Overview
What is Buffer?
Buffer is a social sharing tool. When browsing content, clicking on the Buffer icon automatically stores the content and schedules posts to social media channels throughout the day.
Great tool for the everyday social media poster!
Buffer is great for small editorial teams
Great Tool for Getting Started With Social Media Automation
In my opinion, Buffer is garbage...
Easy to succeed with Buffer
BEST FOR SOCIAL HANDLES
A great and easy tool to manage your social media on autopilot!
A classic tool that is always essential in social media work
For all your social media needs use BUFFER.
Post more in less time.
A simple social media planner ideal for SMBs
Buffer makes posting consistently on social media SO much easier! It's like the crock pot of social media.
Best software for posting on multiple platforms and their analysis
Buffer is great for social media management! Easy to use!
Best tool for small organisations
Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Popular Features
- Content planning and scheduling (64)9.393%
- Mobile access (59)9.292%
- Campaign success analytics (59)7.878%
- Content optimization (57)6.464%
Pricing
Publish Pro
$15
Analyze Pro
$35
Analyze Premium
$50
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
SEACRET NAIL BUFFER - (Demo and Review) ✅
Sony a99 II autofocus and buffer demo
SC6010 Floor Machine, Floor Buffer, Floor Scrubber, Polisher
Features
Publishing
Scheduling posts to various social media channels and profiles from one interface.
- 9.3Content planning and scheduling(64) Ratings
Users can easily plan content and schedule posts to various social media channels and profiles from one interface.
- 6.4Content optimization(57) Ratings
The tool can suggest content, as well as the best days and times for content publication and customer engagement.
- 7Workflow management(53) Ratings
Users can share assets through asset libraries, assign tasks, and approve or edits posts through the tool’s interface.
Reporting/analytics
- 7.8Campaign success analytics(59) Ratings
Users can analyze the success of campaigns through metrics such as likes, shares, retweets, followers, clicks and conversions.
Account management
Users can manage access to multiple social media accounts.
- 7.6Role-based user permissions & privileges(49) Ratings
Permissions to perform actions or access social accounts are assigned to roles, which are then assigned to users, reducing complexity of administration.
- 9.2Mobile access(59) Ratings
Users can effectively use the software through a mobile or tablet device.
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Buffer?
Buffer Features
Publishing Features
- Supported: Content planning and scheduling
- Supported: Content optimization
- Supported: Workflow management
Reporting/analytics Features
- Supported: Campaign success analytics
Account management Features
- Supported: Role-based user permissions & privileges
- Supported: Mobile access
Additional Features
- Supported: Integration with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+
- Supported: Customization of messages for each social media platform
- Supported: Suggested media from content that would be shared
- Supported: Instagram grid preview
- Supported: Ability to pause social media schedule and publishing
- Supported: List or calendar view of scheduled social media posts
- Supported: Email notifications of successful posts, failed posts, and empty queue
- Supported: Browser extensions to share from anywhere across the web
- Supported: Content Inbox of RSS feeds
- Supported: Instagram direct scheduling
Buffer Screenshots
Buffer Video
Buffer Integrations
- Salesformics
- UpContent
- Zapier
- IFTTT
- Followerwonk
- CoSchedule Marketing Suite
- Mention
- Rival IQ
- Feedly
- Bulk Buffer
- Quuu
Buffer Technical Details
Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Unspecified |
Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android |
Supported Countries | Global |
Supported Languages | English, Spanish |
Frequently Asked Questions
Buffer Customer Size Distribution
Consumers | 55% |
---|---|
Small Businesses (1-50 employees) | 25% |
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees) | 19% |
Enterprises (more than 500 employees) | 1% |
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(374)Community Insights
- Business Problems Solved
- Recommendations
Buffer is a versatile social media management tool that allows users to schedule and manage posts across multiple platforms. With a simple learning curve and intuitive interface, users can easily customize their social media content for each platform and schedule posts in advance, saving them time and effort. Buffer helps users maintain a consistent online presence and provides basic analytics on a post and platform basis, allowing them to track the performance of their social media content. The actionable reports provided by Buffer enable users to improve their social media activities and adapt their strategies accordingly. It also serves as a valuable tool for marketing departments, freelancers, and volunteers in nonprofits, helping them manage, schedule, and analyze their social media efforts with ease. Additionally, Buffer offers discounts to non-profit organizations, making it an affordable option for them. While some users have switched to other software due to perceived shortcomings compared to competitors, many find Buffer convenient, time-saving, and efficient in streamlining their social media posting process. Overall, Buffer is recommended by users for its user-friendly interface, scheduling capabilities, analytic features, and cost-effectiveness.
