the tech post
This blog is about technology, software and social media. It's aimed as much towards 'normal' people as the tech savvy. The author is Tony Gallacher.
Social Media Scheduler Buffer Could Save your Sanity
Image via ifttt.com
Buffer lets you schedule Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn posts. You add messages for each to a list (or buffer) and the service will automatically send them, spread throughout the day.
The best time to write your posts is probably first thing in the morning or the evening before you want them to go out.
Business
(Photo credit: Steve Woolf)
Usually, businesses plan their social media posts beforehand anyway. If a company schedules a series of Facebook statuses, using Buffer, no one has to stop what they are doing, several times a day, to update the Facebook page.
You can change Buffer’s schedule times, even from day to day, so that your tweets won’t always be sent at the same times.
Is this a substitute for talking to customers via social media in real time? I don’t think so. But it could save some of your time, and your sanity, by reducing interruptions. Social media can cause too many distractions, so anything that improves on that has to be good.
Personally, I think companies should respond to customers using social media, in real time, when they can. And there will always be the occasional good opportunity to post an update, in addition to those scheduled in Buffer.
Buffer integrates with bitly for URL shortening and analytics, and there’s a Buffer extension for Chrome, which lets you easily capture a web link, or a quote from a web page.
Humans
I use Buffer myself to send automated tweet replies to the Buffer channel of ifttt (if this then that), which I posted about the other day. That’s because Twitter doesn’t let ifttt send tweets with @mentions directly.
If you set up an ifttt task to automatically tweet a reply when someone follows you, it will tweet something like:
BarakObama, thanks for the follow
But if you get your ifttt task to send replies to Buffer instead, it will tweet:
@BarakObama, thanks for the follow
With the ‘@’ symbol, which is really what you want. The message won’t go out immediately but in this case, I don’t think it matters.
You can add a comment below, to let people know what you think about Buffer.
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- Buffer (Bufferapp.com)
- Buffering our world: Should we be using BufferApp for clients? (likeable.com)
- Iffft Gets your Social Media Sites Talking (tonygallacher.wordpress.com)
- How to spend less time on Twitter and get more out of it (jcsocialmarketing.com)
- Buffer: schedule updates and save time (socialonstage.wordpress.com)
- Tweet Scheduler Buffer Launches Awesome New iPhone App – Complete Review (thetechnologycafe.com)
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