January 10, 2013

How to Schedule Your Social Media Updates with Buffer




Lately I've been thinking about how social I am ;) Now I'm on few social networks and gladly they haven't been overwhelming me to ditch one by one. I have my own limit and even I don't wanna put all eggs in every basket, but where I need. Let's work on what works. How about you? Where did you spend most of your time online lately? You might like to be called as a Social Ninja. So what are you - A Facebookerberg, RTwitterista, GooglePlusician, Pinterestarian or LinkedIndiano? Add yours if not listed. FYI, I'm a little kiddo ;)


Sharing is Caring


Whatever social network it is, you might have been sharing interesting piece of content on your favorite platforms. It could be a blog post, article, image, video or anything which is shareable. Now the next question is ~ When you share these interesting content? Let's think for a moment. Yeah... Most probably it's when you are online. Isn't it? For example, if you read a blog post online, you might share it rightaway onto your favorite social networks using share buttons implemented on that page or using a browser extension or so. If you have published your own blog post, next time you would share it again too. I know, the content you are sharing with your friends and followers could be filled with such important facts and may be it's just for them to be knowledgeable of. Of course my friend, "Sharing is Caring".


Less Reach + OverSharing


If you sharing content one by one WHENEVER you are online, then most probably they will be seen by the folks who are online at that time unless someone specifically explore your profile page which is rare. Though it's helpful for your friends and followers, what if it's the time where most of your followers are not online? Now your message is not broadcasting efficiently and reach would be low.

Well, it's not ONLY about the reach though. Even if you share updates when most of your friends and followers are online, if you keep flooding or over-sharing content, then your shared content may not get enough attention too. Just imagine you are seeing 10 links shared in every few minutes by the same person in your Facebook news feed. May be you will check out some of links if you think they are interesting, but not everyone. If he/she keep doing it everyday, you might lose interest in content shared by that person too. Now tell me ~ Would you enjoy over-sharing by other friends? If not, others won't enjoy over-sharing happen from you too. It could be lead to unfollow you. But you might doing it unwittingly.


More Reach + OverSharing


You know, we always have enough room to learn through mistakes we do. Let's think beyond the "Sharing and Caring". What if you can prevent over-sharing and get more exposure or reach for your content being shared? That would be interesting. Isn't it? Just keep a note of interesting content you wanna share, and share one by one without overwhelming your friends and followers. I know... I know... You are busy enough to do it by yourself and you have other things to do. That's why we have so-called "Online Tools". We have been talking about scheduling updates via HootSuite lately too. Let's take a look at another interesting tool that will help you on this scenario - Buffer.


Buffer Updates


Simply, Buffer is a tool where you need to fetch the interesting content you wanna share and it will share them automatically throughout the day. How interesting it is? You don't need to worry about sharing anymore. It will share content, even when you are hiking outside with your friends. It saves your time and reaching more users will benefit many friends and followers too. Buffer is not only responsible of sharing content, but also offer you analytics for your shared content to see the potential reach and how many users was actually interested in your shared links too.

Further, you can select the days with more engagement to send updates. For example, if your friends are mostly online on weekends, you can set your post about a new recipe to be shared in coming weekend rather than sharing right after publishing it on your blog where no one would be interested. Gonna use it for your business? Don't worry, you can add more members to manage your Buffer account too. However, for now, you can make use of Buffer for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn social networks and FREE account allows you to buffer maximum of 10 updates per each social profile you have connected there. The Buffer browser extension makes things much more easier unless Buffer button is already implemented too. I'll take you through all of details at the steps.


My Experience with Buffer


I was using Buffer since I get to know about this tool from a passionate Twitter friend of mine ;) Yeah, you gotta guess who she is. Usually I'm sharing content right after reading them and it's mostly on Twitter and Google+ though. I was used to flood Twitter with bunch of tweets and I had no idea whether they have been helpful or not. But Buffer developers offers another great tool for tweeps to find what are the days and time with best engagement - Tweriod. It's capable of syncing those time slots with your Buffer account and even you don't wanna think about when to send tweets either. Anyway, REMEMBER, they are tools not human beings, so will depend on statistics they collect and may not give a boost at first few days. I'm hoping Buffer will add Google+ profiles into their list too.

