đ» Open Tabs with Ben Campbell
We asked this social strategist and vibe coder what's in his tabs right now.
Open Tabs is a series under The Weekly Scroll where we peek into what a creator or social media practitioner has open on their browser, saved in their bookmarks, and stuck in their head right now. Each issue, someone new shows us what they're paying attention to.
Ben Campbell is a creative problem solver, social strategist, and vibe coder. He's currently job-hunting in the social space, building tools on the side just because he can, and posting through it all on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.
So, whatâs in your tabs?
Share 3-5 things that are genuinely in your tabs, bookmarks, or saved folder right now.
The Buffer API Docs, as I am actively building two very cool projects with the API.
Social Media Today is, without question, one of the best social media marketing industry news sites on the planet. It helps me stay in the know and also gives me content ideas to talk about.
MTVâs The Challenge Subreddit is a guilty pleasure show I have loved watching since its inception.
My GitHub: I was updating a website that serves as a marketing plan/application for a role I was going after.
Grilling subreddit: I donât know if itâs a genuinely new and growing interest of mine or if itâs because I am a dad now, haha.
Is there a creator or account youâve been obsessed with lately?
There are two of them!
With WrestleMania this past weekend, I have to shout out first â SantiZap. Heâs a wrestling content creator, and what keeps me tuning in is that heâs not ashamed to be a fan, which makes his content that much more genuine and fun to watch. He feels like a friend who you are just listening to talk about the industry you both love so much. He also embraces community well by incorporating hot takes, predictions, and more from his social media to fuel some of his content.
Next is Xtine Cardenas, a fitness content creator. The fitness content industry is not short of people. But she stands out as someone who is genuine and real, and who seems to really want to help people, even in her tagline on her reels and TikToks: âFollow me for a no BS approach to your health and fitness.â
Her content is honest, helpful, and genuinely fun to watch as someone who is alwyas looking for new fitness tips and health content. Sheâs definitely the purple cow (a concept anchored around being remarkable) of the fitness industry if you have ever read Seth Godinâs The Purple Cow.
Whatâs one thing thatâs been shaping your thinking lately that has nothing to do with social media?
Probably parenthood. Having a toddler has completely rewired how I think about attention, energy, and connection. Kids are kind of ruthless truth tellers. They donât care if something is strategic or polished. They respond to what feels real, what holds their attention, and what actually meets them where they are. A lot of good creative thinking comes from the same place: clarity, curiosity, and the understanding that just because something is louder doesnât mean itâs better.
Whatâs one thing youâre working through or figuring out in your creator journey right now?
Something Iâm figuring out right now is how to balance building with sharing.
The hard part is that when youâre making something new, itâs easy to stay in the cave too long. You want to refine it, improve it, make it smarter, make it cleaner, and make sure itâs ready. But if you wait to get it exactly right, you miss the feedback that would actually help shape it.
Iâm working to share earlier, talk about the process while itâs still messy, and treat reactions as signals rather than judgments. Thatâs been uncomfortable, but helpful. What Iâm learning is that people donât just connect with finished work. They connect with honest work. Sometimes showing what youâre still figuring out is more valuable than showing something that looks complete.
Is there a piece of social media news or a platform update that caught your attention recently? What was it, and why did it stand out to you?
It was a while ago, but it was this one announcing that sharing your feed post to your story doesnât boost engagement. I didnât have the data to say it worked, but I thought the more you could repurpose your content within the same app, the better that post would perform. It was a common practice in many of the social roles I have been in, so it definitely caught my attention when IG announced that it doesnât help.
Whatâs in the scroll?
Hi, Tami here! We really have to stop meeting like this đ
Iâm kidding â howâve you been? Weâve just rounded up our yearly retreat, and thereâs a lot of renewed energy flowing throughout the team. And since feeling refreshed seems to be the vibe right now, I thought, âWhy not refresh our Substack crew on how to use Buffer with our latest YouTube video?â Check it out đœ
Like Ben, I get all my social news from SocialMediaToday, but I hadnât checked it in a while, so these updates are as new to me as they are to you (probably).
The big one: accounts that curate content now have a lot more work to do, as Instagram will now be restricting content thatâs been copied from other creators. Good news: as long as youâre pure of heart (doing it with good intentions and changing up enough of the content), youâre in the clear.
Threads now lets you play music in-feed and DM on desktop. Meta added more insights to Edits (big news for people who edit all their videos on their phone, aka me!)
Finally, Vine makes a comeback (?) through a new short-form app called Divine that hosts about 500,000 of the original Vines. Did someone say welcome back, 2016?
If this issue made you want to share whatâs in your tabs, let us know!
Oh, and weâre (still) looking for a Senior Growth Engineer, so if you or anyone you know would be a good fit, check out the application!
Until next week,
Sr. Content Creator