You've probably seen people on social media sharing inspirational quotes or great one-liners on a beautiful background. Want to create your own? Buffer has a new app that makes it easy to do this in just 30 seconds. Meet Pablo.

Buffer is famous as the easy way to schedule posts for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks. Pablo is meant to bring the same simplicity to create images specifically meant for social networks.

"Images on social media are something we've been observing and making use of ourselves at Buffer for a long time now, and some time ago we published data about Tweets with images getting 150% more Retweets," wrote Buffer founder Joel Gascoigne in a comment on Product Hunt, the app recommendation social network.

What Is Pablo All About?

Each social network has certain image dimensions that are best suited for sharing on it. Buffer knows all about tools and resource to create images for social media, and is bringing that expertise into a simple interface where you don't have to do any heavy lifting.

In Pablo, all you have to do is write your text in the box, choose a background image, and you're ready to download or share it.

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Of course, there are options to customize it more. You can pick among a few fonts and change their formatting or size, you can make the background image appear blurred, pixelated or black-and-white, and you can add a second line or an icon.

In case you want your own background image, you can do that too. Upload one from your computer and Pablo will resize it to dimensions that are best for posting on Twitter or Facebook.

Once you're done, share the image on your social networks, use Buffer to schedule it for an optimized time, or download the image. If you're sharing directly, the text you wrote is automatically added as your tweet or FB post, with the image as an attachment. Of course, you can edit your tweet or post.

What Is Missing In Pablo?

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Gascoigne himself admits that Pablo still needs some improvement. And rightly so. There are a few things lacking in Pablo:

  1. It currently supports only Twitter and Facebook directly, without going through Buffer. You want to share directly on LinkedIn or Google+? No can do, sir.
  2. You can only upload photos from your hard drive. Found a great image to use on the web? No can do, sir.
  3. Pablo is web-only and does not work well on touchscreen mobile devices. You want to use Pablo form your phone? No can do, sir.

Pablo vs. TwitShot vs. Spruce

Pablo is actually really similar to Spruce, but offers a few more things like text formatting, an additional line, and an icon. There's really no reason to use Spruce any more.

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However, TwitShot scores over Pablo in its ability to retrieve images from links you share, thus making your tweets seem more engaging. It doesn't have Pablo's ability to write on the image itself, but retrieving images would be a fantastic addition to Pablo's suite of features.

Pablo's big selling point is its ability to integrate with Buffer's smart scheduling. Remember, posting at the right time is one of the essentials of personal branding on social media.

Should You Use Pablo?

Right now, Pablo seems to be in its infancy, but it's still a useful service when you want to highlight a quote or any impactful text. But a dedicated web app seems like quite an inconvenience.

Buffer uses extensions in browsers and fantastic mobile apps. Once Pablo gains the same features (they're on their way), it would be quite the handy tool. Right now, it seems like something you'd use once in a while, not as regular as Buffer itself.

That said, Pablo is a pretty good product to start off and worth taking for a spin. Try it out.