This Buffer Review article will bring to light all the necessary information you need about the social media scheduling tool, to make the right purchasing decision!
Buffer is a widely used social media management platform. It’s a versatile platform designed to enhance your content creation, scheduling, and analytics.
In this review, we’ll outline in detail everything you need to know about Buffer. We’ll delve into the tool’s features, pricing, user experience, and who this software is ideal for. After reading, you’ll be equipped with all the information you need to know about Buffer to decide if it’s a great fit for you and your team.
What is Buffer?
Buffer is a powerful social media management tool designed to help individuals and businesses manage their online presence across multiple social media platforms. At its core, Buffer allows you to schedule and publish content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, TikTok, and Mastodon. You can also create engaging posts and plan your social media calendar on this social media management tool.
However, Buffer goes beyond simply scheduling posts. It offers a wide range of features that help streamline your workflow, analyze performance, and grow your audience. There are also features like hashtag suggestions, Pablo image creation tool, and team collaboration capabilities, that make Buffer an all-in-one solution for managing your social media presence.
Buffer started as a Startup Sprint project in 2010 to solve a problem Joel Gascoigne (the founder and CEO) was experiencing — he wanted to space out when his tweets were sent. The idea gained hundreds of users within the first few months and eventually grew to add social networks, to go beyond purely publishing to social media into analytics, engagement, and scheduling.
Today, Buffer remains a popular choice for individuals and businesses, offering a comprehensive social media management suite that helps users save time, optimize their presence, and achieve their online goals.
What is Buffer used for?
Buffer isn’t just a basic scheduling tool – it’s your one-stop shop for streamlined social media management. Whether you’re a solopreneur juggling multiple platforms or a team managing a brand online presence, Buffer empowers you to plan, publish, analyze, and engage more effectively.
Using Buffer gives you access to a centralized dashboard where users can manage all their social media accounts in one place. This eliminates the need to juggle individual platform dashboards, saving time and ensuring consistency. It also integrates with popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, TikTok, and Mastodon.
Buffer simplifies the process of monitoring and responding to comments, messages, and mentions. The tool also has a clean and user-friendly interface which makes it easy to use. The interface is free of unnecessary elements allowing you to focus on essential tasks without distractions. Whether you’re scheduling posts or analyzing data, you can get started without having extensive training.
Buffer serves as a comprehensive social media management tool, enabling both individuals and teams to efficiently schedule, analyze, and publish content across various platforms. Acting as a central hub, Buffer streamlines workflows and optimizes time usage. Additionally, the platform facilitates advanced planning by allowing users to queue social media posts in advance, ensuring a consistent and engaging online presence.
Buffer Overall Rating
In this section, we’ll be giving our overall rating of Buffer based on different criteria.
Here you can quickly analyze how well Buffer performs in regard to the following subtopics, which were chosen based on what businesses and specifically marketing teams require.
We chose to compare Buffer against Hopper HQ which is known for its accessibility and ease of use. A viable alternative to Buffer for those who may not have the budget or the resources to fully leverage the tool.
| Features | Buffer | Hopper HQ |
| Pricing | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Content creation and planning | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Publishing and scheduling | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Analytics | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ |
| Team collaboration | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Customer support | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Buffer Pricing:
……the cost is quite high, but it’s understandable given the features of their product. Even with a premium version, having access to only eight accounts as a brand manager can be very limiting and unhelpful for companies or organizations that need to reach multiple platforms at once.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Buffer offers a free plan that gives you access to limited features. The free plan lets you connect up to 3 channels. You can link your social media profiles from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google+. You can also create and schedule your posts in advance. The free plan allows 10 scheduled posts per channel at any time. You also have access to Buffer’s landing page builder where you can build a landing page to showcase links to your most important pages.
The base subscription plan for Buffer is the Essentials Plan. This plan costs $6 monthly per channel. Adding more social media channels to this plan will cost $6 per channel. The Essentials Plan gives you access to custom schedules and a social media calendar to manage campaigns and social media content. There’s also access to Buffer AI assistant that helps you brainstorm new content ideas.
To access more premium features, you will need to consider the Team Plan (which is $12/month per channel) or the Agency Plan (which is $120/month for 10 channels). These plans are more suited for a mid-sized team or marketing agencies.
One major downside of Buffer pricing is that it’s not ideal for businesses with a large team and multiple social media accounts. This is because you’ll be charged based on the number of social media accounts you have which can drive up your subscription cost.
Content Creation and Planning:
Buffer is equipped with features that make it easy for you and your team to effectively plan and create content.
A good example is Buffer’s Content Calendar—a content calendar is a powerful tool for social media marketers and content creators. The content calendar helps you plan, organize, and visualize your content strategy. You can map out your content for weeks, months, or even a year in advance. This strategic planning ensures consistency and alignment with your overall marketing goals.
