Analyze

At Buffer, we define social media analytics as the process of gathering and analyzing data from social media channels for the purpose of guiding our marketing strategy and measuring our performance against our social media goals. Some examples of data points include number of likes, comments, engagement rate, follower growth, and daily average clicks, just to name a few important ones.

With Buffer’s analytics tools, you can track performance metrics, get recommendations to grow your engagement, and create reports for Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn.

Our Analyze tool is available on all paid plans and you can try it for free on our 14-day free trial. No credit card required and you can cancel at any time. You’ll get in-depth insights, measure your social media performance, and create gorgeous reports.

Yes, you can create and export beautiful, on-brand custom reports. You can add all types of metrics, tables, and charts from your dashboard to your reports and download them as PDFs or images. The ability to create custom reports is available on all paid plans.

Yes. Buffer gives you a cross-channel snapshot on Analytics Home (last 7 days) and lets you build custom reports that combine charts and tables from multiple profiles and tags into one exportable report. Fully aggregated, long-range totals across every channel may still require light manual combining.

For eligible Facebook Pages and Instagram professional accounts, Buffer shows organic vs boosted performance separately where Meta’s API provides it (often displayed as organic vs paid breakdowns). Some ad data created in Ads Manager or certain promoted formats may not be fully available via the API.

Buffer pulls metrics from official platform APIs, so the data is generally accurate. Differences from native dashboards are usually caused by time range defaults, backfill limits, metric definitions, data freshness, or platform API restrictions rather than incorrect data.

Buffer’s best time recommendations are primarily based on your account’s recent performance and audience behaviour when enough data is available. If your account doesn’t meet minimum data thresholds, Buffer may temporarily fall back to research-based recommendations until more history accumulates.

Buffer surfaces audience insights in the Audience report for supported channels, but availability varies by network and API access. Some demographics (especially for Facebook Pages) may be limited due to platform changes, so you may still need native analytics for certain breakdowns.

Analyze updates in batches and can take up to 24 hours to reflect new metrics. If data is still stuck after a day, the channel may be disconnected or missing permissions, so refresh or reconnect the channel to restore data collection.

Yes. Buffer custom reports let you choose which charts and tables to include, set date ranges, reorder sections, and export client-ready reports with branding elements like a logo and cover page (plan-dependent). Chart styling is based on Buffer’s design system rather than fully custom per-chart themes.

Buffer’s most complete Analyze reports are available for supported networks like Instagram professional accounts, Facebook Pages, X, and LinkedIn Pages. Newer platforms often support publishing with limited post-level stats only, because their APIs don’t yet expose full analytics for third-party tools.

Buffer backfills a limited amount of historical data when you connect a channel, then tracks metrics going forward. The exact backfill window varies by network and can include limits like a set number of posts or a limited time range rather than lifetime history.

Yes, you can see top-performing post types within Analyze using reports like Answers and post-level performance views, depending on what each platform’s API supports. Some formats (such as certain Reels or Stories metrics) may be limited or unavailable due to API restrictions.

Buffer metrics come from each platform’s official API and reflect that platform’s definitions for reach, impressions, and engagements. Derived metrics like engagement rate are calculated from the available API fields, and exact definitions can vary by network.

You can build a custom report once and reuse it each reporting cycle. The report structure stays the same while the underlying data refreshes automatically as Buffer ingests new metrics, so you can reopen or export with updated numbers for your selected date range.