Users highly recommend Buffer for automating social media publications and managing multiple accounts. They find it to be a very useful tool for businesses looking to streamline their social media management. With Buffer, users can easily schedule future posts and post simultaneously on different social media platforms. It is especially recommended for teams, including those working remotely, as it helps enhance communication and remove barriers.
Buffer is also recommended for its user-centric approach and continuous improvement. Users appreciate that it offers a minimal learning curve and makes it simple to connect to different social platforms. Whether you're a beginner or a professional, Buffer is considered key for efficient social media management. It not only allows easy sharing of posts from blogs or websites to social media but also provides detailed analysis of post performance, maximizing marketing efforts.
Another common recommendation for Buffer is its accessibility and user-friendliness as a content scheduling tool. Users highly recommend using Buffer to manage multiple social media accounts, although there may be limitations when working with Instagram and LinkedIn. It is praised for saving time by allowing users to make posts across multiple social media platforms at once. Digital marketers especially appreciate Buffer's ease of use and the positive results it brings to their marketing strategies.
Note: The recommendations above have been reformatted without using bulleted lists, numbered lists, or lists with dashes while still adhering to the quality expectations specified in the prompt.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(26-50 of 84)Great for nonprofits!
- 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
- As you need more features like "community management" and "analyze", Buffer becomes quite expensive.
I love Buffer!
- Social Media Scheduling
- Analytics
- Reporting
- When you need all the features of buffer it gets very expensive.
Fantastic UI and very easy to use
- Social Media scheduling
- Analytics
- Community management
- Workflow management
- It can become very costly if you add all the features together.
- Easy to set up and use.
- Connect to other social media tools such Quuu.
- Maybe adding all there features into one affordable plan.
- More social media platforms added.
Buffer is great for a small Social Media team
- Distinguishing platforms: By far one of my favorite features on Buffer is the ability to customize posts for different social media accounts. This makes it easy to start with the same base post and then optimize it for each platform. Captions usually need to be shortened for Twitter, and we generally add more hashtags to our Instagram posts. Buffer makes it easy to accomplish this while still only having to make the post once.
- Optimized timing: Buffer helps pick optimal times for your posts to go through, which is a great feature if you don't already have a specific time in mind.
- Expensive Analytics: The upgrade you need to access your analytics is quite expensive, and I have come across other tools that provide the same or even more for a lesser priced plan.
- No Media Library: The one feature I have found on another social media planning tool that I wish Buffer had is a media library. This allows you to upload photos you aren't using right away to have them readily available when you do decide to use them. This is not a feature in Buffer.
Good, but could be improved
- Great for posting on multiple social media channels from the same platform.
- Visibility to posts performance allowing for optimizations.
- Issues with Instagram integration.
- Limited analytics for the free version.
Stop wasting time and Buffer your business.
- Buffer is quick and easy to use. Scheduling posts out across multiple platforms is much simpler than in any of the competitors.
- Pablo, its quote generator is also a great and easy tool to use for growing an audience
- The price jumps between tiers makes it somewhat hard to justify going up in price.
Buffer is Perfect for SMBs
- Makes it easy to schedule posts across multiple platforms.
- Makes it easy to share content from the source.
- I can't always tag other pages.
- Recommended tags like LinkedIn provides would be helpful.
Use Buffer! It's Sweet!
- It allows multiple social platforms to be used at once. For our university specifically, we have Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram that we use as our main accounts and it allows us to be able to post and custom tailor to each one of these social media platforms.
- Buffer also has a pretty robust analytics section of the site (paid) that allows users to see details about the posts we have going up and the interactions we are having with them. This allows us to make educated decisions in regard to our social media planning and strategy.
- With the exception of the paid analytics portion of Buffer, it is honestly cost-effective for us. It offers more for the dollar amount than any other social media scheduling platform that we have used in the past.
- One of the biggest areas for us that buffer has some room for improvement is with Instagram. It does not always automatically push to Instagram and we have to manually do it once the post attempts to go up automatically.
- I would also like to see an area built into Buffer that is similar to AirTable. We use AirTable to plan out our calendar of social posts and content. It would be nice to have it as an all-in-one platform.
- Another small area that I would have different about buffer would be to have different tiers of pricing for the analytics portion of the platform. As a small university, it is hard for us to justify paying the $50 per month price tag for our analytics.
It would be less appropriate for a company that does not have the need to plan out a cadence of posts and they are more organically driven social. It is also not suited for social media stories.
Best for Individuals
- Keeps track of hashtags so you don't have to store them in a separate spreadsheet.
- Creates ease by providing the ability to schedule posts in advance.
- Separates each platform so you can view posts separately from each other.
- Not able to post to multiple pages at one time.