Right now, you can use it for Facebook and LinkedIn. But you need to take care of time slots to be shared. It will definitely save you from over-sharing at first place though I'm not sure about reach yet. If you have a rough idea of when your friends and followers will be online, then you have room to maximize the reach without a doubt. You can use it along with another social media management tool you have been using and personally I recommend it for Twitter mostly though. As I say, you gotta play and see how it will goes for you. Who knows? May be you will start loving it more than any tool and upgrade to paid awesome plan too ;) Now let's play. WAIT... Before you play, there are instructions for you. Let's follow this way.


Steps:

1. First off, you need to sign up for a new Buffer account to start with. You can easily sign up using an existing social profile too.


2. Once you sign in to your Buffer account, navigate to Connect page to connect your social profiles - Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Note: In FREE account, you can connect only one account per social network, either profile, group or page. For example, you can't connect both Facebook profile and page. So make sure you gonna connect which you would love to schedule updates regularly.


3. After connecting your social profiles successfully, you can start scheduling updates. Ohw... BUT wait. Still you need to set up few important settings before you go. Now jump to one of your connected accounts from left pane.


4. Now on the right pane, you can find the Settings tab which let you manage individual settings for each account you have connected. Click on Settings tab and make changes to below settings for now.

Note: Make sure to go through following settings for each of your connected accounts.


Link Shortening - Link shortening is vital for Buffer when it comes to providing analytics for your scheduled posts and it also reserve more space especially when you send updates to Twitter as you can't exceed 140 character limit.

You can see few link shortening services offered by Buffer there and use the one of your choice by clicking on Use button corresponds to. Further you can connect your own bit.ly account using Connect Bit.ly button and access analytics at your bit.ly dashboard.


Team Members - You can invite your friends or someone you know to manage your Buffer account and top up with interesting updates eventhough you are climbing Mountain Everest. I don't think your individual profiles may need a helping hand (Correct me if I'm wrong), but for brand and business accounts this would be a life and time saver. Use Invite a Team Member button to invite a person via email.


5. Now you are all set up except for scheduling. Buffer is send your updates throughout the day, so you don't wanna miss it, right? Jump to Schedule tab and start by setting your preferred timezone to send updates in Schedule Timezone field.

Note: Make sure to go through following settings for each of your connected accounts.


Now pay attention to the days over there and select the days you wanna post updates. Selected days will be highlighted in green color and non-selected will be greish like for Wednesday below.


Thereafter start adding time for your selected days to send out your updates with Add Posting Time button.


Note: You can use Tweriod to find best time to tweet and directly synchronize with your Buffer account if you have no idea when your Twitter friends and followers be online.

6. Now you are ready to go. Click on the Share field on top to start.


7. Now construct your message as usual. If you have added a link, by default it will apply the Twitter link shortening settings to the link you have added if you gonna send it to Twitter, to make sure it won't exceed 140 characters limit. But don't worry, when same update send to other networks, the specific link shortener settings will be used.


8. Once you done with the message and selecting profiles to send your update, click Buffer button to send it at the next available schedule time. You can use Share Now button if you wanna share it instantly.


More Information:

* You can view all the scheduled updates for each account at Buffer tab.


Further there you can take control of scheduled updates eventhough they are already scheduled. Hover your mouse pointer over an update and related options will be visible.


* You can view all analytics for your sent updates on Analytics tab.


* There are 2 more options available and will be useful for you, under Settings tab - Reconnect and Remove.



Reconnect - This is a very useful setting if you are experiencing that Buffer not sending updates a social network as it intended to. Reconnect feature will establish the connection again with your social network and make sure your updates gonna get posted as you scheduled.

Remove - It's self-explanatory. Isn't it? Simply it removes the corresponding account connected with your Buffer account and you can connect again from the Connect page.

* You can easily use Buffer on your web browser, mobile device and other platforms to top up your Buffer account without even visiting your Buffer account. I always make use of Browser Extension to schedule interesting links find on the web in no time. Find all the apps, extensions and guides at Extras page.


