Creating ideas in the Buffer mobile app

The inspiration for creating great content can strike anytime or anywhere. With Ideas, you can store all of your creative concepts in one place to later use as post inspiration.

If you’re away from your computer when you get inspired, you can simply open the Buffer mobile app, create a new idea and jot down a few notes or add images, links, or GIFs for later. Come back to your idea later on the web or in the app to edit or turn it into a draft or published post when you're ready.

You can think of Ideas as the starting place for your content creation process, so you can find them within the new "Content" or "Create" menu of the Buffer mobile app.

This article contains the following sections:

1. Creating and editing ideas in the mobile app
2. Deleting ideas in the mobile app
3. Scheduling a draft or post from an idea in the mobile app
4. Creating a Shortcut for Ideas in iOS

Creating and editing ideas in the mobile app

Let's create your first idea!

1. Tap the menu bar.
2. Tap Content or Create.
3. Tap the + icon to add text, bullet points, images, a video, or anything else that you want to capture for inspiration later.
4. Tap Save to store your idea in your Content or Create space for later. 
5. To edit an idea, tap on the idea, make changes to the idea and tap Save.

Deleting ideas in the mobile app

To delete an idea:

1. From the Content or Create space, tap the idea you want to delete.
2. Tap the trash can and follow the prompts.

Scheduling a draft or post from an idea in the mobile app

Once you’re ready to start drafting a post from your idea, you can either schedule it as a draft (Learn more about Drafts here) or schedule it as a post.

To save your idea as a draft or schedule it as a port:

1. From the Content or Create area, tap an idea.
2. Once the composer opens, tap the paper airplane icon at the bottom of the screen.
3. The composer will open and you can proceed to compose the post as you would normally and tap Next.
4. From here, you can choose to Schedule as Draft to save your post as a draft across Buffer OR you can schedule it as a post (Learn more about Scheduling Posts on the Buffer mobile app here).
5. As a final step, a pop-up should appear and ask if you’d like to Keep Idea or Discard Idea. Select Keep Idea to save your idea in the Content or Create area for the future or Discard Idea to delete it.

Creating a Shortcut for Ideas in iOS

If you're browsing a website on your iOS device and want to create an idea, you can save a few steps in the process by using iOS Shortcuts. You can add the option "Create an idea" to your share sheet so that you can save a website as an idea with just a few taps. 

Here's how to do this:

1. Open the Shortcuts app.
2. If you search 'Buffer,' you should see the option to 'Save an idea in Buffer.'
3. Tap the three dots in the corner and tap Use in New Shortcut from the dropdown.
4. Tap the "i" menu at the bottom of the screen.
5. Toggle "Show in Share Sheet" ON and then tap Done.
6. On the next screen, tap the input field.
7. Tap Clear to toggle all options OFF.
8. In the search bar, type URLs. 
9. Switch the "URLs" toggle ON and then tap Done.

10. Tap Save an Idea and then tap the "Link" area. From the auto-suggestions, tap Shortcut Input and then Done.

11. 'Save an idea in Buffer' shortcut should now appear in your Shortcuts menu. You should also see 'Save an idea in Buffer' when you open the Share Sheet, so you can tap it to save your idea in Buffer.

12. When you're ready to work on your idea, open the Buffer app, tap the "Content" area, and tap your idea to get started! 

Want to learn more about creating Buffer Shortcuts? Read our full guide to Using Siri Shortcuts in the Buffer mobile app (iOS).