SF-based Buffer, the social media scheduling tool has officially launched its Buffer for Business product after a small private beta that ran during the past few months. Buffer lets users schedule updates and deliver messages via Facebook, Twitter and other social channels, which has become a key ingredient for any brands with an online presence. It arguably always appealed to business users, but the new Business product offers detailed analytics, collaboration with entire teams and easy export of your data for use in other applications.
Buffer for Business has already had a material impact on Buffer’s bottom line, even in its limited beta release form. Co-founder Leo Widrich says that over the course of the beta, they’ve signed up 400 paying users already, which amounted to $23,000 in revenue in a single month, or roughly 10 percent of their overall revenue. Business clients offer a significant revenue opportunity for Buffer, since it can sell better to institutions and organizations with deeper pockets than it could with its original product.
According to Widrich, Buffer took a consumer turn last year as part of a concentrated effort to attract individual users, and that resulted in partnerships with various companies including Feedly and Echofon. To a certain extent this worked (individual user growth was on a roll partway through last year), but the company also determined that a specific focus on business would also be beneficial to its bottom line.
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They offered the Buffer for Business tool in a limited beta beginning in July as a result, which includes roles for team member that determine how much access they have to scheduling and posting, as well as improved analytics that provide a deeper dive into stats like engagement, retweets, favourites, posts per day and more. All of this is visible in a custom business dashboard that provides simple charting, comparison tables and interactive graphs.
New users can kick off a free trial, but subscriptions begin at $50 per month for a maximum 5 person team, and range up to $250 per month based on the kind of service required. The service should help Buffer evolve into something that appeals to organizations of all size, but it also has to contend with heavily entrenched industry players like Hootsuite, so we’ll see how it turns out.