit I work for by the marketing team and a few volunteers. We needed software that could schedule content on a few platforms (Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn) while still being affordable.
Pros
50% discount for nonprofits
The basic plan is very reasonable and so suitable for small budgets.
Great UI
Simple and easy to use
Great analytics
Cons
As you need more features like "community management" and "analyze", Buffer becomes quite expensive.
Likelihood to Recommend
Buffer is suitable for organizations of any size. The reason for this is because certain elements are split up for Buffer. This means if you cannot afford the analyze feature or don't want to use it then you don't have to pay for it.
We are a team of 7 people. Two members use Buffer with, at times, the support of volunteers. As a non-profit organization, the benefit of using Buffer is the time it saves and its cost. We can program our Social Media posts for a period of time very quickly, and another Buffer add ons such as Pablo by Buffer, allow us to design our material for Buffer with ease.
Pros
It simplifies the process of programming social media posts via automation.
It allows the user to design posts for social media easily.
Cons
At times it's hard to keep up with all the new releases, updates, and add on's. More engagement from Buffer to the end would help.
An online storage of images used, which can be used for future posts.
Likelihood to Recommend
I have used Buffer in small teams (up to 10 people), and Buffer works excellent. It is easy to use for team members; the learning curve is short and priced very well. It is ideal for any solo-entrepreneur or small teams. The ability and ease of programming a large number of posts well into the future are key benefits.
Buffer is used by the marketing team and marketing volunteers. Buffer is used to schedule content in advance and improve the effectiveness of the social media work. We use it so schedule posts, analyse post success and report on social media in general.
Pros
Social Media Scheduling- It makes scheduling quick and easy saving time.
Social Media Analytics- Allows us the opportunity to view post and channel anaytics
Cons
Pricing
No Live Chat support
Likelihood to Recommend
Buffer is well suited for smaller businesses or businesses with only one brand. It beats its competitors on price as it has a really affordable starter package. However, I would recommend Agorapulse to agencies or businesses with lots of brands or profiles as it has more extensive analytics and community management. Buffer offers a 50% discount to nonprofits which is very affordable. It is therefore a great option for nonprofits.
Alternatives
Agorapulse
Agorapulse is a great option but was too pricey for our nonprofit.
VU
Verified User
Contributor in Marketing (Non-profit Organization Management company, 1-10 employees)
We use Buffer for our nonprofit and love it. It is used by our Marketing team. The Marketing team uses all features and shares reports from Buffer with all other departments. We needed to save time on social media as well as track our social media performance to see how we could do better. Buffer has been a huge help.
Pros
Social media scheduling.
Easy to use.
Buffer has a lot of other apps and extensions that they have created to work with Buffer.
They are constantly improving and adding new features/updates.
Cons
Reporting isn't as extensive as we would like it to be.
It doesn't work with all social media platforms. eg: Pinterest.
Likelihood to Recommend
As a nonprofit, we get a 50% discount and so we only pay $7.50 a month for Buffer. This is a bargain for us and we have benefited significantly from using Buffer. All nonprofits should use Buffer!
Alternatives
Hootsuite
VU
Verified User
Program Manager in Marketing (Non-Profit Organization Management company, 11-50 employees)
I currently use our Buffer account to schedule news, event info, and fundraisers across our social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.) It's as easy to push in-the-moment happenings as it is to schedule posts in advance, and it works well on my computer and my Android device, so it really meets all of my posting needs regardless of where I am or what I'm sharing.
Pros
The Chrome Extension-- I LOVE being able to navigate to, say, a blog post I want to share later today or an event page I want to share next week, then click the little Buffer button on my browser window and write/schedule unique posts for each of our social media channels. It's so convenient.
Scheduling (and rescheduling)-- The interface from the Buffer website itself is really great for scheduling posts to go out to different channels at different times (custom or pre-selected), and also to reorganize the order and timing of your posts on each channel, as needed.
Re-Buffer-- You can see your top performing posts and easily "re-buffer" them to use in the future. So helpful!
Cons
Analytics-- The analytics on the Pro plan are limited at best. You can simply review your posts from the past 30 days, but you can't access any analysis (or even simple tallying of Likes, Shares, etc.) without upgrading to the Premium or Business plans, which are otherwise more than we need at the moment.
Publish+Reply+Analyze-- It's a bit tedious to have these basic social media functions/tools separated out as three distinct products, as well as overkill for a small nonprofit without a dedicated social media team. I imagine each tool is good at its job if you need 'em.
Linking to Accounts-- Buffer seems to lose touch with Facebook and LinkedIn somewhat frequently. It's vaguely annoying but very simple to fix, so I just roll with it.