Enjoy :-)




Awesome! Thanks for coming by and taking your time to read this post :) I hope you have learnt something today. Now you can share it with your friends and I'd love to hear from you too.






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ganesh said...

Please tell how to automatically post our blogger posts to facebook

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Ganesh,

There are many tools to share posts automatically onto Facebook such as HootSuite, dlvr.it etc. You can use RSS Graffiti to post easily and that's much reliable too.

Hope it helps :) If you have further questions, comment under that post mate.

Cheers...

Harleena Singh said...

Wonderful tutorial once again Mayura!

Yes indeed, sharing is caring and if we on different social networking platforms, it does become tough to schedule our tweets or message without having tools or apps to help us. More so, we also need tools so that our tweets are spread out and reach our followers at a time when they are around and awake - isn't it?

Buffer is a wonderful tool and I too have been using it ever since I learnt about it last year though. The free version seems enough for me presently and it's always full with the tweets that I want to send out at different time of the day.

I was earlier using Timely also (which has now stopped), so the combination of both was sufficient for me. I also like the new look Buffer has now come up with, though I still need to check out the finer details that you mentioned here.



Thanks for sharing this informative post with all of us :)

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Harleena,

Obviously dear :) As you see Twitter is not like Facebook or other social platforms, eventhough it's few people, home stream get updated in few seconds. So it's really hard for us to see when to send out tweets and that's why I've been using Tweriod for that purpose with Buffer :) Even applicable for other networks too, but depends on when friends and followers be online.

The free version is yet enough for me too Harleena :) I'm glad it can hold 10 updates instead of 2 or 3. Else no point of using free version I guess. Ha ha... I agree that mostly my buffer account is full with tweets and no need to aware of when it send out.

I was using Timely and Buffer earlier, and Timely was mostly to send updates to Facebook as it decide best time to go. However after Timely being stopped their service, I stick with Buffer and glad I found HootSuite as it has the capability of auto-scheduling. So I'm using it for other networks now dear :) Now they both are enough for me.

The new look is far better than before dear :) Well, that's how I see it. I think you have already touch most of the features and know almost all too. Well, if you haven't try Tweriod, try and see Harleena :) I'd love to know how it goes for you too.

Thanks for coming by and sharing your experiences on scheduling social updates and thoughts on using Buffer dear :)

You have a fabulous week Harleena :)


Cheers...

SHORYA bist said...

Hi Mayura,

Very nice post and interesting as well as informative content.

I was never aware of buffer and Tweriod tool.one day i was thinking that if some tool would be there that would help me do my work of sharing, and finally got the answer.

Your article really helped me and i can save my time with buffer tool.


Thank You
Shorya Bist
From Youthofest

sapna said...

HI Mayura

This is again a great information. I have started using tweeter few days back and I'm still learning the tricks of the trade.

Let me check with these tools now and see its impact....I'm way behind everyone on social media....so started learning now.

Thanks once again for sharing this.

Sapna

Neamat Tawadrous said...

Hi Mayura,

This is again a great Tutorial and valuable information. I have to say that social media is huge and I am already in some of them and they are keeping me very busy. I am not using Buffer yet, but I will use this post as a guide and try to sign up for the free version until I learn it.

I'm way behind on social media as I just started learning about them since I started my business towards the end of last year. For sure, I have a lot of catch up to do.

Thanks for sharing this great post Mayura, as always valuable and informative.

Be Blessed,





Neamat

Praveen Rajarao said...

Mayura - Once more you have written an in-depth "how-to" article...i am loving all your tutorials and it really helps us as you take us through the steps in a very detailed manner.

I have been using buffer for a while and i just scheduled this article as well.

One thing that might have missed is the wonderful "buffer app extension for chrome" which i find very useful as and when i read an interesting article to put them in my buffer.



Thanks for sharing this bro.

Margarita Slavkova said...

