buffer

Buffer

Smoothly manage your social media presence with Buffer

Best For : Businesses, Publishers, Non-profits, Mid-stage startup teams,
Higher education, Solopreneurs, E-commerce, and Sports teams.

Pricing: $600/mo

for 50 channels

Top Features

Buffer

Buffer

by Buffer Media
  • 9.3 Publishing & Scheduling
  • 7.8 Analytics
  • 8.5 Inbox/Listening
  • 8.8 Collaboration
  • 8.5 Support

Other Users Choose

SocialPilot

SocialPilot

4.5 (741)
  • 9.1 Publishing & Scheduling
  • 8.2 Analytics
  • 8.0 Inbox/Listening
  • 8.8 Collaboration
  • 8.9 Support

Overview

Buffer is a one of the famous multi-purpose social media management tools that helps you draft and schedule posts for sharing across multiple social media channels. It also provides social media monitoring and reporting functionality.

Since the tool’s inception, it has witnessed multiple shifts, updates, and iterations to remain in sync with changing times. Today, it supports Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Business Profiles, and many more. If you are a free user, you can hook up to 3 social accounts, and store up to 10 posts in your queue per channel.

The free plan of Buffer is ideal for individuals and businesses starting out on social media. Now, if you are a small business that is looking for a tool to line up posts for a week or so, Buffer’s free plan can suit you. But, if you want to connect and control more than 3 social accounts at a time and desire a more comprehensive solution, you can check paid Buffer plans. All paid plans come with a free 14 day trial.

Today, Buffer’s analytics, scheduling, and audience management features are quite famous, but a lesser-known service from Buffer is the “link in bio” service. It’s called Start Page. This service lets you create and update a tiny, mobile-friendly site with the products you sell or with your most recent content. It’s a great add on service to have along with the social media marketing software tool.

At its core, Buffer’s social media management is an uncomplicated service. You connect your social media accounts and then schedule content for posting on each account. Buffer is a software that publishes social media posts you want to share on your behalf, at a time you agree on. Individuals can also use Buffer app to create and schedule social media posts with their phones.

In all, Buffer is a great tool for social media marketers, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. With the help of this tool, users can manage their social accounts from one dashboard, saving loads of effort and time. It helps optimize your social media strategy and lets you stay organized at the same time.

Buffer Rating

Ratings
 
Buffer
 
SocialPilot
Meets Requirements
 
8.6
 
8.9
Ease of Use
 
9.2
 
9.1
Ease of Setup
 
9.2
 
9.1
Ease of Admin
 
9.1
 
9.1
Quality of Support
 
8.5
 
8.9
Value for Money
 
8.8
 
9.2
Product Direction
 
8.1
 
9.1

Buffer Review

Positive

  • Buffer provides an optimal solution for managing and scheduling content across multiple social media platforms. With its centralized platform, users are able to efficiently publish their content on all of their social media accounts simultaneously.
  • Buffer offers valuable insights into the performance and engagement of each individual post, allowing users to optimize their content strategies and measure their success.
  • Buffer also offers a convenient feature where users can create a new page with the help of free templates, providing a jumpstart to their content creation process.
  • The cost-effective pricing of Buffer makes it accessible to a diverse group of users, regardless of their budget.
  • It offers a powerful, interactive platform that brings all the necessary features for running successful campaigns in the fast-paced world of social media, all in one centralized location.
  • With Buffer, users have the ability to monitor and analyze customer responses from multiple social media platforms in a single, centralized location, facilitating a better understanding of their audience.
  • Buffer allows for the customization of posts for each individual platform by enabling users to utilize specific tags and hashtags, which can effectively increase the reach of their posts and increase engagement.

Negative

  • Users have experienced performance issues with Buffer, such as slowing down or crashing, when handling multiple image uploads or managing numerous accounts simultaneously.
  • One potential drawback of Buffer is that its analytics capabilities are limited. Users have noted that the platform should offer a more in-depth analysis of each post's performance and engagement levels.
  • Buffer lacks support for various hashtags and limitations in the analytics capabilities, making it more challenging for users to optimize their social media strategies fully.
  • A feature lacking in Buffer is a quick chat support option, which would be helpful for users seeking immediate assistance with an issue and were unable to find the answer in the help center.
  • Buffer currently only supports traditional social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest but does not yet include newly emerging and famous platforms like Parler, Gettr, and MeWe.
  • The absence of advanced post types and features like optimal posting time suggestions and hashtag research in Buffer can negatively impact the effectiveness of users' social media efforts.
  • Buffer lacks aesthetic appearance, as its whole interface is very monochromatic. Some basic design changes and perhaps a dash of color is needed to make the user experience better.

