Life as a social media marketer can be hard sometimes. Keeping up with the trends, regularly posting relevant content, being present on all the platforms helps your audience find you. But this entire drill is quite overwhelming.
Buffer Publish might be just the answer to your woes. It is one of the best-known scheduling and posting tools that can manage all your social media posting routines. But whether it is the best one out there is up for discussion. Through this Buffer social media review, we’ll try to find some answers.
Previously known as “Buffer for Business,” this tool was later named “Buffer Publish.” It is the main body of the tool, concerned with content scheduling and publishing. It has many useful features to facilitate creating and posting content on a single or multiple social media platforms at once. Its user-friendly design is one of its main strengths against all the Buffer alternatives.
There are two other parts of Buffer concerned with analytics and engagement.
- Analyze provides the analytics data and helps with generating reports. These stats are only for the posts published from this tool itself. Data on posts made from other platforms are not available on Analyze.
- Engagement is solely for Instagram business accounts. It monitors all the dialogue about your business and lets you respond to your audience.
Smaller organizations prefer Buffer Publish because it offers a more pocket-friendly deal than Buffer alternatives. It has a free plan and 2 paid subscriptions that come with a great deal of added functionality. Let’s dive into the pricing plans currently being offered by Buffer.
Table of Contents
Buffer Publish: Pricing Options
Buffer price has recently been rehashed. The number of paid plans is down to just two with an extra Team add-on. The first one is a free plan which might sound like a great deal.
It is if you are an individual trying to manage multiple social accounts. But this has many limitations that make it insufficient to fulfill the needs of a larger firm. Here are all the plans with the features they provide for you to compare.
Free Plan
- It is a free plan
- Allows connecting 3 social media accounts
- Scheduling up to 10 posts
- Single user
- Supports Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest
- Custom link shorteners are not available
- The sequence of queued posts can’t be shuffled
- Creating and scheduling Instagram stories is not available
- Team management features are not available
- Google analytics is not available
Essentials Plan
- It costs $6 for each social account per month
- Allows an unlimited number of accounts to be managed
- 2000 posts can be scheduled at a time for each social account
- Only 1 user is allowed
- Supports Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest
- Publishing and scheduling features are available
- Order of the queue posts can be shuffled
- Custom link shorteners are available
- Multi-channel campaigns can be created
- Instagram story scheduling and hashtag manager are available
- Analytics and reporting features such as performance overview, historical data, machine learning insights, etc. are accessible
- Specialized engagement traits like important comment detection and hotkey shortcuts are available
- The “Start Page” feature helps create effective landing pages
- Team management aspects are not accessible
- Useful integrations are available
Essentials + Team Plan
- It costs $12 per month for each social account linked
- Allows connecting an unlimited number of accounts
- Admins can invite as many additional users and clients as they want
- All attributes available in the Essentials pack are there in the Team add-on as well
- In analytics, white-label exportable reports are available
- Team management features like approval workflow, custom access, roles, and permission are available
If you pay for your selected Buffer price monthly, the rates mentioned above are applicable. However, choosing to pay annually will give you a 20% discount on all the plans.
These are the current Buffer pricing options. It might seem apparent to you that Buffer Publish is one of the affordable options in the market amongst its competitors. But that is not the sole criteria while considering a tool. The ease of use is also an important aspect.
Interesting read: 5 Social Media Monitoring Tools for Staggering Engagement
Buffer Publish: How it Works
You will be automatically put on the Team plan’s free trial for 14 days when you register. You can use this default setting or switch to the subscription model you want.
Once done, start connecting your social media accounts from the available channels which Buffer Publish supports. Once the accounts are linked, you are ready for Buffer scheduling and posting.
Step 1: Go to the Calendar on your dashboard
Step 2: Select the date
Step 3: Compose the post, add media, links, etc.
Step 4: Select the scheduling option
And you are done.
After the brief outline of how to use Buffer Publish, now we’ll take you through the most appealing features to pinpoint why it is such a famous tool in the social media marketing industry.
Key Features of Buffer Publish
1. Buffer Scheduling for All Major Platforms
Buffer supports most of the major social media platforms like:
- Instagram: Business account
- Facebook: Page and group
- Twitter: Profile
- LinkedIn: Page or profile
- Pinterest: Business
- Shopify: Store
Buffer allows you to connect multiple accounts to it and supports multiple types of accounts.
Buffer Publish offers an option of customizing the post for each platform. This enables you to make your post optimized for specific social media. This extent of flexibility gives Buffer an edge in the race against the other tools.
