May 2015 UPDATE: scroll to the bottom of the post to find out how to schedule content on Pinterest
Social Media is the dream come true for the business owners.
You can talk to your customers directly.
You can contact potential business partners.
You can post pictures of your kids/pets doing extremely funny things.
Social Media Management is also a nightmare for the business owners.
People have expectations now.
And – no one can see your bank account, but they can see how many likes and shares you got.
You are a pro – and you now you have to work hard to look like a pro on social media too.
Sure, it’s easy, mostly free – but you just don’t have a time.
Or, you have time – but no money.
Because, yes, you can build your brand following on social media.
You can get clients from social media (Hint, hint – I got a course for that).
But it’s extremely hard to stop yourself from spending hours following those interesting links.
Hard truth – If you spend your time on Social Media reading other people’s content – no one can see you.
Buffer is my main weapon here. It’s simply great – I use it to schedule my social media posts for a week, my RTs and any articles I find worth sharing go to my Buffer with just one click thanks to browser extension.
It means, when I have time to sit down, I can fill it up for a week ahead, and not to worry that my social media accounts will be overloaded at one point in a day, and empty the next.
Buffer gives you ability to schedule promotional posts – and than just dive in into conversations, whenever you feel like it.
Your marketing is handled and you can just relax and be yourself.
It works with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – and now also Pinterest if you are on Awesome Plan.
Awesome Plan is extremely affordable, and well worth it to unlock ability to schedule 100 updates. If you post 3 times per day, that gives you a month of scheduled content. You can also re-buffer your most popular content in seconds.
Free plan gives you 10 updates at the time, so you can play around – and if you just schedule 1 update per day, that still prevents your profiles from looking abandoned.
Why I like it:
Buffer gives me control over when I want to be visible on Social Media.
My clients are overseas, so I schedule posts to go out while I’m sleeping.
BUFFER HACK: All your Buffer updates are stored – I did asked the guys at Buffer about it – indefinitely and there is no account limits at present. If you go to your Analytics tab, you can see a little button Re-Buffer this post (see red arrow on screenshot). Just click that button, to send it out again. You can even edit it before sending out. Which makes perfect sense. For instance, I can post that quote with a different #hashtag and see if it would improve retweets and potential reach.
HINT: Tweet your own favorite software, tool or productivity hack and use #MBAtoolkit hashtag if you want me to see it.
Sure, there is many social management tools – Hootsuite is a bit complicated to start in my opinion and Edgar sounds amazing, but on the expensive side. If I could merge Buffer with Edgar capability to assign categories – it would be marriage made in heaven. Edgar is worth considering though, if you have a library of content for around 3-6 months. Edgar is great to work with VA -double time saving hack here! While Buffer is fantastic to start – and grow – on your own or with small team.
For most business owners, Buffer is more than enough to schedule updates, simply because the content we share is current – upcoming promotions, services on offer and industry news.
Buffer is the most easy to manage for me. As it works with the exact social networks I use: Facebook pages and groups, Twitter, Linked and Pinterest, it’s a perfect choice to manage social media content from one, extremely intuitive dashboard. There is almost no learning curve and you can start using it straight away.
If you want to find out, what other tools I use to make my business easier, download free copy of my full Business Toolkit – and get your evenings back!
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