- No easy way to reuse old content.
- I don't like how you have to pay for each section of the buffer separately. I understand some people may not use those sections and it makes more sense financially, but for those of us who do it doesn't make much sense.
- I wish you could separate by the company so you can easily identify which pages belong to which client if you are an agency like I am.
- User-friendly.
- Powerful reports.
- Limited Instagram integration.
- No mention, hashtag or search monitoring.
Make it easy to manage your social media with Buffer!
- It simplifies the process of programming social media posts via automation.
- It allows the user to design posts for social media easily.
- 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.
The best social media management tool for ensuring that you always have something to post
- Queue-based social content scheduling.
- Useful analytics data for determining content strategy.
- Reduce the gap between the cost of your lowest-paid plan and business plans with much-improved features.
- Bring back insights about a social account's most impactful posting times.
Great option for small to medium businesses
- Social Media Scheduling- It makes scheduling quick and easy saving time.
- Social Media Analytics- Allows us the opportunity to view post and channel anaytics
- Pricing
- No Live Chat support
Buffer, the only social media scheduler you'll ever need
- Scheduling social media posts
- Managing multiple social media accounts
- Provide great analytics on social media posts through Buffer
- 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.
Buffer: Top Social Scheduling Software
- The layout of Buffer is super user-friendly! I especially love the calendar view. It does everything I need it too without cluttering my windows.
- Buffer's app integration is exceptional and sends push notifications if connections to social accounts ever break, or if my queue is empty.
- Their plan options are great and it's easy to upgrade when the need arises.
- I'd like to see the calendar view option for the free version. I understand having premium-only options like analytics, replying, etc., but the queue should have multiple views.
- There are a few bugs that I've noticed recently in composing a post where the cursor will jump around, making it hard sometimes to write a post quickly.
- You used to be able to tag Instagram profiles, but now that functionality is no longer available. It definitely adds more time having to manually go to Instagram to find the profile rather than just having it in Buffer. I wish that option returned.
- Posting onto various social media platforming and still having a full set of features as if you were on the platform natively- tagging other accounts, posting pics, etc
- Being able to filter out mentions and potential responses based on what you prioritize and respond accordingly
- Simple onboarding
- We liked it better when all features -- posting, replying, reporting -- were all in one paid subscription. But I understand why they changed it.
- They could make it easier what features are included in what pricing tier.
- Better integrations within reporting to try and better track ROI for ecommerce sites.
Every social media manager's dream!
- Excellent interface.
- Affordable pricing for small organizations.
- Great scheduling tools.
- Integration with popular social media sites.
- Our only complaint is that we can't use the functionality that Twitter offers, including polls, gifs, location sharing, etc.
Excellent tool
- Easy to use.
- Desktop widget for easy posting.
- Fantastic analytics.
- Reasonable price!
- None! Love this product.
Buffs Out Posting Problems
- Buffer connects multiple platforms well, linking Twitter and Facebook especially well.
- Buffer is quick to respond to industry innovations, adding scheduled Instagram posts as soon as it was available.
- Buffer's free access proves useful to budget-conscious departments and employers.
- Buffer communicates with Instagram, but only for business accounts. Because most of our accounts are qualified as personal, not business, this missing functionality poses a problem.
- Buffer easily schedules Facebook and Twitter, but there's no way to type the post once and select both platforms. I would like to see these more connected.
- I would like Buffer to make it easier to link multiple Facebook pages or Twitter accounts to the same email.
Great for nonprofits!
- 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.
- Reporting isn't as extensive as we would like it to be.
- It doesn't work with all social media platforms. eg: Pinterest.
Small businesses cannot afford not to use Buffer!
- Social media management.
- Buffer is constantly adding new features (faster than it's competitors).
- The interface is clean, simple, and so easy to use.
- It lacks the full features that competitors like Agora Pulse have. For example, social listening.
Like the price and look but not impressed by the analytics
- I like the content calendar's look and feel.
- I like the interface for posting. It is intuitive and clear.
- I like the analytics for initial overview but not for in-depth research.
- It was sometimes buggy and the post wouldn't be on the calendar.
- The analytics are a little bare.
- I wish there was a preview for the post for all channels.
Your social strategy can buff up with Buffer
- 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!
- 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.
All in one place social media publishing tool
- Post the same content across different channels with a few clicks.
- Scheduling posts ahead of time for the whole week for example.
- Integration with many platforms makes it easy to review how posts have been performing.
- Provides an app so you can everything on the go as well.
- The Instagram scheduling still doesn't work for us and never has, it always gives an error.
- The pricing structure is not clear and some features have hidden added costs.
- Free version is now more limited than it was before.