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Cool Tool Review: Buffer – Get More Done on Twitter with 1 Simple App

April 22, 2011 by Guest Author Leave a Comment

A Guest Post by Leo Widrich

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While writing this headline, I was a bit worried. Getting things “done” on Twitter can easily be misunderstood. After all Twitter is a place to build connections and meet with great new people. Optimizing things on Twitter has to be done with particular care I think.

Let me therefore introduce you to Buffer – a new Twitter App I have been using a lot recently which does two very important things for me:

  • It integrates seamlessly with my work flow and lets me share on Twitter in a consistent and time saving manner.
  • It doesn’t turn me into an “auto-bot” throwing tweets around without any connection to my followers.

How does Buffer work?

The core functionality of Buffer (http://bufferapp.com) is super simple. All you do is you throw a few tweets in your Buffer and the App then schedules these Tweets for you throughout the day. That’s it.

How will I get more done?

The great thing about Buffer is that you can add lots of tweets in at one point without fiddling with individual scheduling. Also you won’t ever overwhelm your followers with too many tweets in a row.

The way I use it is like this. As Buffer comes with a browser extension (Chrome, Safari, Firefox), you can add tweets to your Buffer from any page you are on.

On top of this you can even add tweets from inside Google Reader, which is a big winner for me. Whenever I like an article I hit the Buffer icon and add it to my Buffer. Here is how this looks with one of Liz’s posts:

pic-1


Add tweets from anywhere on the web.

Make your Tweets truly unique

Now, there is even one more functionality I want to mention here, which allows you to make your tweets really stand out from the rest.

Whenever you read an article and find a good line, just highlight the text and then hit the Buffer icon, here is what happens:

pic-2

Make your tweets unique

Timing of your Tweets

By default Buffer will send out your tweets well spaced out over the day, so you will never have too many tweets sent in a row, flooding your followers with tweets.

Of course you can always go back to your home account, click “settings” and adjust the timing to your needs. You can add more daily tweeting time slots or decrease them. Oh and as of recently there is also a “Tweet Now” function.

Add tweets to your Buffer from your mobile

What also comes in very handy is the option to add Tweets to your Buffer from your mobile. Whilst browsing an article you can simply hit the “mail link to page” or similar button.

Then you add in add@to.bufferapp.com and voila you have one more tweet scheduled where the link is automatically shortened and the title is in the page:

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Caption: Add to Buffer from your Mobile

Wrap Up

Even though Buffer is such a simple tool, it helps me a great deal to stay on top of Twitter. I can add tweets from anywhere with just one click and will make sure to add all the great articles I am coming across each and every day.

I have also started to use the mobile function whilst waiting in a queue or whilst sitting on the Bus and it is a great time filler, which actually gives me some results

.

I hope you give Buffer a go. Would love to hear your views about it below.

Leo Widrich writes Tips for Twitter on his blog. You can visit his website, Bufferapp, or find him on Twitter as @leowid.

_________

Thanks, Leo, for checking out bufferapp.com for us!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Filed Under: Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, buffer app, Cool Tools, LinnkedIn

Cool Tool Review: Plancast

March 25, 2010 by Liz 2 Comments

Todd Hoskins Reviews Tools for Small Business

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I’m delighted to introduce a new feature. Todd Hoskins will be choosing and using tools and products that could belong in a small business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.

Plancasting
A Review by Todd Hoskins

How do I break into an industry? Where should I go to meet the people who can help me broaden or deepen my network? What events are worth my time?

plancast

Plancast, a new free service from Worldly Developments, helps answer these questions.

There’s been a lot of attention paid lately to location-based services. Foursquare, Gowalla, and Twitter are effective at communicating where people are geographically and what they are doing. Plancast shows you the future – the places and events people are planning to attend.

The business value can be immediately grasped. Subscribing to the plans of investors, clients, or people within your industry or network, allows you to prioritize the events you want to attend. By sharing your own plans, you give people the chance to find you.

Signup is simple with Facebook Connect and Twitter integration. Your profile is imported, along with the option of Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Then, you enter event information – what, when, and where. There is no RSVP functionality – it’s a plan not a commitment. The option exists to share your plan through Facebook or Twitter, or you can export through the iCal format. You can subscribe to others’ plans, then view them on the Plancast site or within their new iPhone app.

Personally, it’s a great way to keep track of parties, festivals, or concerts friends are planning to attend. The effectiveness is entirely dependent upon adoption. Since Plancast is only a few months old at this point, there are a limited number of people casting their plans onto your laptop. But I predict this will change.

Worldly Developments has secured some new funding, so we expect some improvements hopefully including better tagging and categorization of events (an aggregated database would be ideal), grouping of subscribers, alerts, integration with event sites, and more mobile apps.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 1/5 – more events, dashboard would provide some value

Entrepreneur Value: 4/5 – user base of influential people already

Personal Value: 3/5 – with widespread adoption this functionality will become a must-have for social scheduling

Thanks, Todd! You can find Todd on Twitter @ToddHoskins

What about you? Have you used it? What do you think of Plancast?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Filed Under: Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, Cool Tools, LinkedIn, Todd Hoskins

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