How this Slack Community for Remote Workers Unites from All Over the Globe

We're huge fans of Buffer's Slack channel. It's a welcoming community with so much positivity and enthusiasm, you can't help but quit your lurking and pipe up in their weekly challenges and chats. And at the head is Arielle Tannenbaum, Buffer's community strategist. We asked her more about the buzzing group.

How did the Buffer Slack channel first get started?

The Buffer Community on Slack was created back in August 2015. At the time, our main way to bring the community together was our weekly Twitter chat, #Bufferchat, and we wanted a more permanent online space for our community to gather and connect. We saw the amazing connections that were forming in the #Bufferchat discussions, and we wanted to help facilitate those connections being made and create more learning opportunities more than just once a week!

What type of folks make up the Buffer community?

The people in the Buffer Community are amazing! They are some of the most kind, positive, supportive, smart, and thoughtful people I've ever met. They are looking to grow, learn new things, help each other, and build meaningful connections with one another. It's an awesome mix of people from all over the world— from Helsinki, to Jamaica, to Seattle, to London, to Lagos, to Mumbai, and everywhere in between. There are social media experts, brand new social media marketers, entrepreneurs, small business owners, digital marketers, content creators, product managers, customer support specialists, developers, and more. 

How would you describe the culture?

Very emoji friendly! :) The culture really revolves around growth— our members really enjoy discussing personal growth, making self-improvements, learning new skills to level up in their jobs, sharing updates on their goals and aspirations, etc. Many of our traditions and activities are about improving in some aspect of our lives, whether it's reading more (our weekly reading challenges in the #reading-room), setting smarter goals (in our #weekly-goals channel), getting inspired to experiment with social media marketing (during the weekly Mastermind in the #social-media-strategy channel), or taking better care of ourselves (with Wellness Wednesdays in the #wellness channel). 

We also feel really lucky that our community has embraced Buffer's own values, through bringing a lot of positivity, gratitude, clear communication, and thoughtful listening to their community interactions. 

Tell us more about your community's events. What’s your advice for someone just joining?

We have a lot going on— there are many many ways to get involved! We have traditions every day of the week and our big weekly event is the Community Mastermind every Thursday, where folks come together to share their social media/marketing/work challenges and give advice to one another. 

There are lots of "challenges" to get involved with, and members kick off a lot of social media and marketing-related discussions every day. 

We've also experimented with getting together on video chats for what we called "Round Table Discussions" (for face-to-face conversations) and Peer Learning Sessions (where one community member teaches a skill or concept to others) -- these have been really fun and I hope to do more of them!

I send out a post in the #announcements channel every Monday with the list of events and discussions planned for the week ahead, so new members can always check that to see what's going on.

What's next for Buffer's Slack community?

We are always trying out new activities, discussions, ways to connect people, traditions, and more. Every six months, we bring on a new group of Community Hosts (volunteer leaders in the community) and that shapes the culture in new ways each time! We'll be putting out a call for new Hosts in July 2018. 

Intrigued? You can find Buffer's Slack community here and join for free.