Buffer Pricing

As a part of this Buffer review, let’s take a closer look to the Buffer pricing. Buffer offers a free plan and three paid plans. Paid Buffer plans come with a 14-day free trial. In case you don’t want to opt for the free plan, you can choose from the three paid plans, namely, Essential, Team, and Agency. Here’s more on Buffer plans, their price, and features:

  • Free: In the Buffer’s free plan, you can manage up to three channels and schedule 10 posts per channel. It’s best suited for businesses and individuals who are just starting out on social media. Features of the free plan include basic publishing tools and landing page builder.
  • Essential: The Essential plan is $6/month per channel. You can add additional channels for $6/month. The features of this plan include planning and publishing tools, engagement tools, analytics tools, easy and clear exportable reports, landing page builder, and loads more. Also, in this plan, the number of scheduled posts per channel is 2000. Moreover, the number of users who can access and contribute content to your Buffer account is 1. The Essential plan is suited for professionals who want to access Buffer analytics, publishing, and engagement tools.
  • Team: The Team plan is $12/month per channel. You can add additional channels for $12/month. Along with all the Essential plan features, this plan comes with draft collaboration tools and custom access and permissions. Also, in this plan, an unlimited number of users can access and contribute content to your Buffer account. In all, Buffer has put in place the Team plan for teams who require unlimited user seating, reporting, and collaboration.
  • Agency: Marketing agencies with 10 or more social media channels can opt for the Agency plan. This plan is $120/month for 10 channels. You get all Team features in this plan. You can also add additional channels for $6 a month as per your requirement.

Free

$0

Per Month
  • 1 User
  • 3 Social accounts

Features

  • Basic publishing tools
  • Landing page builder

Essentials

$6

Per Social Account
  • 1 User
  • $6/Social accounts

Free Features+

  • Planning & publishing tools
  • Analytics tools
  • Engagement tools
  • Landing page builder
  • Easy, clear exportable reports

Team

$12

Per Social Account
  • Unlimited
  • $12/Social accounts

Essentials features+

  • Unlimited team members & clients
  • Draft collaboration tools
  • Custom access & permissions

Agency

$120

Per 10 Social Accounts
  • Unlimited
  • $6/Social accounts

Team Features +

  • Agency-friendly pricing
  • 2000 AI Credits

Price Comparison

Buffer is a great tool for social media management. But, for agencies, SocialPilot emerge as a cost-effective Buffer alternative. Even for medium to large enterprises, SocialPilot costs less than Buffer.

Here’s a more detailed pricing comparison between the plans of both the tools:

Essential

$120.00/Month {20 accounts}

Team

$360.00/Month {30 accounts}

Agency

$600.00/Month {50 accounts}

Free trial

available-icon

Available

Small Team

$50.00/Month {20 accounts}

Agency

$100.00/Month {30 accounts}

Agency+

$200.00/Month {50 accounts}

Free trial

Transparent

Available

Features

1. Publishing

Allows you to plan and publish your content for TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, all from a single, easy-to-use dashboard. For instance, you can plan and publish your Instagram carousels and posts to your Instagram account.

In all, Buffer’s publishing feature helps you smoothly plan and publish engaging content to take your business to the next level. The tool lets you choose what you want to share and when.

Publishing

2. Scheduling

Buffer is one of the best social media scheduling tools that allows you to plan your social media content ahead of time. All you need to do is add your content to the queue or calendar, customize each post as per the social media channel you want to post it to, choose your preferred date and time, and let Buffer do the remaining work of publishing. This way, you reach your audience at the time they are the most active on social media. It also saves you loads of time.

buffer

3. Campaigns

Allows you to create campaigns and check their performance in the Buffer analytics tab.

Today, many marketers plan their content for social media channels in terms of campaigns. These campaigns typically have an objective and cover multiple social networks.

With Buffer’s social media management capabilities, you can easily create a new campaign and manage it. You can also view, edit, and delete your campaigns with ease.

Users with Admin access or the account owner can create new campaigns. For creating a new campaign, choose the Publishing tab in your Buffer dashboard and then select Campaigns in the top left. Then, everything will be pretty straightforward from there.

Campaigns

4. Analytics

Offers real-time analytics to help you check the performance of posts and know if they are performing well with your audience.

Buffer provides detailed analytics to build your brand on social media. You can easily measure social media performance and receive recommendations to increase sales, reach, and engagement. You can also create reports for Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook all from a single dashboard.

