New!Check out Board viewCheck out the new Board viewOrganize and track your social content ideas with the new Board view.Learn more

Alfred Lua

A collection of posts by Alfred Lua

A collection of 99 posts by Alfred Lua - Page 3

Guides & CoursesSep 7, 2017
What to Post on Each Social Media Platform: The Complete Guide to Optimizing Your Social Content

Not all content needs to be shared everywhere. And not all content is suitable for every social media platforms. It’s all right to post entirely different things on different platforms . In fact, it might even help you to boost your engagement . For example, if you take a look at our Twitter [https://twitter.com/bu

ToolsSep 6, 2017
20 Tools for Creating Engaging Social Media Videos, Images and GIFs in Minutes

Creating social media content takes time. And creating great social media content takes even more time. You don’t just need to think about what types of content you’re going to create, but also how you can customize your social media posts for each platform. For example, you might create: * A video for Facebook * A GIF for Twitter * An infographic for Pinterest How do you find the time to create so many pieces of social media content? Well, here’s some good news… with the right tools, yo

Tips / How ToAug 31, 2017
The Rise of Micro-Influencers: How to Run a Micro-Influencer Campaign

The interest in influencer marketing has been growing steadily over the past few years and more people are seeking to understand more about it now than ever before. Just take a look at this Google Trends chart: According to eMarketer , 48 percent of marketers decided to increase their budget for influencer marketing in 2017. And only four percent had plans to d

Instagram or Snapchat: Which is the Best Fit For Your Business?

Should our business be on Instagram or Snapchat? Or both? With Instagram and Snapchat becoming increasingly similar, many social media managers find themselves asking these questions. To help you figure out which platform — Instagram or Snapchat — is more suitable for your business, we decided to analyze the differences between the two platforms. We compared six key aspects of the two platforms: 1. Users 2. Content types 3. Discoverability 4. Engagement rates 5. Analytics 6. Ad What we

30+ Free Instagram Tools to Help You Grow Your Following

More than 700 million people use Instagram and 400 million of those users check the app daily. With such a large audience, and some incredibly business-friendly updates such as Instagram Ads , Stories , and Business Tools , Instagram is becoming a must-have channel in many social media marketing strategies [https://buffer.com/resources/social-m

Guides & CoursesAug 2, 2017
The Complete Guide to Facebook Groups: How to Create a Group, Build a Community and Increase Your Organic Reach

Facebook has recently launched Groups for Pages, enabling the 70 million+ Pages on Facebook to create their own unique communities and feeds. This update provides new ways for brands to boost engagement and could go some way to countering the decline in organic reach Facebook Page owners have been experiencing for the past few years [https://buffer.com/resources/s

Content MarketingJul 27, 2017
How We Increased the Readership of Buffer’s Blog to Over 1.5 Million Visits

Every company is a media company these days, and Buffer is no different. We started the Buffer Social blog in January 2011 and since then it has been a key component in the success of the company. We have published more than 1,000 posts—and we’re honored to receive more than 1.5 million visits every month. It’s been a long, challenging journey, though. We first hit one million sessions in a calendar month during March 2015—a full 4 years after launching—and after months of floating around 1.1

Guides & CoursesJul 25, 2017
The Complete Guide to Creating Effective Snap Ads with Snapchat Ad Manager

In the past, if you wanted to run Snap Ads (Snapchat ’s full-screen video ads), you would need to go through one of their ads partners. Now, though, you can create Snap Ads yourself through Snapchat’s new self-serve ads tool, Snapchat Ad Manager. Snapchat has even included a video creation tool in the Snapchat Ad Manager to make creating engaging, awesome-looking vertical videos a breeze. We’re thrilled by the possibilities that Snapchat Ad Manager has bro

Why I Think Social Media Is For Branding and Engagement, Not Traffic or Revenue

Social media is changing. It used to be a one-to-many channel. Businesses would publish links, photos, and videos on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, hoping to reach as many people as they can and drive a high number of leads and sales. When marketers first started using social media as a marketing channel, there was less content, less noise, and people were willing to click on almost everything they saw on their news feed. Then, we hit content shock. There is now more content on social pla

Tips / How ToJul 18, 2017
The Ideal Facebook Cover Photo Size And How To Make Yours Stand Out (Including 12 Excellent Examples)

Facebook Cover Photo Size The ideal size is 820 pixels wide by 462 pixels tall. According to Facebook, your cover photo is displayed at 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall on your Page on desktops and 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall on smartphones. But if you want to use a single image that works pretty well on both desktop and mobile, 820 pixels wide by 462 pixels tall seems to be the best. The Facebook cover photo. It feels like it should be so easy to pick one, and yet finding the perfect

How to Keep Up With Social Media News in Just 10 Minutes a Day

Keeping up with new changes on the various social media platforms is essential to staying ahead on social media. Did you know for example that Facebook now allows you to upload GIFs ? Or that Facebook has also changed the News Feed to encourage high-quality links to be shared ? If a piece of social media news is big enough (such as the lau

We Made These 10 Social Media Mistakes so You Don’t Have To

This might sound contradicting — and it’s scary for us to admit. But, despite building a product that helps people succeed on social media, we have committed a good number of social media mistakes ourselves. Mistakes that have cost us reach and engagement, maybe even fans and customers. Now that we have learned from many of those mistakes, I would love to share our top 10 and how you can avoid committing them yourself. Let’s get started… Learn from These 10 Social Media Mistakes We’ve Made

