Buffer Users Need To Be Aware Of This Potentially DEVASTATING Change
TLDR – Buffer for Facebook made a VERY big change that affects automatic sharing. Don’t schedule any posts until you read this.
I’ve been an advocate of Buffer, the simple social media scheduling app, for years.
The entire time I’ve used it, I’ve been thrilled at how easy it made sharing content to social media.
That’s why I was shocked when a client asked me why I’d shared a specific post to his Facebook page.
Thing is, I’d written a pretty clear explanation of why that post was relevant to his audience.
“Here’s why I shared it,” I said. “Did the description text not go through?”
As it turns out, it hadn’t.
In order to give users the best experience, it’s Facebook’s policy to make sure that all text shared to the app is input by users individually, not pre-filled by an app.
There are a number of updates we’ve pushed through recently that have changed the way you post to Facebook through Buffer.
We’ve made a change within the Buffer compose window both at Buffer.com and through our browser extensions that adds an entirely separate box for your Facebook message.
See the screenshot above for an idea of what that looks like for users.
This isn’t a deal-breaking change, but it does require Buffer users to be much more aware of their social media sharing. Hopefully Facebook and Buffer can come to a little better arrangement and enable auto-sharing content to Facebook again, at least in some form.
