Using content feeds in Buffer

Knowing what to post on social media can be challenging — let Buffer’s content feeds help! With content feeds, you can easily pull in feeds from your favorite blogs to share on your own channels. 
In this article: 
  1. Creating content collections
  2. Renaming collections
  3. Deleting collections
  4. Connecting content feeds
  5. Deleting feeds
  6. Creating a post from your feeds
  7. How to find an RSS feed URL
Content feeds are currently in Beta on the desktop version of Buffer. Learn more about how to test our Beta features here.

Creating content collections

Content feeds live within the Create space in Buffer, so you can pull in inspiration from others as a starting place for your own post ideas. To help keep your feeds organized, you can group your feeds together by topic or theme in a content collection.

For example, you could include several RSS feeds related to running in a collection called "Running Tips" so you can scroll that collection for inspiration when you'd like to create a post or idea related to running.

To create a collection:

  1. Head to the "Create" tab of the web dashboard.
  2. Under "Feeds," click +New Collection.

Renaming content collections

By default, new collections will be named "My collection," so you can rename your collection using the steps below:

  1. Find the content collection you'd like to rename.
  2. Click the three dots ... next to its name.
  3. Select Rename from the dropdown menu, enter the new name, and you're set.

Renaming a content collection

Deleting content collections

  1. Under Feeds, select the collection you wish to delete. 
  2. Click the three dots … next to the collection name and select Delete.

Deleting content feed

Connecting content feeds

Once you've created a content collection, you can start adding RSS feeds.

To connect your feeds: 
  1. First, head to the "Create" tab of the web dashboard. 
  2. Under “Feeds” you should see “My collection.” Click that option and then you can either choose:
  • Subscribe to Feed: will allow you to enter the feed URL. Not sure how to find the URL? Click here for some tips.
  • Import OPML: will allow you to upload an OPML file, so you can import multiple feeds in one go. Once your file is uploaded, you can choose up to three feeds to add to Buffer.



Once you've added your first feed, you can add additional feeds by clicking + Add Subscription:

Buffer Content Feeds +Add Subscription button

Deleting content feeds

  1. To delete a content feed, you'll first need to select the corresponding collection under "Feeds."
  2. The name of the collection should appear at the top of the screen. Click the arrow next to the collection to reveal all feeds within the collection.
  3. Locate the feed you'd like to delete and hover over it. Click the trash can icon that appears and the feed will be removed.

Deleting content feeds

Creating a post or idea from your feeds

Once you’ve created a feed group and connected your feeds, content should start populating so you can choose an item to add to Buffer. To do this:
  1. On the left side of the dashboard, click on a feed. 
  2. In the list that appears, hover over the RSS item that you want to create a post or idea from. 
  3. Click Create Post to create a post or click Save as idea to create an idea to save for later. 

Create Post or Save as Idea options on a content feed item

How to find an RSS feed URL

There are a few ways to find an RSS feed URL: 
  1. Check the website. 
    • Some websites will display a Subscribe or RSS option in the footer of their website. 
  2. Try adding /feed or /rss to the website domain. 
    • For Wordpress blogs, you can add /feed to the end of the URL, so it would look something like this: https://examplewebsite.com/feed/ 
    • For Blogger, you can try: https://examplewebsite.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
    • For Medium, you can try: https://medium.com/feed/@username
    • For YouTube, you can copy and paste the URL for the channel into your RSS reader.
  3. Use an RSS reader to find the URL.
    • Some browser plugins and RSS readers like RSS Feed Reader or Feedly can find the link for you. 
  4. Check the website’s source code. 
    • You can use the “View Page Source” option on a website to try to find the feed URL. To do this: 
    1. Right click on the website’s page
    2. Choose Page Source or View Page Source. 
    3. In the new window that appears, use the “find” feature:
      • (Windows) Ctrl + F 
      • (Mac) CMD+F
  • d. Search for RSS. 
  • e. You’ll find the feed’s URL between the quotes after href=. It could look something like this: 
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="https://example.com/feed" />
Did this answer your question? Thanks for the feedback There was a problem submitting your feedback. Please try again later.