© Idella Maeland

Whoa Nelly! How to Take Advantage of Buffer’s Power Features.

Full Disclosure: I do not work for, nor have I done work for, nor do I have any investments in/with, nor do I know anyone who works at Buffer. I’m just one of those fanatical users who can’t help but evangelize.

Sophie, I think you missed the “main” raison d’etre for Buffer (aka the reason “Buffer” is called Buffer). Buffer is meant to be used primarily as a “set-it” and “forget-it” service to address multiple social media services scheduling. Ease of use, speed and unobtrusive UX are paramount in their products. I use it to feed my Google+, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.

You specify a default time you want Buffer to post on your behalf on a daily basis. After doing so, the benefit of Buffer becomes obvious. You just add content to your queue and forget about “scheduling.” Doing this gives you a seven day Buffer (see what I did there?) of share-worthy content. Easy. Peasy. Japaneasy.

Set It and Forget It

Gee, I wish there was a way to schedule my posts to all my networks at different intervals / days from a single dashboard. Then I could share whenever the mood hits me OR let my stuff go out as scheduled. Sweet! I can “Set It and Forget It!” (apologies to Ron Popiel)

All the other features you think are missing in Buffer’s arsenal exists! If only to appease the users who want more granular control.

I was a Hootsuite devotee for years but, when I was introduced to Buffer I recognized just how superior and easy their UX was in comparison. What Buffer needs is not a better UI or UX, what they need is more obvious onboarding to explain how to leverage their product. Your audit identifies this as a pain point for Buffer.

In closing, you’re absolutely right, the actions generated by their chrome extension are not mobile friendly. In these instances I use their native apps/sharesheets (Buffer doesn’t want you to choose which parent you love most, so they have an app for both iOS and Android platforms). Now, some pretty pictures of those aforementioned granular controls.

Keep That Queue Topped Off…

Oh yeah, now I can add stuff to my queue and my ass is covered on those days I’m not paying attention. I can even select which networks will/won’t get this post.

Hey What’s Behind That Second Tab? A Power Scheduler?

Daddy likes. If I feel the need to get granular I can share at different times on different networks on the fly, my default settings be damned.

What If I Want to Time Travel?

Hello McFly! For those days when your shareable content might be inappropriate (too soon after an event or death)? I can time travel and set it to go off in the future!