2. Buffer Analyze for Analytics
To run any social media account as a marketer, you need to monitor the statistical trends. The data generated from the content you constantly post can direct your next course of action. It makes social media analytics features imperative for a marketing tool to have. In Buffer, we have Buffer Analyze to monitor what’s working for you and what’s not.
To use Buffer Analyze, you need to be on one of the paid subscriptions, i.e., Essentials or Team add-on plan. Analyze will allow you to efficiently monitor your engagement metrics such as clicks, likes, comments, shares, and adding to favorites. They also have a stat called potential reach, which will tell you how many people might see your post.
To add a couple of feathers to the hat, Buffer Analyze shows you the top-performing post in each channel, indicating that the post has caused a boost in your overall engagement metrics.
You can organize and monitor individual posts as well as campaigns. Analyze will generate reports on the effectiveness of said campaigns for you. And, of course, this is available across all channels.
3. Sharing Content in a Blink of an Eye
Buffer is, at its core, a posting and scheduling tool. Hence its focus has always been on keeping the process of posting streamlined for its users. This is why the interface is so easy to navigate.
Perhaps one of the best features offered by Buffer is the browser extension. It is available to install in multiple browsers, including Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. Once set up, the Buffer icon appears beside the address bar in your browser.
With only a few clicks, you can use this icon to share any page to your connected social media accounts. You can set up a keyboard shortcut to directly share a page to make things even more convenient.
Interesting read: 5 Astonishing Content Curation Tools for Social Media
4. Most-Used Hashtags at your Disposal
Netizens out there use lots of hashtags in their posts. But these hold deeper importance for digital marketers. Hashtags are instrumental in gaining visibility and increasing engagement. Hence, to pop up in the searches of the right crowd, you better be using the right hashtags.
When you are posting for a brand or on a particular topic, you end up using the same hashtags again and again. It can be pretty annoying, typing out the same ones repeatedly. Buffer Publish has a solution to this hiccup.
Hashtag Manager allows you to group your most-used hashtags. Said group is then saved for each social account with a name you can access next time you need those particular hashtags. No need to go through the same hassle again and again.
5. Useful Third-Party Integrations
Buffer Publish is a proficient posting and scheduling tool. But to add to its functionality and give higher value to the user, it has over 60 in-app integrations. These include Canva, Zapier, Microsoft, Pocket, Feedly, WordPress, and many more.
Some apps help in content curation and expanding your library to share and schedule. A few bring additional attributes like embedded analytics. Other than this, some integrations help better the team management aspect provided by Buffer.
With the help of Zapier, you have the option to choose from thousands of web applications to connect. Buffer Remix is a newer feature where you can turn any link, tweet, or product into a post for your Instagram aesthetic feed.
Pablo is one of the most useful tools in the Buffer Publish app directory. It is a simple yet effective device to create aesthetic posts for any social media platform. You can design your content and easily download and share it. The integration is in complete harmony with the theme and purpose of Buffer itself, that is, churning out effective content with the least possible effort.
6. Landing Page Maker
A brand new addition to Buffer Publish, Start Page helps you build a mobile landing page for your business. It is indeed a clever maneuver on Buffer’s part.
The first impression of your business on the user is the landing page of your website. If that is not up to the mark, you might fail to retain their attention. Buffer offers the Start page feature, where you can showcase your products in the way you want your audience to see them.
The process is way easier than creating or updating a website. Just select the background, add images, and text to the page, claim a URL and publish it. Then you can link it to all your social handles to this page, and you are all set.
We have covered all the aspects which make Buffer an excellent choice for you to consider for assistance in social media marketing. But there always are two sides to a coin.
So let’s explore them both.
Pro and Cons
Buffer has some fantastic features which propel it into the list of favorite social media marketing tools. Here’s a quick glance at its pros.
- Ease of use
- Supports major social platforms
- Free subscription for solo users
- Scheduling and posting made easy
- Managing multiple accounts at once
- Content suggestion for finding relevant content to post
- Team management and workflow features are available
- RSS feed
- A browser extension for ad-hoc sharing is much simpler
- A varied collection of in-app integration to expand the scope of functionality
Here are some cons you might encounter if you are going to use Buffer.
- Free subscription has extremely limited features
- Only one user is allowed even on Essentials- the paid plan
- Instagram stories and first comment features are available at higher costs
- No analytics are available in the free plan
- Compared to other players, features are minimalistic
- Chrome extension often disrupts the browser functioning
- Analytics is not extensive
- Connecting accounts might need additional authorization
- Data of posts from connected profiles made from other platforms will not be shown on Buffer
Let’s see some Buffer reviews from verified users about their experience.
