Meet the Maker Ervin Kalemi
from Publer

Hi Ervin. Please introduce yourself and the team at Publer…

Hello everyone. My name is Ervin and I’m the founder of Publer.

Besides running a company and other related tasks, programming and developing features (my profession on paper) is what I enjoy the most.

We’re a team of 9 split into two cities/countries (Tirana, Albania and Prishtina, Kosovo). We’re 6 developers (Erlind, Orges, Jona, Albin, Ornaldo and Shkumbin), one content/social media manager (Xhesika) and one UX/UI and graphic designer (Fiorald).

We’re currently hiring a sales representative, one graphic designer and one customer support representative.

How would you describe Publer?

When I was thinking of the product, I wanted to build something powerful, not just another social media scheduler. What’s powerful? A Superhero…

Publer, which is short for Publisher, today comes with plenty of integrations, time-saving features, analytics, and some artificial intelligence. You can schedule posts for all major social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google My Business and YouTube), integrate with other tools that you use for digital marketing, such as Canva, get hashtag and content recommendation and much more.

Who is your typical user? What brings them to Publer?

The majority of customers are small business owners, freelancers and solopreneurs. They come to Publer because it’s affordable, packed with features and most importantly, it’s very clean and easy to use.

I’ve personally stayed on top of customer support, so that’s another huge advantage.

I remember once an event promoter from Canada contacted us via chat with a general question. She was surprised she got a response from the other side of the world faster than Hootsuite that was only a few miles away from her house. She has been with us for more than 3 years.

Publer is bursting with features, such as post recycling, watermarking, signatures and auto-replies. Are you worried you’re trying to do too much?

Social media management industry is a very competitive one. The only way you can enter the market and find your niché is if you try everything. Plus, customers are getting overwhelmed with the number of tools they need to use for managing their social accounts.

Of course we cannot satisfy everyone.

We plan and build features based on what the majority of customers want. We have a public feedback page where everyone can cast their votes and suggest new features. The more votes a feature request has, the higher its priority, the faster it will become a reality.

I was incredibly impressed with your post creation features in my review. Which feature are you most proud of?

I would say the ability to customize posts for each social network that you select. You can share a photo on Instagram, a video on Twitter and link on Facebook at the same time and from the same spot. This feature, or the composer in general, has been the most complex one to date, both in terms of development and UI/UX.

How have you and the team grown Publer?

Just like any business, it has had its ups and downs. I started it as a side project many years ago and it initially worked only for Facebook. In 2017 I hired 3 more developers so we could support the rest of the social networks, but due to all the privacy scandals that Facebook faced in 2018, our only source of income, I ended up being on my own again. We’re now a team of size 9 and actively hiring.

What’s your future plans for the tool?

Some of the main goals for this year include agency features (a white-label solution, better-organized workspaces, more roles, multi-level approval process), some rebranding, building the Android and iOS apps, and releasing a public API so that other developers can build on top of what we have built so far.

This year we are also launching our second product, a unified inbox for emails, messages, reviews, comments, and live chat.

If you were to grow your business on one social media platform alone, which would it be?

As ironic as it sounds, I’m personally active on only one social network: LinkedIn.

I started posting more on my personal LinkedIn profile 2 years ago and I haven’t stopped ever since. I noticed that the organic reach was much better compared to other social networks. Plus, it was perfect for my use case (B2B2C) and the content I like to share.

I share personal entrepreneurial stories, business tips, video messages, and once in a while updates from Publer.

I only have 3,000+ connections, yet my posts reach on average 5,000 people, sometimes more than 10,000 people without any sponsorship or hack.

Apart from Publer, what’s your favourite digital marketing tool?

Crisp. We wouldn’t be able to excel in customer service without it.

I have tried several platforms, including Intercom, but Crisp was the only one to meet (exceed for that matter) my expectations. It’s a unified inbox for emails, Facebook, Twitter and Live chat. It’s very practical, cost efficient and the team behind it is awesome. I feel bad that I will become one of their competitors in the near future.

Finally, where can people find out more?

As I mentioned above, I’m active only on LinkedIn.

You can find Publer at Publer.io.