Mayura,

I really come here to your blog to learn and never leave empty handed. I needed to learn about buffer, because I have been using it for a while without understanding it. There is so much information out there with lengthy tutorials. Your providing the essentials and step by step "how to" portion is a huge help to our blogging community.

Know that your blogger friends value what you do!

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Shorya,

Yeah mate :) Sometimes we tend to keep something doing over and over, and get faster over time too. But if there's a tool available to take care of, then I don't think we are saving time eventhough we do faster in manual mode. Since I start to use Buffer, I've been saving time and especially not flooding my Twitter stream :) So I believe you with make use of combination and start saving time to focus on your primary goals mate. Let's save time and work productively :)

Thanks for coming over and sharing your thoughts about the tools and benefits mate :)


Have a wonderful day over there :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Sapna,


That's really great to hear you have been familiar with Twitter dear :) Well, try new stuff and stay with what works for you. Keep intereaction well there else anyone can report you as a spam if you are tweeting only your links and stuff though :)

Well, I hope you will love to use Buffer for share tweets and not to overwhelm your followers there :) Let's take a look and try it out yourself, nah? :)

Don't think you are behind 'cause everyone started simple and most important thing is doing it right :) There are folks with many followers but just spamming all the time. They are always behind :)

Thanks for coming by and sharing your views Sapna :)

Have a wonderful day there :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Neamat,


Obviously Social Media keeps us busy and that's where we spend most of time sometimes. Actually precious time ;) Ah... I wasn't using Buffer first days either, but after started using it I jus' loved it. You will find it yourself when you start using it. Anyway I don't say you to love it first, but try and see yourself dear :)

lol :D Way behind? Now that's just an excuse as I guess dear. If so, I'm way behind too. I'm just stick with few and never been to some networks either. Don't worry, you will learn while being through it and then you will teach us too ;)

Thanks for coming over and adding your thoughts dear :)

Have a fabulous day over there :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Praveen,


That's nice mate :) You already using it and I hope you know the value of it already. Else you would ditch it, nah? ;)

I wasn't using extension first time too Praveen but after I've notice that Buffer made lot of changes to it and start showing up Buffer button on social profiles, I've added it right away. Now it works like a magic and rarely I visit Buffer dashboard now :) I hope you will save more time with the extension too mate.

Thanks for coming over and adding your views about Buffer and this post mate :) Really appreicate your comliments and they always keepin' me motivated mate. Thanks for your genuine compliments :)

Have a fantastic day there Praveen :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Margarita,

HA... You have been using it too :) That's nice dear and yeah, we need to know what tools gonna help us else we never make most out 'em, no? :) I'm really glad to hear that this post makes things easy for you to work with Buffer and now, it's SHOWTIME ;)

Thanks for coming and sharing your views about Buffer and this tutorial Margarita :)

The compliments on my way always keep me happy about what I've did and motivates to take the next gear up. Thanks again for your wonderful compliments dear :)

Now, you have a wonderful day there Margarita :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Donna,

Sometimes as we are busy with our tasks we tend to take a quick look at things and start working as we can without reading the whole instructions and knowing features, no? :)

As you love personal development, I love when it comes to tools and tech kinda things. I'm really glad to hear that the tutorial here helping you to explore Buffer better and make use of it effectively Donna :) Now I hope you will love it even better and start buffering more and more to build authority on Twitter as well too.


Ha ha... My blog is my home Donna :) I just treat it like that and anyone comes over here with the intention of learning something or teach me something I don't know. No Never... I never forget where I come from dear :) I like serving or giving more but it's not forgetting my lovely friends.

Thanks for coming over and sharing your thoughts about this post dear :) I really appreciate your compliments as always and they are always keep me up and running dear. Thanks again :)


Have a fabulous day my friend :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Jeremy,


Glad to hear you have been enjoying the post and it's easier to follow :) Hope you will start using Buffer better to save time and makes sharing easy mate.

Thanks for coming over and sharing your views Jeremy :)

Have a wonderful day there :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hey Brenda,


Ha ha... You know, the theme for me in this year is RICH and being rich from every aspect as I can :) I know you always love Buffer and make use it well dear. Keep it up and top up Buffer if it's empty now ;) lol...

