Finding Community as a Remote Social Media Manager: My First #BufferChat
The constantly shifting landscape of social media is both my favorite and least favorite part of content marketing. It means no two weeks look the same, even if all I have time to do is schedule content. It can also make it difficult to branch into new aspects of my job, such as taking part in Buffer’s weekly Twitter chat. After all, there are blogs that need to be written and posts that need to be scheduled.
Twitter chats show up on my feed every so often. One of the teachers I follow participates in one weekly, and she seems to gain new insight with each one. In my searching, I came across one run by Buffer, my company’s preferred social media scheduling service, and it happened to start right then.
#BufferChat is a weekly event on Twitter, where Buffer poses seven questions, and the community responds, both to the question and to one another. Clever GIFs, marketing language, and combined knowledge abound, resulting in outside-the-box answers and new connections.
A Buffer employee sends out a question on a certain theme from the Buffer Twitter account every ten or so minutes, and everyone following along can respond with their insight. In the replies, anyone can respond to answers that speak to you, or ones that prompt more questions. Because of these conversations, I ended up with 14 new followers and followed some in the industry.
I felt more connected to and validated by a community I didn’t know existed before the conversation began. Bonnie from Buffer also gave me a shoutout in the official Buffer recap!
The feeling of connectedness and camaraderie I gained from participating in my industry community is hard to come by as a remote worker. Sometimes, working in front of a computer at a creative and data-driven job many companies don’t sink much time into can be isolating, and I’m grateful to the #BufferCommunity for offering me a window into other people’s application of the same tools I use daily.
All this to say, I can’t wait for this week’s, about understanding your audience! If you’re looking for a Twitter chat in the social media niche, tune into Buffer’s Twitter feed each Wednesday at 4 pm AEST (Sydney time) and 9 am PT (San Francisco time). Same conversation, different times, to accommodate different schedules. I’ll be there!
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