How We’re Empowering the Entire Buffer Team to Become Creators

If you’ve been seeing Buffer teammates pop up on your social feeds a lot more lately, it’s not a coincidence. It’s by design! We’ve been intentionally investing in building a team of Buffer creators as a company-wide initiative.

At the core of this work is a simple belief: being creators ourselves will continue to set Buffer up for long-term success. By living the same creator journey as our customers, we can make better product decisions and connect more meaningfully with the people we serve.

Becoming a team of creators is a signature brand bet that we've kicked off in 2025; it’s our way of building Buffer from the inside out.

In this post, I’ll take you behind the scenes of how we’re making it happen. From the systems and workshops we’ve designed to support our teammates, to the early signals of impact we’re already seeing.

The evolution from dogfooding to Team of Creators

Buffer’s story with creation started long before we called it “Team of Creators.”

Back in November 2010, our CEO Founder Joel Gascoigne built the first version of Buffer during a Startup Sprint to solve a problem he was experiencing: he wanted a way to space out when his tweets were sent.

In the early days, we were small, the product was personal, and many teammates were building in public — tweeting often and using Buffer just as our customers did. Creation was woven into the day-to-day in a natural way, but there was no formal structure and no shared expectation.

As Buffer grew, our approach became more intentional through dogfooding — using Buffer internally to publish our own content, test new features, and catch bugs before they reached customers. Dogfooding kept us close to the product and gave us useful feedback loops, but it had its limits. We were using the product, but not necessarily living the customer journey.

The shift to building a team of creators

Team of Creators is a deliberate shift from dogfooding, and a defensible long-term strategy that could be a huge differentiator for Buffer.

We’re no longer just testing our product internally; we’re creating content in public together. That means experiencing the same hesitations, creative blocks, and cold-start challenges our customers face; and learning how to move through them. In the process, we’re building our own voices and consistency; and gaining a deeper understanding of what it takes to grow as creators which ultimately helps us create a better product experience.

Team of Creators is about encouraging every Bufferoo to share their voice in a way that feels natural to them; on social platforms they’re most comfortable with, and in areas they genuinely care about. That might mean a designer sharing their process on Instagram, a marketer offering industry tips on LinkedIn, or a teammate posting their hiking adventures on Threads. It’s not about only posting about Buffer, it’s about building the habit of creating and connecting consistently.

Joel talked about this shift from dogfooding during our June 2025 All Hands, reflecting on how Team of Creators marks a natural evolution in our culture: one that moves beyond transparency into visibility, and invites every teammate to be a storyteller in their own way.

Setting expectations at Buffer

This shift has been intentional, and is a change we're making company-wide. We've had certain teams in the past that naturally worked on becoming creators, but this change is company-wide — every role, every team.

To truly make the vision for our team of creators be a reality, Joel, set a clear expectation that everyone on the Buffer team participates and starts their creator journey; with managers supporting this work along the way.

We’re not just empowering the entire Buffer team to grow their voices on social, build public credibility, and share real stories from behind the scenes. We’re setting a high standard of excellence.

This shift strengthens our culture, builds a stronger bridge to our community, and creates a form of brand differentiation that’s hard to replicate. As Michael Porter writes in What is Strategy?:

“A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve.