Buffer vs. Piano Amplifier

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Buffer
Score 8.4 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Buffer is a social sharing tool. When browsing content, clicking on the Buffer icon automatically stores the content and schedules posts to social media channels throughout the day.
$0
Piano Amplifier
Score 5.6 out of 10
N/A
A solution to amplify content with AI-powered social publishing. Used to grow and engage an audience through real-time data and machine-learning optimization, guiding users to content, and to just the right place in the social conversation. Socialflow was acquired by Piano in 2022, and is now a Piano solution.N/A
Pricing
BufferPiano Amplifier
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Essentials
$6
per month per channel
Team
$12
per month per channel
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BufferPiano Amplifier
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsA discount is offered for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BufferPiano Amplifier
Features
BufferPiano Amplifier
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.6
Ratings
7% above category average
Piano Amplifier
5.1
Ratings
45% below category average
Content planning and scheduling9.00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Content optimization8.00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Workflow management8.80 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Audience targeting00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.3
Ratings
5% above category average
Piano Amplifier
5.1
Ratings
43% below category average
Campaign success analytics8.30 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Real-time tracking00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Competitor analysis00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
9.0
Ratings
12% above category average
Piano Amplifier
7.1
Ratings
12% below category average
Role-based user permissions & privileges9.00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Mobile access9.00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Piano Amplifier
5.0
Ratings
43% below category average
Boolean keyword searches00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam00 Ratings4.60 Ratings
Sentiment analysis00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Broad channel coverage00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Piano Amplifier
5.0
Ratings
45% below category average
Automated routing and prioritization00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Customer interaction histories00 Ratings4.60 Ratings
Bulk actions00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Piano Amplifier
5.1
Ratings
41% below category average
Lead generation00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Content marketing00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Paid media management00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Piano Amplifier
5.7
Ratings
39% below category average
Twitter00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Facebook00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
LinkedIn00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Google+00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Instagram00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Pinterest00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
YouTube00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
User Ratings
BufferPiano Amplifier
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(0 ratings)
5.6
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
5.1
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.1
(0 ratings)
5.6
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BufferPiano Amplifier
Likelihood to Recommend
It is a very interesting tool for entrepreneurs or CEOs of startups who do not have much time to manage social media communication and also have few resources at the beginning of their venture. It can also be convenient for small companies that do not have specific personnel with training in community management and require easy-to-use tools to carry out the basic actions of scheduled publication on social media.
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SocialFlow is good on paper but in my personal experience it is clunky, doesn’t do what you want it to, and their support team doesn’t take your issues seriously. I wouldn’t recommend this if you work on tight timeframes as it has a scattergun approach to posting on Facebook. I would like to think that my experiences are due to me not having thorough training, but I am not sure if this is the case.
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Pros
  • I can plan and publish content on social channels.
  • Buffer's interface is quite tidy and generates the necessary facilities to save us time in publishing consistent content.
  • It has a special price; it is pretty affordable.
  • It has the possibility of integrating with other tools to improve its functions.
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  • Unique algorithm does not just 'time' posts, it helps determine the optimal time for posts to be distributed. Its why all the major publishers like NYT, WSJ, Conde Nast, Mashable, etc. use SocialFlow to distribute its social content.
  • Dashboard gives insight into which posts perform best.
  • It's streamlined and simple and not overly or unnecessarily feature-laden.
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Cons
  • Analytics-- The analytics on the Pro plan are limited at best. You can simply review your posts from the past 30 days, but you can't access any analysis (or even simple tallying of Likes, Shares, etc.) without upgrading to the Premium or Business plans, which are otherwise more than we need at the moment.
  • Publish+Reply+Analyze-- It's a bit tedious to have these basic social media functions/tools separated out as three distinct products, as well as overkill for a small nonprofit without a dedicated social media team. I imagine each tool is good at its job if you need 'em.
