Many moons ago, we wrote a blog post about Buffer. Buffer has always been awesome, but it’s a social media management tool that has changed a ton and become exponentially more awesome since that post. Instead of writing an updated post about how and why you should use Buffer for your social media management needs, I felt that highlighting my favorites of its many helpful features, coupled with why I enjoy using it, would be a better follow-up post.

8 Reasons Why Buffer is the Best Social Media Tool

In no particular order…

• It’s so easy to use Buffer is a browser extension. When you come across a website link that you want to share to your connected social media accounts, you simply click the browser extension button, make sure the accounts you want to post to are selected, and send it. Buffer does the rest. The entire process takes about 3 seconds.
• It’s easy to change which accounts you post to with every link you share You can connect a bunch of social media accounts to your Buffer, but you don’t have to post to all those accounts every time. You can select (or de-select) from the list of your connected accounts with every share.
• You can use it while you read Buffer eliminates the need for copying links you find on the internet, and pasting them into a social media management tool to schedule to post at a specific time you want them shared. If you have your Buffer schedule set to publish content, say, M-F at 9:38 am, 2:10 pm, and 8:24 pm each of those does, it’ll do that for you. Just load up your Buffer with the content you want shared (you can write original text or photo content, too; it doesn’t have to be a link), and it’ll drip out slowly over time.
• You can add in your own 2 cents You can add in a few words along with the auto-populated post title, or you can wipe out all the text that pulls in and write your own.
• It’s customizable You can choose what times of day on which days of the week to post (e.g. Have a weekend posting schedule for Saturday and Sunday separate from your Monday-Friday schedule). You can rearrange the order of content sent to Buffer (i.e. “Move to Top”, “Delete”, “Share Now” and “Share Next” are some of my favorites).
• It connects to a lot of social media platforms To give you an example, I currently have 1 Google Plus, 1 LinkedIn Company Page, 1 Pinterest, 1 LinkedIn Profile, and 3 Twitter accounts attached to my Buffer. I prefer to post to Facebook natively, but you can also connect your Facebook profile or fan page to your Buffer.
• It offers analytics You need to upgrade to at least Buffer for Business to access the Analytics and Insights parts of your Buffer activity, but you do have information on a post by post basis such as the number of retweets, mentions, favorites, clicks, and reach of the tweets you send.
• It’s affordable We pay $102/year for the Awesome plan. There are Small Business and Enterprise plans available, too, as well as a Free option.

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone nowadays who doesn’t describe themselves as “busy”. Buffer is so well-designed that it’s the best option for even the busiest of busy people. Really, it doesn’t get better than Buffer.