There’s a little social media tool that you may have heard of, called Buffer.

And there’s a good chance that, if you’re a customer, you were a reader of their blog first.

Buffer started as a Twitter scheduling app and evolved into an all-around social media scheduling software with millions of users. They’ve achieved this impressive growth by focusing on creating quality content that is helpful and relevant.

Their blog posts often get thousands of shares and hundreds of comments. That’s because they are packed with useful information and valuable insights.

I’ve been reading the Buffer blog for years, and it has helped me a great deal. In fact, it’s one of my go-to resources in learning what is new in the social media landscape and what can I do to boost my online presence.

But, if you don’t have the time to sift through their blog and all those pages of valuable information, I did some of the work for you. I’ve compiled a list of some of the best social media advice from the Buffer blog, and I’ve boiled it down into bite-sized bits.

Let’s jump right into it, shall we?

Instagram Tips

• Write a Killer Bio. It takes less than two-tenths of a second for someone to form an opinion about your online brand. That means it’s highly important to make a good first impression with the content in your Instagram bio. Use the 150 characters to sell yourself. Try to make your bio, keyword-rich so that it will be easier for your profile to be found via relevant searches.
• Place a Trackable Link in Your Bio. Your bio is the only place on Instagram where you can post a link. You can use this link to drive traffic back to your home page, to your latest article, or a specific landing page. Create posts that entice the curiosity of your followers to make them visit your profile.
• Create an Instagram Business Profile. If you convert to a Business profile, you will be able to include additional information about your company in your profile, such as an email address, phone number, or physical address.
• Use a Recognizable Profile Photo. It’s important that people instantly recognize your brand’s profile when they see it on Instagram. To achieve this, you should use your logo, mascot, or logo mark as your profile picture. If this is for your personal brand, get a professional profile photo taken.
• Post Frequently. Consistency is one of the most important elements of Instagram growth. By keeping a consistent schedule, you can increase your followers and maximize engagement rate. Here’s some more info on Instagram scheduling.
• Include Faces in Your Posts to Boost Engagement. Instagram pictures with faces get 38% more likes and 32% more comments.
• Leverage the Hashtag. Instagrammers use hashtags to look for content that they are interested in. Use this to your advantage to get your posts seen by more people. Make sure to include around 11 relevant hashtags to get more engagement.
• Automate what you can. Not everything needs to be an incredibly manual effort. Things like scheduling content consistent and connecting with followers. Using Instagram automation can help streamline the tedious parts of your work.

For more Instagram tips for businesses, read this full post.

Advertising on Instagram

• Set Your Goals. It’s important to set one or two goals for your Instagram profile before starting to create content. Whether you want to increase awareness of your brand, advertise your products, or build a community, make sure you have a clear objective in mind.
• Understand Your Audience. If you want to make the most of Instagram, you need to understand its demographics. Not all members of your audience use this platform, so you need to cater your content to their profile.
• Create a Content Strategy for Instagram. Content is the backbone of Instagram, so it’s important to have a clear vision of what you want to put out before your start posting. Do you want to focus more on your products or the community?
• Find Out the Best Time to Post on Instagram. Mondays and Thursdays are the days that drive the most engagement. As a rule of thumb, try to post at least once a day between 8 and 9 AM Eastern time.
• Experiment with Ads. There are several ad formats available, such as photo ads, video ads, and carousel ads. Experiment with them to see which one works best for your audience.
• Run Contests and Giveaways. Contests are a great way to increase awareness of your brand and build engagement.

If you want more advertising tips for Instagram, make sure to check these two full posts here and here.

Facebook Tips

• Customize Your Ad Preferences. Facebook shows you ads based on the information you’ve shared on the social network, the posts you engage with, and the pages you like. It’s extremely interesting to see what Facebook believes you are interested in. It’s also a great way to understand its algorithm better.
• Images Posted via Instagram receive More Engagement than Those Shared Natively. If you want to get more engagement on your photos, share them via Instagram. Studies have shown that these get up to 23% more likes and comments than photos shared directly on Facebook.
• Posts with Hashtags Receive Less Engagement than Those Without them. Hashtags have become a great tool for categorizing posts on Instagram and Twitter. However, they didn’t catch up on Facebook, so try to avoid using hashtags in your facebook posts.
• Half of Facebook’s Users Are Mobile. Around 46% of Facebook users use only their mobile devices to log into the platform. Making your website mobile-friendly is paramount if you want to benefit from the huge audience that Facebook can direct to your business.

If you want to read more about Facebook tricks that you probably didn’t already know, read this full article.