  • Linking to Accounts-- Buffer seems to lose touch with Facebook and LinkedIn somewhat frequently. It's vaguely annoying but very simple to fix, so I just roll with it.
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  • Per-client customizations to differentiate themselves from competitors
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Likelihood to Renew
Ease of use, affordability, time saved and just love for the app and the team. It's not a miracle tool that will suddenly increase your company's value or leads, you still need to put in quality posts, thoughts and content but when used regularly and with thought, you'll be happy in the long run
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Big bang for buck. My clients like the results and the insights.
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Usability
Easy enough to use even my boss got it right away. It helps to off-set the workload to less active times, and we can preschedule way in advance, which also helps to keep the team on track as we know what we have planned and want to reach our milestones before posts go online.
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I give this rating as an outcome to understand competitor social strategy to improve strategic positioning. Drive improvement by benchmarking and serving to compete on content Identify trends, topics/themes, potential threats, etc. Improve campaigns by measuring and comparing audience reach, Interaction, etc. Measure engagement rate to analyze audience association.​ What themes/topics are generating higher engagement Insights to assist marketing teams in planning future campaigns
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Reliability and Availability
Buffer is always on hand and very reliable, their software suite rarely has outages
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Buffer performs well on both desktop and mobile platforms. The one area as I have stated before is that it does not always want to automatically push to Instagram and the user will have to go do it manually. Buffer works very well pushing to other platforms. The instagram issue is the only reason buffer does not get a 10 on this section
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
  1. It really helped to my business to grow online.
  2. I was able to take actions mindfully as the analytics are damn good.
  3. Also used for managing clients social media accounts and it proved to be a best resource.
  4. Clients were really happy as they got high demand and growth on internet and the secret is Buffer.
  5. The user interface is really easy to understand and manage. Support is 24/7 available to help.
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I give this rating as overall support for Social footprint analysis to identify and benchmark the competitor's social presence. Extraction of retrospective data from identified social channels. Complex query building with defined subsets of keywords to gauge social buzz. Analysis of historic datasets with a detailed classification that offered insights into the marketing efforts and messaging patterns.
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Implementation Rating
We were very satisfied with the implementation of Buffer. We had no issues switching from the platform that we were using over to buffer. Our staff did not even miss a beat when it came to posting content. It was an easy transition and I feel that is something that buffer has really done well. They have an "out of the box" usability platform
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Both of them are great at their own levels but I find Buffer quite easy to go and the way they perform every task is quite like my way of work so I personally like Buffer more, it has helped me save my most of the time hence improved my work efficiency and also the creativity they put into my work is outstanding. The support I get whenever I run into problems they provide a quick response every time.
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SocialFlow stacks up against others by : 1. Event registrations, participation and promotions, companies highlighting their sessions, speakers, and delegations of different countries drove the event-specific volumes 2. Using Twitter as the primary platform and mainly constituted mentions around registrations, participations, promotions of sessions/panels, and opinions on the same 3. Discussions around the event’s annual themes, the new ‘Davos Manifesto’ and posts expressing delight for being invited, participation confirmations, and comments on different sessions/panel promotions drove the positive coverage 4. During-Event and Post-Event periods saw companies shift their focus to highlight sessions and panel discussions aligned more toward business-driven themes
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Scalability
Buffer does what it say on tin as they say! you can always count on Buffer. Buffer can be scale to 25 social account with 2,000 scheduled post which is enough for most agencies or businesses
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • It has saved money by allowing us to automate our social using one person
  • It allows us to connect one channel at a time instead of wasting money on larger account management tools
  • We are making money, because it has already delivered several clients
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  • It doesn’t post what we expect.
  • It posts things over and over again.
  • It’s not reliable for forward Planning.
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ScreenShots

Buffer Screenshots

Screenshot of The Buffer dashboardScreenshot of Customizable posting scheduleScreenshot of Tailored PostsScreenshot of List or calendar view of scheduled postsScreenshot of Browser extensionScreenshot of Social media analytics