The Science of Social Media

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas. Shopping season is just around the corner. We want to help you get prepared by looking at how some of today’s best brands are using Instagram to make sales on social media. These last months of the year are full of retail-focused holidays, and Instagram has become one of the key starting points for e-commerce and shopping lists. Come learn how top brands are...

If you're looking for inspiration for your next great Facebook ad, then we've got you covered with this episode! We're diving into the Facebook Ad Library to give you tips on how to research the ads of your competitors and how to find inspiration from some of the most creative and effective Facebook advertisers out there. We'll share some specific tips on how to get meaningful Facebook ad results,...

When marketers wish for more time and resources, they often wish to spend it on video marketing. Well, what if you only needed six seconds of video to make your impression? The current run of 6-second ads on platforms like YouTube and Twitter has opened up new options for marketers who are looking to get their message heard via video without going overboard on video resources.  We’ve taken Yo...

When someone makes a purchase or signs up for your product, how do you know where they came from? Especially when it comes to a top-of-funnel channel like social media, how can you ensure social gets credit for the impact it’s having? Attribution to the rescue! Seeing the impact of your social media marketing is definitely possible with an attribution strategy that assigns value to the channels th...

Some of the very best brands on social media get by with a little help from their friends -- agencies and consultants and strategists.  If this is a route you've thought about exploring, then we think you'll find a lot to love in this week's episode all about agencies. Or if you already have an agency on board, then hopefully some of our examples will inspire your next collaboration.  In...

Copywriting is one of the most essential skills for a marketer to have. Good copy is everywhere! Websites, advertisements, blog posts, and especially on social media. We want to give you the tools to write exceptional copy for even the tiniest of things on social: captions, tweets, Stories, and more. Consider this a crash course in copywriting for all the little things you write on social media ev...

Reddit is one of the most vibrant communities on the Internet and a powerful source of attention. A positive Reddit mention can mean thousands of visits to your website or your product. Your audience may be there. Opportunities certainly exist there. Should you be there, too? It's a tricky question to answer because one of the first rules for marketing on Reddit -- one of the first rules for marke...

So much of social media marketing happens in our social media management tools. On today's episode, we want to make sure this feels like time well spent! We’d love to let you in on all the best secrets and time savers and game changers when it comes to using Buffer for your social media marketing. Plus, we’ll take things one step further and dive into some shortcuts and hacks to get the most out o...

If you want to know if you've checked all the right boxes for your marketing, then look no further than this set of free marketing graders. You can see whether or not your social profiles are set up correctly, how well your website performs, how solid your brand seems. Grading tools can reveal a huge number of checkmarks to celebrate as well as a host of opportunities to shore up.  In today's...

They say bigger is better ... but in the case of influencer strategy, we think the opposite could be true! The latest data shows that micro-influencers, influencers with 10,000 or fewer followers, are getting the best results for brands and businesses. More engagement, more clicks, and lower ROI.  Join us for this episode as we dive into the world of micro-influencers and explain the ins and...

The Instagram app by itself is supremely powerful. But did you know all the best apps to take your Instagram marketing to even greater heights?  The trend of single-job, standalone apps has brought a huge amount of power into the hands of social media marketers, and we can’t wait to share our favorite picks with you today. Join us as we discuss how this trend has changed the game for social m...

How are brands and businesses succeeding on Pinterest today?  And how can you follow their playbooks to make waves yourself?  We go deep on all things Pinterest marketing in this episode. Join us as we explain the latest strategies, best content tips, and newest distribution tactics to help you get results on Pinterest and drive more engagement and clicks. There are lots of people gettin...

It can be hard to stay on top of the latest news for everything that’s coming to social media. We'd love to help you. This episode of The Science of Social Media takes a dive into Instagram marketing with a look at eight little-known features that you can try today. We want to ensure you get maximum exposure for your brand on Insta. These tips may be just the thing to help you stand out. Here's ho...

Welcome to a special edition of the Buffer podcast.  In this episode, the team from tentree will share exactly how they created and launched an Instagram campaign that generated more than 15.5 million likes on a single post, making it the fourth most-liked post in Instagram history.  How did tentree write itself into the Instagram record books? What did the strategy behind the post look...

When you think of chatbot marketing, what comes to mind? Opinions run the gamut from fear — “What’ll it be like to entrust my customer service to a computer?” — to humor — “Here comes the robot apocalypse!” But reality is that there are marketing teams and support teams and sales teams making serious progress with their chatbot strategies. We want to help you be one of those brands with...

We wish for you to have the very best, most fulfilling career possible, doing work that you love. And one of the best routes to that dream job is having a dreamy LinkedIn profile ! We'll show you how. Today we’re giving you a checklist for a LinkedIn makeover . We’ll provide many different ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile and boost your presence - and the presence of your brand - so that you...

What role do social media stats and facts play in your day-to-day? As social media marketers , we do our best to be data-informed with the decisions we make for our social media strategy at Buffer. Social media stats make a difference. Plus, you never know when you'll need a good trivia tidbit to impress at a party. :P In this episode, we hope you'll find it all: both the necessary stats and facts...

If you’re serious about building a remarkable brand on social media , we believe that a core component of your strategy needs to be engagement . Engagement with fans. Engagement with your audience. And engagement with your customers. One of the primary components to engagement is customer support , working with your team to answer questions and serve customers on social. In today's episode, we’ll...

What if you had a magic wand and could make any change you wanted on social media? Quite a question, right? Well, we dove into the many different what if scenarios -- both real and imagined -- that may shape social media in the months and years to come.  We pulled up all the latest news and changes so that you’ll know what to expect next on social. And we also polled the Science of Social Med...

A decade ago, the role of a social media manager might not have even existed. Today, however, almost every company is involved in social media one way or another. But what does it take to be a great social media manager? What are the skills to master in order to be effective in 2019?  In this episode, we'll cover the primary skills that we employ for social media here at Buffer, plus a few sk...

There are so many social networks to choose from today : Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest. Maybe YouTube? Maybe Reddit? We'd love to let you in on a secret one that's flying under the radar. Spotify! We’ve spent time digging into the rise of Spotify as a social media platform , used by today’s hottest brands. The results have been fascinating. We believe that Spotify is fast becom...

One of the most popular topics in social media marketing is how to get more followers. And not just any followers --- real followers, no bots. Brands want to grow their followers authentically by adding real people who love the brand and are looking to engage. This is no small task on social media in 2019! We've dug into the research on all the latest follower trends and how new brands a...

Live video remains a core feature of the top social networks, so ... why isn’t anyone talking about it anymore?  How should you be thinking about live video and your social media strategy in 2019? Today we’re examining the state of live video on social media. While the live video buzz may have cooled, there are still significant opportunities to use live video to your advantage. We hope to gi...

A very special SSM Select episode from our archives! Instagram is one of the most important (if not the most important) for brands and businesses looking to succeed on social media in 2019. However, succeeding on Instagram is a whole different story.  This week, we're discussing 6 proven Instagram marketing tactics that your bran can use today to grow followers and engagement in meaningful wa...

Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary science that is concerned with the study of the structure and function of the nervous system. When applied to our professional lives, neuroscience can help us to unlock our greatest potential. Increasing your meaningful productivity can have a huge impact on your day-to-day work and can greatly influence your professional success over a long period of time. This...