Advertising on Facebook

• Understand the Different Types of Facebook Ads. There are now 11 different types of ads you can use to reach a broad range of goals, from driving traffic to your website to reaching people near your business. Choose the format that will help you reach your goals better.
• Learn How to Choose an Audience for Your Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads offer a lot of options regarding your target audience. You can target your ads based on age, location, interests, behavior, and so on. Select the options relevant to your marketing objectives.
• Learn How to Set a Budget for Your Facebook Ads. Decide how much you want to spend and when you want to start spending it before you launch your campaign. As a rule of thumb, you need to spend around $5 per day to see significant results.

Read this complete guide to Facebook Advertising if you want to learn more.

Twitter Tips

• Use Imagery to Communicate Your Message Better. The human brain is hardwired to respond better and faster to images rather than text. When it comes to Twitter, a good picture is worth more than 140 characters.
• Choose an Insightful Topic. There’s so much happening on social media in just one minute that it can be difficult for followers to choose a topic. Make sure you share relevant, insightful content to grab their attention.
• Piggyback on Trending News. Although it’s important to leverage trending news, make sure to come with a new perspective or a unique point of view to stand out from the noise.
• Curate Content. Creating quality content takes a lot of time and effort. Curating content from reputable sources can help you position your company as an industry leader, build relationships with other businesses, and expose your brand to more followers.

If you want to discover more interesting Twitter tips, make sure to read this article.

Promoting Tweets

• Share Less about Yourself and More Information Rich Content. There are two types of people in the social media universe: those who share content about themselves and those who share informative content. Informers usually have two times more followers than the first category.
• Call Yourself an Authority. Gurus and experts have more followers than most business Twitter profiles. However, you need to live up to the promise, so invest time and resources into creating valuable content.
• Find the Best Time to Promote Your Tweets. Not only that you should find the best time of the day for maximum engagement, but you also need to avoid “bursts” of content – too many updates at once.
• Run Twitter Giveaways. Among the top reasons someone follows a brand on Twitter is to get a discount, special offer, or exclusive content. If you can mix your content strategy and branding with contests and giveaways, you might see a spike in followers.

If you want to learn more tips about how to get more followers on Twitter, check out this full article.

Snapchat Tips

• Use Sponsored Lenses to Boost Engagement. Snapchat recently introduced a new option for brands that want to promote their products or services in an engaging way: sponsored lenses. Twentieth Century Fox used the tool with great success to promote the release of The Peanuts Movie.
• Take Advantage of Geofilter. Geofilters are overlays for Snaps that can only be accessed in certain locations. You can use these filters to reach out and engage your local community.
• Get Attention with On-Demand Geofilters. On-demand geofilters enables you to create a unique geofilter available in a specific location and for a precise period. This option could open a lot of opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses that want to promote themselves locally.
• Bring Value through Content. Snapchat is a fun and engaging medium, so don’t be afraid to think out of the box. Monotony on Snapchat could lead to loss of interest and, consequently, of followers.
• Measure the Results of Your Efforts. Measuring your performance on fringe networks, such as Snapchat could prove to be a difficult task. The first thing you want to pay attention to on this platform is the views per Snap. The best method to do this is to calculate the average views for your posts each day and record that number.

If you want more information about Snapchat, you can read this complete guide.

LinkedIn Tips

• Industry Insights Is the Type of Content That Performs Best on LinkedIn. Given the nature of LinkedIn and the type of audience it has, it should come as no surprise that most users come here for industry insights.
• 20 Times/Month Is LinkedIn Posting Frequency Sweet Spot. By posting 20 times per month, you can reach up to 60% of your audience. Make sure to post during the work day and avoid evening and weekends if you want to reach a larger number of followers.

Here are some more tips about marketing on LinkedIn.

Social Media Content

• Figure out What Type of Content Draws Attention. It’s not an exaggeration to say that we are drowning in a sea of content. If you want to stand out, you need to create content that draws attention in some way or another.
• What’s Your Purpose for Creating Social Media Content? Creating social media content without a specific purpose in mind (build a community, inspire people, add value, etc.) is a major waste of time. How can you tell if your efforts are worth if you don’t know what to measure?
• Get Creative. There are so many blog posts about the same topics on social media that the only way to stand out is to get creative and approach the subject from a unique perspective.

For more tips on social media content, read this post here.

Conclusion

I’ve included the reference posts on the Buffer blog for any topic that requires a deeper dive. I highly recommend reading them.

Of course, there are a ton more great articles that I haven’t referenced in this post. Suffice to say, if you are looking for tips or guidance on all things social media and online marketing, the Buffer blog is a great place to start.

How about you? What are your favorite resources for social media tips?