What does the creative process of a writing pro look like?

Hey folks👋🏽

It’s been an interesting week in social media — I’ve been having a fun time over on Bluesky. Watching the platform grow is interesting, especially considering who’s building it.

Are you on it yet? What do you think about the atmosphere? Do you think it could be the Twitter alternative? While you chew on that, let's get into what we've got for you today.

💌 In today’s email:

• 🔓 Take a peek behind the curtain at Elisa Doucette's creative process
• 📱 Mitra recommends replying to comments with a video on Reels & TikTok
• 📣 What’s happening in social: Bluesky is the new belle of the social media ball, Instagram wants ALL the UGC, and TikTok (allegedly) fixed its Creator Fund
• +All our latest content from the blog

Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next Friday!

Warmly, 

Tami & the Buffer team

P.S. Curious about how our AI Assistant came to life? Check out this interview with Senior Product Manager Diego Sanchez.

🚀 Share click-worthy content and skyrocket your engagement with Buffer

Stand out from the sea of sameness online with visuals that catch the eye and are published at the perfect time. With Buffer by your side, organize content in one place, easily import your existing work, learn what works with analytics, and get more eyes on your content. 

🔓 Creators Unlocked: Elisa Doucette

For the latest installment of Creators Unlocked, we took a peek behind the curtain of Elisa Doucette's creator journey.

Elisa is an agency founder and prolific founder, published in Forbes and The New York Times. I asked her what her creative process looks like, and she delivered, sharing the process that powers her creativity for all the content she’s responsible for.

What's your creative process like? How do you go from no content to content?

My creative process involves various steps and tools, starting with collecting the seed of an idea. These ideas could be observations, thoughts, or content needed for an upcoming deadline.

I use Google Keep to jot down ideas on the go or Trello to store them for incubation. In this incubation phase, I collect links, conduct research, and build out the article concept.

I like to think things through as much as possible. A technique I learned from Sherlock Holmes books called "Mind Palace" helps me visualize and organize my ideas. I use boards, wooden desks, or notebooks to lay out my thoughts and move them around to figure out the article structure.

Once I have a rough outline, which is more of a tornado of ideas and marginalia rather than a strict bullet-point structure, I sit down with Google Docs to write the article. By the time I start writing, I've already figured out about 80% of the content, so the last 20% is just finding the right words. This pre-thinking process allows me to write thousands of words per hour, similar to Ernest Hemingway's iceberg method.

After writing, my content goes through edits and revisions before being published. For social media content, I at least have them proofread, especially since I run an editing agency, and it's essential to maintain a high standard. For longer pieces like LinkedIn posts, they may go through content edits as well.

In essence, my creative process is about nurturing the seed of an idea and giving it the time and space to grow into a fully-fledged piece of content. From capturing ideas to incubation, outlining, and writing, I use a combination of digital and analog tools to create content that resonates with my audience.

🌧️ It’s raining free tools!

Along with our robust social media management capabilities, we also offer an extensive list of free tools with everything from a UTM generator to a link-in-bio tool to a tool that turns your URLs into IG posts. Best part? You don’t even need to sign up!

👇🏽 The latest from the blog

• From Self-Taught Creative to 7-Figure Art Business: Here's How I Did It — Peggy Dean shares four mindsets that have helped her build a thriving art business as a completely self-taught creator.

• Growing A 200k+ Audience By Channeling Personal Experiences Into Content with Joy Ofodu — We unlock Joy Ofodu’s creator journey discussing everything from channeling all the feelings from her breakup in 2020 into comedy content to her goals for her platform.
• We Pay Out Unused Sabbaticals When Someone Leaves Buffer, Here’s Why — Our Chief of Staff, Caro Kopprasch, dives into why we pay out sabbaticals, what the process looks like, and even what it costs.

📱 Social Tip of The Week from Mitra, Buffer’s Social Media Manager 

Have you tried replying to comments with a video on your Instagram Reels or TikToks? This is a great way to engage with your community and an easy way to share more authentic content.

Here’s an example on Instagram from @yoursocialteam when someone asked for an office tour on one of their other videos and here’s an example on TikTok from @mrmilothechonk (one of my favorite TikTok cats) who is a water connoisseur, and followers were leaving comments with suggestions on different water brands they wanted to see Milo try!

And here’s a tutorial on how to do this on TikTok and an article on how to do this on Instagram!

🤳 What's Happening in Social

• 📈 Bluesky’s popularity soars as people wonder if it’s the new Twitter. It could be — Jack Dorsey, Twitter founder and former CEO is building it.
• 💰 TikTok opens up its revamped creator fund to all eligible creators in the US, now called the Creativity Program Beta. The new program is intended to generate higher revenue and more opportunities for creators.
• 🤝 Instagram’s recent policy update opens up opportunities for user-generated content collaborations between creators and brands.
• 📲 Bonus: Amazon launches Inspire, its TikTok-like shopping feed, to everyone in the US [gated content].

Thanks for reading! 💟

What would you like to see more (or less) of in the newsletter? How do you feel about our deep dives or newsletter-exclusive series? Give us all your feedback in this form or let us know on all our social channels @buffer!

Unsubscribe | Update my mail settings 

Sent by the team at Buffer
2443 Fillmore St #380-7163 San Francisco, CA 94115 USA