Creating ideas in the Buffer mobile app

By saving all your best ideas in one place, you’ll have a collection of inspiration to jump-start your content creation process. When inspiration strikes, use your Content or Create space to store photos, GIFs, videos, links, or text so you can quickly turn them into posts when you're ready.

In this article:

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).