Using Buffer Analyze

Buffer Analyze is our analytics dashboard for understanding how your social media content is performing across Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, and LinkedIn. This article covers everything Analyze offers: the dashboard tabs, custom reports, metric definitions, and the limitations to keep in mind.

In this article:

1. What you can do with Analyze
2. Finding your way around
3. Boosted post data
4. Creating custom reports
5. Metric descriptions by channel
6. Good to knows and limitations
7. FAQ

What you can do with Analyze

Analyze brings your post, channel, and audience data together in one dashboard so you can:

• Compare performance across Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, and LinkedIn
• See which posts, hashtags, and tags drive the most engagement
• Understand your audience demographics (Instagram and Facebook)
• Get recommendations on the best time, type, and frequency to post (Instagram Professional)
• Build custom PDF reports to share with stakeholders
• Export data as CSV or image files

You'll find Analyze by clicking Analytics in the left side of your Buffer dashboard. It's not available on mobile.

Finding your way around

Analyze is organized into tabs you'll access from a channel's analytics view. To find any tab, select the channel from the left side, choose a profile or Page from the drop-down, then click the tab you want and set your date range.

Home

The Home page shows high-level metrics across all your connected channels for the last seven days (date range can't be customized here). You'll see combined totals, your most recent posts with reach and engagement, a per-channel overview, and links to recent reports.

Overview

The Overview tab shows your overall engagement and follower trends for a specific channel, including:

• Performance table: Aggregate metrics for the selected date range, including engagement on older posts still receiving interaction
• Average performance chart: Average performance per post, useful for setting and tracking goals
• Metrics breakdown chart: Engagement and followers over time, with the option to compare against the previous period

Organic and boosted posts are represented by blue and green respectively. Hover over any bar to see the exact split.

Posts

The Posts tab gives you a history of your published posts so you can compare individual post performance and spot patterns. It includes:

• Summary table: Aggregate metrics for all posts published during the selected date range
• Hashtag performance table: Top five hashtags by engagement, including hashtags in both the caption and the first comment
• Post insights table: All published posts, sorted by impressions by default. Filter by keyword or hashtag, sort by another metric, or click any post to see all its metrics.

Audience

The Audience tab shows top demographics by gender and age, top cities, and top countries on a world map.

Stories (Instagram)

The Stories tab shows reach, completion rate, impressions, and exits for each Instagram story, plus a metrics breakdown over time.

Answers

The Answers tab recommends the best time, type, and frequency to post for maximum engagement.

If we don't have enough data yet, we'll suggest times based on our Best Times to Post on Instagram research.

Tags

Tags let you organize content across channels and track how a campaign or content theme is performing.

For guidance on creating and managing tags, see Creating and managing campaigns.

Boosted post data

Analyze includes data for boosted Facebook posts and promoted Instagram posts. In charts, organic posts appear in blue and boosted posts in green.

If you're not seeing boosted post data:

1. Click your profile avatar in the bottom left, then choose Channels
2. Click the three-dot menu icon next to the channel
3. Click Refresh Connection. (For a full walkthrough, check out our guide to Refreshing a channel in Buffer).

Selecting the right date range: The Post Summary table shows results of posts published and boosted during the selected range. The Post Insights table shows posts published during the range, regardless of when they were boosted.

For example, if you published a post on July 1 and boosted it August 1 to August 5: to see boosted results in the Post Summary table, your range should include August 1 to August 5. To see the boosted post in the Post Insights table, your range should include July 1.

If something you'd like to see isn't supported, let us know on our suggestions board.

Creating custom reports

You can build custom PDF reports using any of the tables and charts in Analyze. There's no need to create a new report each week or month, since you can change the date range any time you view it.

Adding tables and charts: From any tab, click the plus (➕) button at the top right of any chart. To create a new report, enter a name and click Create Report. To add to an existing report, click the report name.

Viewing and customizing reports: Click Reports on the left side of your dashboard. From here, you can:

• Change the date range
• Rename, add a description, or upload a logo (PNG and JPG)
• Reorder elements with the up and down arrows when hovering
• Remove a chart by hovering and clicking the X icon
• Add notes to charts with Add chart note

Downloading reports: Click Export as PDF at the top right. Here's an example report. For a quick image or CSV export, click Export as... in the upper right of any tab.

Metric descriptions by channel

Facebook

All Facebook metrics are pulled from Facebook's Graph API.

Instagram

All Instagram metrics are pulled from Instagram's Graph API. To view advanced analytics, your account must be set up as a professional account and connected to a Facebook Page.

X/Twitter

All X/Twitter metrics are pulled from Gnip (X/Twitter's enterprise data service) and X/Twitter API v2.

LinkedIn

Good to knows and limitations

Data backfill when you first connect a channel

Facebook

• Due to Meta limitations, we can't ingest post clicks, impressions, engaged users, or gender/age demographics for Facebook Pages
• Facebook accounts need 100+ fans for data to be available
• After a calendar month, metrics for individual posts stop updating
• Facebook Reels and Facebook Stories data aren't pulled into Analyze (Reels metrics are available in the Sent tab of Publish)
• Ads created through Facebook Ads Manager aren't included

Instagram

• Instagram business accounts need 100+ followers for data to be available
• Analytics will only backfill if the Instagram account is linked to a Facebook Page
• Stories, audience data, and follower counts can't be backfilled
• For Reels, only impressions, likes, and comments are available
• IGTV and collaboration post data isn't available
• After a calendar month, metrics for individual posts stop updating

X/Twitter

• 30 days of data is backfilled when you connect your account
• Natively published posts can take up to 24 hours to appear. Posts published by Buffer appear immediately.
• We can ingest data for 100 posts per day across natively published and Buffer-published posts. If you publish more than 100 in a day, some native posts may be missed.
• Follower counts can't be backfilled
• After 20 days, metrics for individual posts stop updating
• The post count doesn't include replies or reposts, so it may differ from X/Twitter Analytics
• For threads, only data for the first post is pulled in
• Engagement totals may be lower than X/Twitter Analytics due to how we calculate engagement (see metric table above)
• Boosted X/Twitter ads aren't included

LinkedIn

• Analyze supports LinkedIn Pages but not LinkedIn profiles. For profile metrics, visit the Sent tab of Publish.
• We fetch metrics for the last 500 posts
• Carousel posts created with PDF files aren't supported (multiple image posts are)
• We can pull in metrics for LinkedIn sponsored posts
• We can't pull in metrics for reposts

Disconnected channels

If a channel disconnects, your latest data won't populate. See Refreshing a channel in Buffer to reconnect.

FAQ

I just connected my account but I can't see analytics. Why?

Data isn't collected in real time. We pull from each network's API in daily batches, and it can take up to 24 hours for new data to appear. Check back in a day or two.

Why does my data in Analyze differ from native analytics?

A few reasons: we backfill limited amounts of data when you first connect a channel, API limitations restrict certain metrics, and the way we calculate things like X/Twitter engagement differs from how each network does. See the Good to knows and limitations section for specifics.

Can I compare my data year over year?

Not automatically. Once you've used Buffer for over a year, you can select the current year as the date range and create custom reports to compare against the previous year's data.

Is it possible to export sent posts?

Yes. From any tab, click Export as... to download CSV or image files. For a polished PDF, build a custom report and click Export as PDF.

Can I see analytics in the mobile app?

Not at this time. Analyze is only available on the web dashboard.

More resources

• Understanding sent post metrics within Buffer's Publish dashboard
• Understanding UTM parameters and Google Analytics
• Social Media Metrics You Should Be Tracking (And Why)
• The Best Time to Post on Social Media, Backed by Data