127 Time-Saving Keyboard Shortcuts for Social Media Marketers

I used to think the few seconds I save by using keyboard shortcuts are not useful. I mean, what can I do with those few seconds? A lot, it seems… A few seconds here and there can add up. And according to Brainscape , you can save up to eight workdays per year! Just by using shortcuts—enough time for a long vacation. Being a social media marketer , you spend a lot

AnalyticsJun 6, 2017
7 Social Media Analytics and Reporting Tips for Becoming a Data-Savvy Marketer

How do you know what’s working with your social media? And what’s not working? The social networks provide us with a ton of data about our posts but it can be hard to distinguish the signals from the noise. Imagine having a framework to pull out the signals from the noise — a framework that points you to the key information about your social media performance. With this framework, you can easily identify successful posts and understand why they did well. The key is social media analytics and

Tips / How ToJun 1, 2017
17 Ways to Get More Views, Engagement, and Shares for Your Facebook Videos

Over 8 billion videos or 100 million hours of videos are watched on Facebook every day. These stats were reported early last year so imagine how much larger the numbers are today as Facebook continued to grow and double down on videos. Now seems to be the perfect time to take a closer look at Facebook video and how to use videos to engage more fans on the platform. Wit

Guides & CoursesMay 25, 2017
How to Use Instagram Search & Explore to Boost Your Instagram Marketing

Instagram places a big emphasis on search and discovery of content. It’s one of the few social media platforms with a Search and Explore tab in its app. Being featured in the search results or in Instagram’s Explore section can be a great way to boost your success on the network with added exposure and the chance to reach new users who may not have otherwise seen your content. There are also several other ways you can use Instagram’s Search and Explore for your business — finding the best hash

Want to Create a Trail-Blazing Social Media Campaign? Here Are 13 Tips From Brands like Airbnb, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks

Running social media campaigns can be quite different from managing your social media profiles on an ongoing basis. Unlike your ongoing social media marketing, campaigns tend to be for a specific purpose and only last for a certain time period. The strategy you’d take for running a social media campaign might be different from your usual social media marketing strategy. So how do you run a successful social media campaign? Through case studies of successful social media campaigns by companies

How to Write a Great Social Media Manager Job Description (and Hire a Top Social Media Manager)

Writing a great social media manager job description is not an easy task. The job description is one of the first few things potential applicants read and a well-written job description can increase the chances of you hiring the best social media manager for your company. We’re thrilled that you’re looking to hire a new social media manager and would love to help you as much as we can! Here’s everything you need to know about writing a great social media manager job description (and more).

The Psychology of Marketing: 18 Ways to Use Social Proof to Boost Your Results

Science plays a key role in marketing, especially the science of psychology. We have written about the 15 psychological principles in marketing and studied seven social media psychological research. This time, we’d love to dive deeper into one of the most powerful and prominent psychological phenomena… Social proof. The use of social proof can be found in many areas of both offline and online marketing. In this post, we’ll focus on the use of social proof on social media to boost your marketi

AdvertisingApr 27, 2017
You Have $100 to Spend on Social Media Marketing. Here’s One Way to Spend It.

How big is your social media budget? I’ve heard of companies that spend millions on marketing and others who spend zero (we skew toward the zero side at Buffer). Regardless of how much you spend, you aim to spend it well. That’s why a hypothetical situation like — what would you do with $100 to spend on social media marketing ? — can be an extremely valuable exercise. I have some ideas on what I’d do with the $100, ways to wring the mos

Understanding the Instagram Algorithm: 7 Key Factors and Why the Algorithm is Great for Marketers

The Instagram algorithm, just like the Facebook News Feed algorithm, is so mysterious yet ingenious and brilliant in showing the best content to the most people. If you are creating great content, more followers — and non-followers — are going to see it. But how does the Instagram algorithm work? In this post, we’ll break it all down for you. We’ll go through the factors that could influence the ranking of your content on your followers’ feed and explain why the Instagram algorithm is

Optimal Timing, Videos, and More: 10 Easy Ways to Boost Your Instagram Reach

Since Instagram started sorting posts on users’ feed with an algorithm , many marketers have noticed a decline in their organic reach and engagement. But that doesn’t have to be the case for you. In fact, it could be possible for you to reach more of your followers now than without the new Instagram algorithm. In this post, we’ll share 10 straightforward ways you can use to increase your organic reach on Instagram today. Buffer for Instagram now c

News and TrendsApr 20, 2017
F8 2017 Recap: 10 Major Announcements Every Marketer Should Know

We’re making the camera the first augmented reality platform. — Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook F8 conference 2017 Facebook’s F8 conference was once again filled with incredibly exciting announcements. Augmented reality (AR) could be seen as the main theme of this year’s conference. From augmented masks and special effects to 360 video camera to Facebook Spaces (an app where you can hang out with your family and friends virtually), Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook want to enable us to connect with one

AnalyticsApr 19, 2017
The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Analytics: Metrics, Insights, Tools, and Tips

More than 15 million businesses now use Instagram as a marketing tool. And one of the most important aspects of any Instagram marketing strategy is a clear focus on Instagram analytics. Without analytics, your Instagram marketing efforts can be a little hit-and-miss. How do you know if your Instagram marketing strategy is going well? How do you track your Instagram performance and improve your content? Analytics are often essential for answering your questions. With Instagram analytics,