The social media metrics you can track with Buffer’s Analytics tool include the number of posts, engagement rate, post saves, the number of likes, retweets, post shares, and lots more. You can start using Buffer’s Analyze to boost reach, sales, and engagement for your business.

Analytics

5. Engagement

Enables you to navigate your comments and interact and engage with your audience.

All thanks to Buffer’s Engagement tool, you can see all your unanswered comments in an uncomplicated dashboard. It even highlights the most important ones! In all, you are able to view all of your comments, remain aware of important interactions, and respond quickly to your followers and fans.

Buffer’s engagement tool also helps you react with an emoji. It even allows you to see negative comments, comments about your orders, or any questions – right from within your dashboard.

Engagement

6. Integrations

Integrates with multiple other tools and platforms to allow users to effectively manage their social media account and content.

Integrations help you get more out of Buffer. Some of these integrations include:

  • Canva: Helps you create and import images.
  • Make: Connects Buffer with thousands of apps in a few clicks and lets you design, build, and automate.
  • Zapier: Automatically pushes content from more than 400 other apps to Buffer.
  • IFTTT (If This Then That)
  • WordPress
Extension

7. Landing Page creation

Allows you to create an attractive, mobile-friendly landing page in just a matter of minutes.

Regardless of your business type, Start Page by Buffer generates a landing page and URL for your business in a quick manner. Buffer’s Start Page, coupled with its social media tools, makes for a useful toolkit to market your business.

You can also update the landing page you create, all in a few seconds. You can start creating your Start Page after setting up your Buffer account. You have the option to choose from one of the pre-made templates or you can also create the layout you want. Start Page by Buffer is a simple and free link in bio page that brings together your best content.

Landing Page creation

Buffer Reviews – Social Media Analytics Software

Features
 
Buffer
 
SocialPilot
Social Analytics
 
7.8
 
8.2
Social Publishing
 
9.3
 
9.1
Campaign Optimization
 
8.4
 
8.8
Social Engagement
 
8.3
 
8.2
Campaign Planning
 
8.5
 
8.9

Conclusion

If you take a look at the current scenario, individuals and companies are increasingly opting for reliable social media management tools to automate several tasks and processes. Why so? It frees up plenty of their time to focus on other important aspects of their business. It also helps them schedule posts, monitor analytics and metrics, manage multiple social media accounts from a single place, and do so much more.

An example of a fantastic social media management tool is Buffer. It helps to publish, analyze, and engage on social media in a much more effective manner. It is a great tool that individuals, businesses, and marketing agencies can use to market their business on social media.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Buffer used for in social media?

Buffer is a software that aids businesses and individuals in managing their social media presence on multiple platforms. Users can manage social media accounts on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn from one single dashboard. The tool enables users to schedule and publish posts, collaborate with team members, track engagement and performance metrics, and analyze results.

What social media platforms does Buffer support?

Buffer supports Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Business Profiles, and Pinterest.

Is Buffer a good social media manager?

Buffer is a good social media management tool because of features such as customized posts for each platform, smart and advanced scheduling, and post suggestions to generate ideas for new posts. But, it does have its limitations. For instance, it does not offer bulk scheduling, audience targeting, or has an easy social media calendar. Its social inbox is also limited.

How much does Buffer charge?

Buffer offers a free plan. But, as far as Buffer’s price is concerned, here’s what you need to know about the paid plans:

The Essentials plan is $6/month per channel, the Team plan is $12/month per channel, and the Agency plan is $120/month for 10 channels. When you choose Buffer’s paid plans, you get a free trial for 14 days.

Is Buffer worth the money?

While Buffer does offer a range of useful features, you can get a better social media management tool for lesser money, especially for medium to large enterprises. Agencies can also look for a Buffer alternative that costs less than Buffer. You can consider going for SocialPilot, which fills the gaps that Buffer leaves. SocialPilot’s plans for agency costs $100 per month, in which it supports 30 social accounts. Whereas, Buffer’s plans for agency costs $120 per month, in which it supports only 10 social accounts.

Buffer also misses out on a lot of important features, such as bulk scheduling, publishing carousel posts, replying to questions and reviews on Google Business Profiles, audience targeting, customized call to action, replying to messages and DMs on Instagram and Facebook, and a lot more. SocialPilot doesn’t come with these limitations and offers all of these features.

What are some alternatives to Buffer?

Some Buffer alternatives include:

  • SocialPilot
  • Hootsuite
  • Loomly
  • Agorapulse
  • Sprout Social
  • Coschedule
  • MeetEdgar

About the Author

Picture of Jimit Bagadiya

Jimit Bagadiya