4 ms·

Why has Buffer lost 50% traffic? Consumers aren't as stupid as you think

33 points by fluxic 11y ago

ckluis 11y ago
Roughly: social is hard and there is more content today than in the past so getting your 15 minutes is harder
anguswithgusto 11y ago
I think the main problem is that Buffer encourage thoughtless posts. Marketers/social media people have this strange urge to constantly post (so that they look busy, thereby placating their bosses?). But there's no way that if you're posting your "requisite" 5-6x a day, that everything (or anything) you say will be thoughtful or entertaining. That's one of the reasons that "Buffered" tweets usually get low engagement, they're usually just links to articles... and I can get that in other places. Like HN. Great service in theory, but in the way it's being used now, it tips the signal:noise ratio of content in the wrong direction.
- AdamSC1 11y ago
  Bingo. Good marketing teams usually spend more time deciding which campaigns/actions they shouldn't push out than anything else. It boils down to that old rule of thumb that 80% of results come from 20% of actions. When you get companies who think productivity in marketing is similar to other silos like engineering and measured in results pushed, (or when you get 'social media rockstars' who think the same) they create a ton of noise and no one is interested in what they have to say. You develop a style of almost ad-blindness to their posts. It's far better to say a few things and nail everyone of them, than to say everything and botch most of it. It can be a challenging lesson and one that I think a lot of us have been guilty of in the past.
stevesearer 11y ago
It is amazing to see how low open/click rates can be for such large email newsletter lists. >"We had trouble even reaching 3k people out of those 200K subscribers." My list isn't anywhere near 200K, but I've gone for trying to optimize the list for high open/click rates as opposed to just trying to get the subscriber count high. Double opt-in is helpful in that you have to really want the newsletter and mean to sign up for it. It has also been a good exercise to remove people from the list who haven't engaged with it in the last 3-6 months. Because the newsletter is just a list of links to content from the previous week, if subscribers aren't clicking through, then there is really no point in sending them the newsletter. Plus, I pay for sending the newsletter out, so wasting money sending it out to people who don't engage with it isn't something I want to do.
nodesocket 11y ago
According to their financials https://buffer.baremetrics.com https://buffer.baremetrics.com, they seem to be doing awesome. Up and to the right. MRR up 28% in the last 6 months.

33 points by fluxic 11y ago

Roughly: social is hard and there is more content today than in the past so getting your 15 minutes is harder

I think the main problem is that Buffer encourage thoughtless posts. Marketers/social media people have this strange urge to constantly post (so that they look busy, thereby placating their bosses?). But there's no way that if you're posting your "requisite" 5-6x a day, that everything (or anything) you say will be thoughtful or entertaining. That's one of the reasons that "Buffered" tweets usually get low engagement, they're usually just links to articles... and I can get that in other places. Like HN. Great service in theory, but in the way it's being used now, it tips the signal:noise ratio of content in the wrong direction.

AdamSC1 11y ago
Bingo. Good marketing teams usually spend more time deciding which campaigns/actions they shouldn't push out than anything else. It boils down to that old rule of thumb that 80% of results come from 20% of actions. When you get companies who think productivity in marketing is similar to other silos like engineering and measured in results pushed, (or when you get 'social media rockstars' who think the same) they create a ton of noise and no one is interested in what they have to say. You develop a style of almost ad-blindness to their posts. It's far better to say a few things and nail everyone of them, than to say everything and botch most of it. It can be a challenging lesson and one that I think a lot of us have been guilty of in the past.

stevesearer 11y ago

It is amazing to see how low open/click rates can be for such large email newsletter lists. >"We had trouble even reaching 3k people out of those 200K subscribers." My list isn't anywhere near 200K, but I've gone for trying to optimize the list for high open/click rates as opposed to just trying to get the subscriber count high. Double opt-in is helpful in that you have to really want the newsletter and mean to sign up for it. It has also been a good exercise to remove people from the list who haven't engaged with it in the last 3-6 months. Because the newsletter is just a list of links to content from the previous week, if subscribers aren't clicking through, then there is really no point in sending them the newsletter. Plus, I pay for sending the newsletter out, so wasting money sending it out to people who don't engage with it isn't something I want to do.

nodesocket 11y ago

According to their financials https://buffer.baremetrics.com https://buffer.baremetrics.com, they seem to be doing awesome. Up and to the right. MRR up 28% in the last 6 months.