Thanks for coming over and adding your views about the post Brenda :) Appreciate your compliments as always dear. Thanks for motivating me here :)

You have a fabulous day there :)


Cheers...

Adrienne said...

You are so thorough Mayura and what a great tutorial. I've had a few friends sign up with Buffer but haven't gone in and set it up because they didn't know what to do. Since the change over and redesign, I'll have to send them over here if they still have questions.


Thank you so much for this awesome tutorial. You're the "How To Guy".


~Adrienne

Tim Bonner said...

Hey Mayura

That's a really thorough tutorial on Buffer. I was using it and then kind of got lost with it so I stopped.

Maybe it's time to take another look. I remember Adrienne mentioned Tweriod before and I then forgot all about it. I'm going to have a look now and get my Buffer filled up at the right time!

Carol Lynn Rivera said...

Wow, what a thorough review and lesson in how to use Buffer! I love Buffer and I've been using it since it was a little newborn baby buffer :) I got the browser extension so you could click the button and add any content to your Buffer when that was about all you could do. Now I used to for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The only thing that could possibly make Buffer more perfect is if they would get Google+ integration. I know Google would have to open it up for them but that would be great!

In fact I have a whole bunch of profiles - for me, for my business, for my blog and even for a couple of clients. The other nice thing is that I can share some of those accounts with other people to help me manage them.

Ok, so we're both big fans of Buffer! It makes life so much easier.

Ilka Flood said...

Oh wow, Mayura, I had no idea you can precisely schedule your Buffer updates. I usually just throw everything in and let the app take care of it. I didn't know you could set it up the way you like it. Will go through your fabulous tutorial and do that now. Thanks so much for sharing it!

Ilka

Maureen @ScoopsofJoy said...

Thank you for this, Mayura! I've signed up but never really take it seriously to use Buffer and your tutorial will help so much :D

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Adrienne,


We love Buffer, no? :) Yeah dear, they have some changes plus redesign, so I thought of taking folks through it all over again with the new layout. I had no idea that some were just wasn't using Buffer though they have signed up already. Anyway glad I did it, so hopefully they will start using it like us and save more time for their tasks, no? :)

Thanks for coming over and adding your thoughts about the tutorials dear :)


You have a joyful weekend there :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Tim,


Ha ha... The NEW YEAR theme for me is RICH, so I'm trynna make everything rich on my side by taking the look at small details too mate :)

Ah... You were using it? I find it very helpful to send updates throughout the day as I don't wanna flood my Twitter stream and scare people away Tim. Tweriod is really helpful to me as it set the time slots for tweets. I hope you will try the combination again and see how it goes for you mate :) You will simply love it when you know it.

Thanks for coming over and sharing your experience with Buffer Tim :)

Have a wonderful weekend over there :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Carol,

Owh yeah, we both are BIG fans of Buffer ;) Buffer extension is always helping me to top up and keep it always full with stuff to share. As it offers analytics for shared stuff, it's easy to track. no?

Did you use Tweriod with Buffer Carol? ;) You might wanna give it a try if you haven't as it finds best engaging times by running through your previous analytics :) Well, gotta try and see.

Google+ API was open for limited users and hope Buffer will get is sooner too dear. Then we can enjoy buffering to Google+ ;) So far I'm taking care of 'em with HootSuite which is another fav of mine now.

Absolutely, the capability of adding more users to manage your account is really helpful for businesses :) Yet, it's available on FREE version too. Awesome, no? :)

Thanks for coming over and sharing your views and experiences with Buffer Carol :)


You have a wonderful weekend over there :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Ilka,



Ha ha... I hope you would love as it gives you more room to customize as the way you need Ilka :) Very convienient and there are more options available. Seems you are already using Buffer, no? :) Well, now there you go and make most out of Buffer dear.

Thanks for coming by and sharing your views on Buffer and tutorial Ilka :)

Have a fabulous weekend over there :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Maureen,


lol :D Now you gotta check it out dear. I believe it will save you more time and make tweeting and sharing more effective than sharing it rightaway. Let's see how you would make use of it. Ah... Try out Tweriod if you are using for Twitter too.

