Showing up on social media is daunting, but it doesn’t have to be.

We talk about consistency a lot on the @Buffer team. But I sometimes feel it’s an odd word to use, because consistency can mean all sorts of different things. It does not mean you need to be posting every single day at the exact same, carefully-optimized times, to all the platforms.

It could be just once a week. Doesn’t sound too ambitious, does it? This is why we built the Buffer Streak with this simple requirement: if you want to grow an audience on social, it’s best to start somewhere.

We asked ourselves a lot whether we should build in more robust rules, forgiveness tactics, etc. – and we kept coming back to the simple notion that once a week is something that any aspiring creator should feel comfortable sticking to. Especially since you can pre-schedule that once-weekly post 😉

You also may be at different points in your social journey on different platforms. I am all over Threads for instance, but I sometimes struggle with video, or with what I want to say on LinkedIn. Most creators, even the most seasoned ones, have very different journeys on different social platforms. This is what inspired us to build Buffer’s Goals features to be channel-specific, but also low-stakes: you might be more ambitious on one platform than another, but you shouldn’t be penalized for not meeting your goal one week.

And not every post has to be a banger (something I’ve said before). It could be just sharing a stray thought, which could be the thing that goes viral. This is why we aim for Buffer to also be as simple to use as possible – nothing should stop you from broadcasting that stray thought to all your audiences or carefully planning your next thoughtful piece of content.

In any case, picking when to post shouldn’t be a concern. In fact, we already have insight we’ve shared publicly around the best times to post (link in comments!), and our overwhelming evidence suggests to (1) focus on posting at all first, rather than when, and (2) when in doubt, follow the benchmarks. This is why, when you start up with Buffer, we ask you for a simple posting goal and generate a simple schedule for you to follow – which is based on those benchmark times. I’m excited to share that we’ll be rolling out some further improvements here soon, to help ensure you’re posting schedule is always reflecting the best times to post to your social channels 😄

And finally, showing up consistently is not just about posting yourself – it could mean engaging with the people wanting to talk to you! All the data shows that engaging with those who reply to your content is as, if not more, important to building a following. We’ve had engagement features for a while, but I am so excited for the revamp we’ll be launching soon: Community.

Tagging in @Michael Eckstein to speak a bit more to that! For now, enjoy this screenshot of how all-over-the-place my own posting goals are 🤪