Seeing your content laid out in a calendar format makes it more manageable. The visual aspect minimizes the perceived difficulty of your work and keeps you motivated. A content calendar simplifies decision-making. When you know what’s coming up, you can allocate resources, create content, and engage with your audience more effectively.
Another example is Buffer’s dashboard which serves as a central control panel for managing your social media presence. When you log in to Buffer, you’re greeted with a centralized dashboard that allows you to access all your connected social media accounts from one place and switch seamlessly between profiles and platforms.
The dashboard displays your scheduled posts in a calendar format. You can easily spot busy days, gaps, or patterns in your posting frequency. In the calendar view, you can drag and drop posts to different dates. Reschedule content effortlessly by moving it around and making real-time adjustments.
Publishing and Scheduling:
Buffer is the very useful tool for social media management, here we can manage all social media channels in on account no need to login everywhere, in jsut one login can post schedule, publish and manage posts.
Yasharth
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Buffer, the versatile social media management tool, simplifies publishing and scheduling content across various platforms. Buffer provides a centralized dashboard where you can manage all your connected social media accounts in one place.
You can easily schedule and publish content to social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profile—all from one simple dashboard.
With Buffer, you can create unique, custom social media schedules for every profile you own. You can use the social media management platform’s calendar to schedule content in advance. With this calendar, you can also schedule major campaigns, product launches, and announcements well in advance.
Analytics:
I like the analytics offered by this application which are very helpful and aslo to see how each post is performing.
Buffer’s analytics and tracking features provide valuable insights to help social media managers measure performance, refine strategies, and optimize content. The tool has a unified dashboard for multiple platforms and the analytics dashboard integrates data from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
You can track key metrics and insights – like shares, comments, likes, and clicks on your posts. Not only that, you can track reach and understand how many unique users saw your content. Buffer also lets you monitor your follower growth, impressing, and overall content performance.
With Buffer, you can also track your audience demographics and learn more about your target audience. The tool gives you information like age, gender, location, and other insights about your target audience. You can also build fully customized reports within Buffer and export these reports to share with your team, managers, or stakeholders.
Team Collaboration:
Buffer’s simple permission levels allow you to choose who can post to each of your social media channels. You can assign different roles and permissions to team members based on their responsibilities. The tool also supports approval workflows which you can use to approve or reject posts with just a simple click.
Using Buffer also lets you and your team members collaborate on ideas. The tool has a dedicated Ideas space within Buffer where you can brainstorm, ideate, and collaborate effectively to keep everyone aligned.
On Buffer’s Team plan, you can add as many team members as you’d like. Each team member has their login and can be assigned different roles and permissions.
Overall, using Buffer lets you collaborate seamlessly with colleagues, whether you’re a small team or a large organization.
Customer Support:
They don’t READ my messages, and certainly don’t address my issue. I’ve submitted two tickets and had multiple email exchanges with various staff in an attempt to get a simple matter resolved, which never resolves.
Buffer employs different channels to provide customer support to their users. The Buffer Help Center offers a wealth of information to customers looking to troubleshoot any problem they run into. With the help center, they can easily do this without talking to a customer support agent. The help center contains answers to common questions, guides, and access support documentation.
If you ever need to talk to a customer care agent, Buffer offers live chat support as well. In addition, Buffer hosts a weekly Twitter chat called #bufferchat. Here, you can engage with Buffer’s support team, ask questions, and discuss best practices for social media management.
Buffer Alternatives Comparison
If you’re considering an alternative to Buffer, Hopper HQ is an ideal social media management tool for you for different reasons.
When it comes to pricing, Hopper HQ offers a better value compared to Buffer. Buffer charges you $6 monthly per channel. This means brands with multiple social media
Hopper HQ simplifies social media management with a multiple subscription plan that gives you access to a wide range of powerful tools. For just $16 per month, users gain access to a comprehensive set of features.
With Hopper HQ, you get access to AI-powered assistance for tasks such as image resizing and automatic caption generation. You also get access to analytics tools that help you keep track of your content performance. Hopper HQ also supports other platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts.
Summary:
Hopefully, this Buffer Review article has helped you better understand the capabilities and weaknesses of Buffer as a social media management tool. Like all tools, it had its strengths, like using social accounts rather than social sets, allowing you to only pay for what you need.
But also it comes with its weaknesses like lacking the bulk scheduling feature and having limitations in regards to analytics and customer support. If Buffer ends up not being the tool of choice, we hope we provide enough alternatives to help you make a decision.
Try Hopper HQ today to get started with social media scheduling!