Thanks for coming by and adding your thoughts here Mo :)


Have a fantastic weekend over there :)


Cheers...

Creativebloggers said...

Hello Mayura nice tutorial my friend, I use buffer everyday and just love it because it allows me to be in two places at the same time so to speak. It help me get the most out of Twitter which I love. Thank you for sharing your tutorial with us got it bookmarked.

Mayura De Silva said...

Hey Rob,

Ah you are a Buffer buddy too ;) That's cool. Now I see, isn't is so convienient in sharing mate? :) Specifically I use it for Twitter and that's really help me out prevent flooding there and get messages send throughout the day with the help of Tweriod. Well, let's go and top up Buffer ;)

Thanks for coming over and sharing your thoughts and experiences on Buffer mate :) Ah... for bookmarking too :)

Have a fantabulous weekend there Rob :)

Cheers...

Sylviane Nuccio said...

Wow, Mayura, I've got to bookmark this post as I have yet to understand that buffer and therefore I'm not using it. I will go over your steps again and hopeful be able to figure it out.


I'm so glad you wrote about this! Thank you so much!

Sue Price said...

Hi Mayura
Wow what a detailed tutorial once again. You are so good at these.
Now Adrienne wrote a post on Buffer a while back and I joined. Then I did nothing with it so I am one of the people she is talking about :-)
She even reminded my not so long ago.
Thanks for the details and now I have no excuse do I?


Have a good week

Sue

Lisa Buben said...

Mayura, you know this is one of my favorite tools. SO glad they added more than Twitter to it since it began. I have to share this with some FB friends who post all at once a ton of stuff. Thanks for the tutorial.

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Sylviane,


Ah... You'd love it especially with Twitter Sylviane, and you don't wanna take care of your tweets alone while Buffer is there for you ;)

Hope to see you with buffered updates on Twitter dear ;)


Thanks for coming over and sharing your thoughts on this tutorial :)


Have a wonderful week there dear :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Sue,


Ha ha... No excuses now dear ;) Well, it's just simple and you need maximum of 15 mins to go through all the options and then you are always ready to buffer up. I hope you'd love to use it with your social media accounts and let's see how you will get on with it.

Hope to see your buffered updates Sue ;) No excuses in this 2013, right?


Thanks for coming by and sharing your views on this post and Buffer Sue :)


Have an awesome week over there :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Lisa,


You've introduced me to Buffer and now you can see how it helping, no? :) Thanks for that Lisa and now it has become a favorite tool of many people including us. Ohw yes, more social networks and more to come I'm sure.

Yeah, flooding is something should not be happen while there is such tools Lisa :) Hope your friends will start buffering posts too.


Thanks for coming over and sharing your thoughts on Buffer and this post dear :)


Have a fabulous week there :)


Cheers...

Viola Tam said...

Hi Mayura,

I know that you are great at all those online tools and tips and was attracted here by your blog title (after seeing Buffer buttons on others blogs). WOW, you have so much value to give! Thank you :)

"What if you can prevent over-sharing and get more exposure or reach for your content being shared?" This really gets me thinking! As I am certainly not a person who would like to 'do it myself', I would have to approach my passionate social media friends for the next step.



You ROCK, Mayura! Keep up your great work!


Viola The Business Mum

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Viola,

Am I? :) Well,I just share stuff that matters to me and which I think matters to more people dear. Glad to hear you find 'em great :)

Over-sharing was something I used to do without knowing and there were few tools which had the capability of scheduling dear. First off, I thought "WHY". Had no idea, but then I've got the value of it as I using it. So it will help more folks, right? :)

Absolutely :) Why should we do thing if there are tools? I just plainly love Buffer as it's very user friendly. I hope you will start loving it as you start with it too Viola. Well, I hope to see more buffered posts on social networks ;)

Thanks for coming over and sharing your thoughts on this post Viola :) Really appreciate your wonderful compliments and they always driving me forward.

You have a fabulous week there dear :)


Cheers...