Buffer has 73 teammates across 15 countries, and its blog sitemap lists 2,423 articles. We counted 3,457 URLs across every sitemap file on buffer.com this week.
That much search surface from a small team makes Buffer a useful model for B2B content teams.
Where Buffer's content story started
Buffer helps creators and small businesses plan, publish and measure social media posts. Founder and CEO Joel Gascoigne started it as a Startup Sprint project in November 2010.
Buffer started its blog in January 2011, and the timeline below shows eight key moments using only Buffer's own numbers:
Each chapter covers one bet and ends with a list of what B2B teams can use.
Chapter 1: Guest posts built Buffer's first audience
Co-founder Leo Widrich built Buffer's first audience on blogs that already had readers. He wrote around 150 guest posts in a nine-month period.
That pace, about four posts a week, built ties with influencers and made Buffer's blog an authority on social media.
Each of Leo's pitch emails followed the same pattern with these parts:
- A specific thank-you to the site he was pitching.
- A one or two sentence summary of the post.
- The other sites that had already published his work.
- A draft that was already written, so the editor could say yes fast.
Once guest posts were landing, Buffer asked big sites to republish its best articles. In one month in 2014, republished posts on its top four partner sites brought 949 new conversions.
Buffer now hosts guest posts on its own blog because open submissions overwhelmed its small team. Its 2025 guest post program picks fewer than 10 contributors per round and gives them prompts, templates and editing help.
What to take from this:
- Write for the publications your buyers already read before you expect them to find your blog.
- Pitch with a finished draft and proof of where you've been published.
- Ask partners to republish your best posts once you have a few hits.
- Run guest posts on your own blog in small, themed rounds that your team can edit well.
We cover more channels like these in our guide to B2B content distribution channels.
Chapter 2: An open blog that shared its own numbers
In June 2012, Buffer's "Twitter tips blog" had passed 200 posts, and from mid-2012 it also covered productivity, life hacks, customer happiness and business.
The team had grown to six people, all invited to write, and Buffer began publishing monthly blog traffic reports.
In August 2013, the blog had 745,811 unique visitors, up 118% from 341,470 in July. One post on science-backed habits for happiness drew 531,000 of those visitors.
The reports showed the misses too, and in September 2013, unique visitors fell 24% to 562,361. By March 2014, the blog reached 717,070 uniques and 1,935 conversions in one month.
Buffer's openness reached past the blog, and in December 2013 it published its salary formula and every individual salary. The next month, it received 3,864 job applications.
By 2024, Buffer had shared salaries publicly for 10 of its 13 years. We counted 63 monthly team report posts from 2013 to 2017 still live in its sitemap.
Today, buffer.com/open is a live dashboard with shareholder updates, salaries and time off data. Together with the About page, it showed these numbers when we checked:
- 322,534 monthly active users and 85,477 total customers.
- $2.3M in monthly recurring revenue and $28.0M in annual recurring revenue.
- $27.33 in average revenue per user.
- A history that lists the hard years, including a 2016 cash flow crisis with layoffs.
Openness earns links and attention because no other company can publish your numbers, and that is the heart of thought leadership content marketing.
Lessons for your team:
- Publish a short monthly or quarterly report on your own content results, including the dips.
- Share one internal number your buyers care about, such as response time or uptime.
- Write about how your team works, since those posts give buyers a reason to trust you.
Chapter 3: Original research that other people cite
Buffer's next bet was original data, and its State of Social 2018 report surveyed more than 1,700 marketers. The 2019 edition of the same survey reached more than 1,800.
Buffer also ran the State of Remote Work survey from 2018 to 2023. The 2023 report covered 3,000 remote workers and was built with Remote OK and Nomad List.
Buffer's 2026 engagement report uses its own product data, analyzing more than 52 million posts from over 200,000 accounts between January 2024 and December 2025.
The full report post explains its data sources and its use of medians, which makes the numbers safe for writers and AI answers to quote.
Buffer reuses the data in keyword posts like Best Time to Post on Instagram in 2026: Data from 9.6 Million Posts, updated in September 2026.
The Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube versions of its 15 "best time to post" URLs all carry a 2026 lastmod date.
Of the content marketing strategy examples we've studied, this one is the first to copy, since your product creates data no other company has.
What to take from this:
- Run one yearly survey or product data study on a question your buyers ask often.