Victoria S
As a media planner, a Buffer is a fantastic tool for streamlining planning and creating visually appealing images and posts that increase interaction. They are unquestionably a pioneer in the area, and they frequently provide services that are not even provided by the social networks themselves. They also have developed a number of services to support you in optimizing your pictures and data for social media sites, all of which are backed by extensive research. It’s fantastic. For the past couple of years, I’ve been using Buffer to schedule posts on social media platforms like Facebook & Twitter. It’s a simple tool to use. This application allows me to connect all of my social media accounts and plan posts at the appropriate times for each channel.
Jackson F
I know that it is one of the best companies to manage publications and other things regarding a social network, whatever it may be, it is very orderly, thus being able to program with some time in advance, which helps us to make a more prepared material and that is published without delay at an exact time most convenient for us Buffer users.
Roshni G
I like how it made it easy for me to operate all my social media accounts without switching to another platform. The graphs result of this software is more accurate than most other software. Engaging with my audience is now in my hand with the help of Buffer.
Nasim K
The interface is good. Compared to other tools I’ve used in the past it takes no time to learn how to use it. But it’s very expensive for what they offer. To be able to manage your social channels you need to buy: Publishing + Analytics + Engagement and they sell each of these separately which makes it expensive, especially if you are running a small business like me. Also, I don’t trust the data much. My Instagram data is very different in buffer compared to Instagram insight. The data doesn’t update automatically and sometimes it takes so long till you can actually see them in Buffer.
UR
There are often errors, and posts don’t publish when they are supposed to, not super intuitive, hard to add new campaign topics, drafts vs queue.
Administrator in Religious Institutions
Posting is simple. But the problems that I had with Buffer was more to do with setup and posting to multiple sites. Trying to set up my Instagram account was a nightmare, and one account could not be set up at all because of an issue with Facebook.
Cassidy W
The constant requirement for upgrades costs a significant amount. After learning about all the aspects of Buffer Publish, you might have come to a decision. It’s completely up to your requirement, whether Buffer fits them or not. But if it has not been able to win you over, don’t worry. The pool of social media management tools is a vast one. So let’s take a look at some potential alternatives.
Alternatives to Buffer Publish
Following is a list of potential options for you to consider for a social media management tool. They are the top 10 competitors and can work nicely as Buffer alternatives.
- SocialPilot
- Hootsuite
- HubSpot Marketing Hub
- Sendible
- Agorapulse
- Sendible
- Loomly
- Sprout Social
- Zoho Social
- Falcon.io
Conclusion
Buffer Publish has developed itself into a go-to social media automation tool to elevate your branding. It is especially appealing for solopreneurs and smaller organizations as its learning, and successful usage takes little to no time and saves effort.
Buffer might seem simple on the outside to use. Perhaps too simple in comparison to the other players in the race. If you are a medium-sized business or an agency, Buffer might fail to meet your needs. In that case, you can always give tools like SocialPilot, Sendible, and Agorapulse a chance. These are perfectly cut out for the use of agencies. As a social media enthusiast, you have to decide which tool suits best to your needs.
We hope this Buffer social media review was helpful. Watch out for more content on tech and tools, social media trends, and more. You can also write to us if you have any valuable insight to share.
Frequently Asked Questions
🌟 Is Buffer any good?
Buffer is a user-friendly, compact tool that enables you to schedule and post content to multiple social platforms with little to no hassle. If you are a solopreneur or own a smaller business, it's the perfect tool for you.
🌟 Is Buffer Publish free?
Buffer has three pricing plans. When you first sign into Buffer, it gives you a free trial period of 14 days. After that, you can opt for any of the three plans. Among these, one is a free plan, which is free. But, access to Buffer's features under this plan is very limited.
🌟 What platforms does Buffer post to?
Buffer supports Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and Shopify. Most recently, it has added a feature where you can create and save TikTok videos, and Buffer will remind you at a specified time when you want to post the video, and then you can publish the post.
🌟 Is there a Buffer app?
Yes, Buffer has an app. You can download it from the Google Play Store for the Android version. For the iOS version, go to iTunes to get it.
🌟 Does Buffer offer analytics?
Buffer does offer analytics but only in the paid plans. When using the free plan or the free trial version, you can't access the analytics, Buffer Analyze. When you are under the Essentials or Teams add-on plan, you can monitor your engagement, analyze the performance of posts done from Buffer Publish and report the results.