Likelihood to Recommend
As far as Buffer Pro goes, I'd recommend it for small shops that want to maintain their social following and have a simple, easy-to-use way to share updates, sell event tickets, and invite donations and volunteers. If you're a actively growing brand where engagement and analytics are high priorities, I'd recommend trying Buffer's other plans and tools. Their free trials are great!
Alternatives
Hootsuite
I found Hootsuite to be overly complicated and not very pleasant to use. It just didn't feel nearly as intuitive as Buffer and, at the time, had some limitations I found to be deal breakers. Buffer's clean aesthetic is a big selling point for me, as is its thoughtfully constructed user experience.
We implemented Buffer as a way to easily schedule content across platforms as well as report on social media to our board. This has saved us time, improved our content as we used analytics and streamlined the whole process.
Pros
Reporting.
Social media scheduling.
Cons
Pricing structure.
Likelihood to Recommend
Buffer is a great option for anyone looking for a social media scheduling software that does it all and is constantly improving. They give a 50% discount to nonprofits and the starting plan is very affordable. However, as one requires more platforms to be managed, it becomes expensive, and then I would rather use an alternative product.
Alternatives
Agorapulse and Hootsuite
I prefer buffer over Hootsuite and prefer Agorapulse over Buffer. The reason I would recommend Agorapulse over Buffer is that when using more platforms Buffer becomes too expensive.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Marketing (Non-Profit Organization Management company, 11-50 employees)
Buffer has been an excellent tool for myself and other users in my organization. Buffer helps us better manage our various social media accounts across departments/ministries. We use Buffer to schedule social media posts to a variety of platforms and varying times. The main problem it helped us address the need for consistency in our online presence. Prior to Buffer, during a busy week, we often would forget to post to our social media due to time constraints. Buffer has helped us immensely in scheduling posts in advance and allowing it to post to a schedule that best suits the needs in our organization.
Pros
Scheduling social media posts
Managing multiple social media accounts
Provide great analytics on social media posts through Buffer
Cons
Scheduling not as easy as other platforms.
Unable to resize images within application when they are outside the constrained limits.
Scheduling on your smartphone and online platform is a different experience for the user.
Likelihood to Recommend
One of the top applications when it comes to managing social media across platforms. It has been of great use for us to manage nearly 10 social media accounts in our organization. If you desire an online presence on Facebook - it allows you to schedule posts to both Facebook groups and Facebook pages. On Instagram, it allows you to schedule to various accounts. It also, has options for Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google+.
Alternatives
Hootsuite Pro
We initially did a trial run with Hootsuite because they are one of the main competitors of Buffer. The main reason that we decided on Buffer was their friendliness towards non-profits. Buffer offered us a discounted rate for being an officially recognized non-profit. We found their ease of use and functions very similar to their competitors and have had a better experience overall.
Buffer is being used by me for my client. I manage his social media accounts across Buffer, which has the ability to schedule social media posts into the future. The business problem it addresses is having the ability to plan your social media calendar in advance. The ability to view performance as well is a great feature.
Pros
Adding accounts is easy
Posting is quick and easy to understand
The interface is simple and easy to navigate
Cons
The power scheduler needs improvement, especially with images
The content inbox has a limited number of feeds, so I have to use a 3rd party
I wish the analytics section came standard instead of an upcharge
Likelihood to Recommend
Buffer would be great for a small business. Due to low cost, it fits well into small social media management budgets. I can't see Buffer being a great solution for a large organization with many different social media channels.
We use Buffer across multiple departments. It allows us to EASILY schedule, monitor and measure our social media efforts in one place. We needed something that was both intuitive and cost-effective (they offer a very generous non-profit discount), and Buffer is working nicely for us.
UPDATE: Still use and LOVE Buffer. But have re-subscribed to Sprout Social (just myself, not the entire team) for their Social Media "Inbox." Just can't live without it. Total cost is just $109 per month (Nonprofit rate for Buffer Team, plus one Sprout account for myself.) Bottom line: Get both!
Pros
Clean, intuitive interface.
AWESOME mobile app for iPhone and Android!
Customer service that's too good to be true, but is.
Generous non-profit pricing.
Ability to queue posts across multiple platforms at different times.
Cons
Would love to see a unified social media inbox, similar to Sprout Social (all comments, @replies, etc. in one newsfeed with the ability to reply back from the feed)
Wish I could respond to Facebook comments via the mobile app.
Wish canceling a queued message on one platform would cancel them all (versus having to go back and delete them individually).
Wish the system suggested ideal posting times.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you need a unified social media inbox, and you have the budget to pay for it, then Sprout Social may be a better choice.
Alternatives Evaluated
HootSuite Pro,Sprout Social
Buffer is way more intuitive than HootSuite. While it doesn't have the in-depth reporting or social media inbox Sprout Social offers, it makes up for it in simplicity, cost and customer service. Sprout Social is a great tool with equally good customer service, but the cost is much higher.