- Publish the method in plain words, so journalists and AI tools can trust the numbers.
- Put the findings inside the evergreen pages you want to rank, then update them every year.
Chapter 4: Free tools and a glossary catch other searches
We found 27 URLs under /free-tools/, including hashtag generators, a UTM generator, name generators and an image resizer with 11 pages, one per platform.
Each tool page, like the Instagram hashtag generator, follows the same plan with these parts:
- An H1 naming the tool, with a box you can use without signing up.
- Sections on why to use it and what it does.
- Links to Buffer's other free tools.
- An FAQ with FAQPage schema and a "Get started for free" button.
The social media glossary adds 104 more URLs, and each term page answers "What is..." in its first H2 before a sign-up offer.
What to try:
- Turn a task your buyers do by hand into a small free tool with no sign-up wall.
- Build a glossary of the terms your buyers search, with one page per term.
- Link every tool to your other tools and to one clear product offer.
Chapter 5: How the Buffer blog kept changing
A 2015 post explained why the team kept pivoting its best channel, since doubling down on what works beats betting big on an unknown.
In July 2015, Buffer ran its boldest test and stopped publishing new posts for 30 days. It published 10 articles that month, none fully new, and traffic dipped only 4%.
The winners were email drip campaigns built from blog posts and updates to older posts with new facts. Our guide to evergreen content shows how to keep older posts ranking.
By 2017, the blog had more than 1,000 posts and 1.5 million visits a month. It first passed one million monthly sessions in March 2015, then stalled near 1.1 to 1.2 million until May 2017.
Buffer had tried four or five posts a week, saw its standards drop and settled on two new posts a week plus podcast notes. Keyword research also became a top focus for the team during that change.
What the sitemap shows now
We followed the eight sitemap links in buffer.com/robots.txt to 11 sitemap files, and the chart below splits all 3,457 URLs by section:
Blog posts make up 70% of the site and stay in English. The 411 translated pages cover product, channel and integration pages in six languages.
Of the 2,423 posts, 1,436 show an update in 2025 or 2026, which is 59% of the archive:
The blog also targets buying searches, with 11 "Buffer vs" comparison posts plus alternatives posts for Hootsuite, Later and Metricool.
What to take from this:
- Test a month of updates instead of new posts, and measure the traffic change.
- Cut your publishing pace if quality slips, then spend the time on keyword research.
- Check your own sitemap lastmod dates each quarter to see how much of your archive is current.
- Add comparison and alternative pages once your blog has trust and traffic.
What B2B teams can use from Buffer's SEO content strategy
Buffer sells to creators and small businesses, yet its playbook fits B2B better because B2B buyers read a lot before talking to sales. A small B2B team can use these four ideas:
- Make original data your main asset, and reuse it inside the pages you want to rank.
- Treat openness as part of your brand by sharing your numbers along with your misses.
- Use guest posts to reach readers first, then host your own guest posts once you have an audience.
- Keep the archive fresh, since updates can do as much as new posts.
None of this needs a large team, as Buffer's 73 people show. For more, see our content strategy examples from B2B brands and our guide to B2B SaaS SEO.
FAQ
How does Buffer do SEO with a small team?
Buffer builds pages that keep working without new effort, such as data-backed evergreen posts, free tools and a glossary. It refreshes old posts often, and 59% of its 2,423 blog posts show an update in 2025 or 2026.
How did Buffer use guest blogging to grow?
Co-founder Leo Widrich wrote around 150 guest posts in nine months to reach readers on other blogs. Buffer then asked large sites to republish its best posts, which brought 949 new conversions from four partner sites in one month of 2014.
What original research does Buffer publish?
Buffer has published State of Social surveys of more than 1,700 marketers and State of Remote Work reports from 2018 to 2023. Its 2026 engagement report analyzes more than 52 million posts from over 200,000 Buffer accounts.
What numbers does Buffer share publicly?
Buffer shares its revenue, users, salaries and shareholder updates on its Open page. When we checked, it showed $28.0M in annual recurring revenue, 322,534 monthly active users and 85,477 customers.
Can a B2B company copy Buffer's content strategy?
Yes, because the core ideas fit any team that knows its buyers' questions. Start with one original data study, one free tool and a plan to update your best posts every year.
Start by pulling your own sitemap and counting how many posts you've updated this year. For help turning product data into content that ranks and gets cited, get a free AI visibility audit.
