Using Buffer for Twitter

Being active on Twitter has it's shares of complications. For once, I cannot be active 24*7 on Twitter to engage with my followers and read the relevant content i would like to. One thing which bothers every Brand or even Blogger for that matter is 'How do I reach out to my niche audience?'.

I have followers which are from different time zones, some being from India,United States,Australia and even Latin America. How can I reach to all of them at one go?

One way is to be active on Twitter 24*7 and tweet our content related to their time-zones and I must say it is highly unlikely if someone does that. (Only an insomniac can do that.). My daily routine includes going to work,  going out with friends, playing FIFA, doing all kinds of other chores and dedicating some time to Facebook and Twitter (Not in the same order as I mentioned).

This is where the power of Buffer surfaces. An automated tool which solves most of these problems. The power of sharing your content and sharing the content you love is all packaged in to one small app where you can decide How, When and on which day that Tweet will be posted.

Why Use Buffer?

My active time on Twitter varies from about 30 minutes to an hour. I would not want my followers to be bombarded with 20 Tweets during the same time span and then nothing for the next 23 hours. This can create more of a Spam Alert on the follower's mind and more often than not leads to losing out on your potentials reach of Followers. Buffer does the same thing for me in a smoother way.

Now I can share all the relevant blogs/articles that I love reading, in different time spans, which will not only divide my time of tweeting span but increase my reach to the maximum number. By staying in my home in India, I can schedule my tweets, which i feel will be relevant to my American counter-parts in their Time-zones.

This allows my message to be spread across different zones and thus increase chances of amplification.

Using Buffer for Real:

Using it is easy, as you can get extensions for Chrome, Firefox or you can directly do it through the main website here. Once you come across any article or post which you find interesting enough to share with your followers, All you have to do is click on 'Add to Buffer' button on the Browser bar or on the website.

Buffer has  automatic schedules set up for you by default which you can always edit going in to your 'Settings' panel on the Buffer App. So if I know 60% of my followers are active during 3-6 P.m C.S.T Time,  I would increase my tweeting activity by 2-3 times during the same time period for increasing my chances of engagement and reach.

Please note that Automating everything you tweet is not a solution here. Your account should always have more or less human touch or else it would be just like any other spammish Bot Twitter handle. This includes sharing my own blog content as well as other interesting reads.

Buffer, with many other apps comes in three versions Free,Pro and Premium. Free version of the app allows you to buffer 10 posts at a single instance, but the Pro version as expected allows you to do more than just that.

You can add up to 6 social accounts and assign team members along with increasing the buffer size up to 50 (5 times the free size). And if you are still not satisfied with the 'Pro' and want to go nuts with it, you can always try the Premium version giving you access to unlimited accounts and posts.

Something more appealing to Brands who tweet at a mass level and have to handle many accounts at once.

Buffer also provides you features such as Free analytics which gives you an overview of how many people actually clicked on your posts and the potential reach it must have garnered. It also provides you with the basic Twitter metrics of how many Mentions, ReTweets and Favorites your Tweet got.

Although, you can get the same metrics from Twitter itself, Buffer saves that manual step for us and gives us the opportunity to find everything related from posting content to it's metrics all at one place.

Any tweet tweeted from Buffer, if containing a link, is already shortened. But one great thing I find about i,t is that we can integrate the bitly shortening services in to Buffer as well. Add Bitly analytics to your already existing Buffer metrics and you have a whole new story to tell with Referrers and region wise break up. This can help us gauge our success on Twitter on a smaller level.

What I always try and  experiment with Buffer, are the timings of my tweets by scheduling the same  and checking as to exactly what Time zones the tweets are receiving the maximum responses.

This effort can later help me build my fan base and let me know as to when exactly are my followers most active and gives me a measurement of the best time to Tweet. More on the lines of Trials and Error method you can say.

You can also use the Buffer sharing button on your blog for that simple reason for letting people find you and buffer your posts on their timelines. This helps us reach our audience not only on Twitter but also everywhere we post.

Please share your insightful thoughts about the usage of Buffer.