Buffer is an excellent tool that lets you queue up Tweets and then have them released when they will be the most effective, allowing you to reach the largest number of your Twitter followers.
If you’re like most people you have a few times during the day that you consuming content on the web. If you find ten really interesting things in the morning you’d post all ten of those to Twitter at once. If you did that again over your lunch break, you’d again be blasting out 10 back-to-back tweets. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, there is a better way: Buffer.
To use Buffer is simple: Find content you like whenever you want and place it in your “Buffer” (more on how to get things into your Buffer in a minute). Buffer then automatically tweets for you throughout the day. There are of course other tools like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck which allow scheduled tweets, but you have you schedule them individually. With Buffer you define the times during the day (or night) that you want your tweets released and simply add content to your Buffer and it does the rest for you until your queued up tweets are empty.
Co-creator Leo Wildrich explains why you should schedule tweets:
The old perception that Twitter is a place to express your daily habits has long faded. Twitter turned into a powerful network, giving you both great conversations and targeted traffic for your site. Managing your time efficiently is key. Buffer helps you to optimize your time on twitter, yet without turning into one of the feared “auto-everything” bots.
Adding content to Buffer
My favorite thing about Buffer is that it provides SOOO many ways to get content into your buffer. From the Buffer website you can simple enter a tweet just like you would through the Twitter.com site or any other Twitter client. You can choose to “Tweet now”, which will push the content to Twitter immediately, or you can “Add to Buffer” which will place the content into your queue of tweets.
Buffer also offers an extension for Chrome, FireFox, and Safari. This is the primary way I add content to Buffer, since I’m typically reading while using a browser on my desktop or laptop. If you use Internet Explorer or aren’t a fan of browser extensions, Buffer has you covered by providing a bookmarklet (you just drag it onto your bookmark bar and it works the same as the extensions). Simply click the extension button (or the bookmarklet) in your toolbar and a window will display in your browsers that looks similar to the one on the Buffer website. Just like when using the website you can tweet immediately or add whatever page you’re on to your buffer.
There are advantages to using the Buffer extension instead of the bookmarklet. Using the extension gives you additional tweeting powers by allowing you to retweet into your buffer. While viewing the Twitter.com site you’re normal stream will have a new option to add to your Buffer.
If you’re like me and consume a lot of content through Google Reader, once again Buffer has you covered. The browser extension gives you the ability to add to your Buffer queue while in the Google Reader web app.
It almost feels like an infomercial at this point… Wait! That’s not all! Buffer also offers the ability to add items to your queue from your Android or iOS device. If you’re a content publisher there is a Buffer Button that you can add to your website or blog to allow readers to Tweet your articles more by Buffering them.
Auto-tweeting through Buffer
Now that we’ve looked at all the ways you can get content into your Buffer queue, let’s look at how Buffer sends your tweets. When you first create your Buffer account time slots are provided that gives you peak Twitter times at which your Buffered tweets should go out to reach your followers. You can fully customize the schedule through your account. You can control which days of the week Buffer works and at what time slots you want Buffer to release items from your queue.
Managing tweets in your Buffer
The beauty of Buffer is the time you save by using the auto scheduling. Simply add content to the Buffer queue and it handles the rest. That said, you have control over your content once it’s in the Buffer queue. You can view the order of the tweets in the buffer, rearrange the order they will be released from your queue, or simple remove one if you no longer want it to be sent out to your followers.
Analytics
For every Buffered Tweet you receive detailed analytics to measure the impact of your tweet. Clicking the Analytics tab from your dashboard and you can view the reach (number of followers) each tweet received, the number of times a link in a tweet was clicked, as well as the number of times it was re-tweeted.
Powerful tweets
Leo Widrich, a Co-Founder of Buffer says that Buffer improves your Twitter performance by increasing your tweets while releasing them at an optimal time. Leo says, “People that start to Buffer their Tweets increased clicks on links they posted by 200% within 2 weeks of using. The amount of retweets doubles on average. Finally Buffer users increase their follower count by 104 followers within 3 weeks on average.” Pretty impressive right? Buffer is currently building in support for Facebook as well… which will only add more value to the application.
Buffer comes in three price tiers
- Free - The free package comes with all the features listed above (extensions, web app, etc) and the ability to use your own Bit.ly account for URL shortening. You’re limited to 10 tweets in your buffer and 1 Twitter account.
- Pro ($10/month) – The Pro package bumps your Buffer up to 50 tweets, 33 connected Twitter account, the ability to have 22 team members, and Daily Tweeting patterns.
- Premium ($30/month) – The Premium package adds unlimited tweets in Buffer, unlimited Twitter accounts, 44 team members, and a direct line to the founder.
Give Buffer a try, you won’t be disappointed. Next to Triberr, Buffer is the coolest Twitter tool I’ve seen in a while. Follow me on Twitter: @PaulSpoerry
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