Become A Better Blogger - The Power of Buffer

Published: Mon, 03/30/15

I can honestly say that Buffer is THE most important social media tool that I use. And I use it EVERY DAY, many times per day.

If you’re not yet familiar with Buffer, it allows you to schedule content for certain social media platforms with a click or two by adding to a queue that posts throughout the day based on whatever schedule you set up.

I love and depend so much on Buffer and it is so deeply integrated into my subconscious movements, that it’s almost difficult to explain how I use it.

Buffer is incredibly simple to use, yet it is also incredibly powerful.

The short version is go to bufferapp.com, sign up, install a browser extension and start using it. It’s simple.

But of course, I also have tons of advice and so many power tips that I want to share with you, that I will have to spread them over a few emails.

Let’s start with a quick overview of Buffer’s plans…

Buffer has a Free Plan, a $10/Month Plan and then more expensive Business Plans.

On their free plan, what they call the “Individual Plan”, you can connect one profile for each social account… one Twitter, one Facebook, one Google+, one LinkedIn, and one App.net. Note that means for Facebook you can only have your own personal Facebook profile or your brand page connected at one time. You can also store up to 10 posts for each profile at any given time.

If blogging and social media are your business, you’ll probably want The Awesome Plan so that you can have up to 100 posts in your buffer and you can connect up to 10 social profiles. (That’s NOT an affiliate link, btw.)

It’s $10/month.

With the Awesome Plan you can also have different times for different days in your schedule. So you can have 12 posts go out every Monday, 10 on Tuesday, 13 on Friday, etc. at whatever times you set.

Buffer Is How I Use Twitter

I use Buffer so much, I can’t even remember the last time I logged into HootSuite or any other Twitter tool other than the main Twitter website.

I even schedule all my tweets when I’m hosting a TWITTER PARTY through Buffer. HootSuite and many other platforms limit the scheduling interval to every 5 minutes which makes it impossible to schedule your tweets for hosting a Twitter Party.

Currently, I only use Buffer for Twitter and Google+.

Getting Started with Buffer

1. Use a Browser Extension

Chrome is my preferred browser, so I’m only familiar with the Chrome extension. But they have extensions for Safari and Firefox too. Installing the extension is a must!

2. Set your Posting Schedule

You can set up the number of tweets you want to send per day and exactly when you want to send them. If you have the paid version, you can even vary that schedule for different days of the week.

Don’t get too hung up on the exact times, just get some times scheduled and get started.

First the Basics

When you install the extension, you’ll see an icon in your browser toolbar. Whenever you’re on a webpage, you simply click that icon to bring up a Buffer window.

My 3 Favorite Ways to Use Buffer

Here are three of my favorite ways to use Buffer… and they ALL require the Buffer Browser Extension.

Buffer This Image

I think many people don’t realize how easy it is to tweet an image from a blog post using Buffer.

You don’t have to download the image and then upload it in the tweet. Instead you simply right click on the image in the blog post, and select “Buffer This Image”.

Then, your tweet will be preloaded with the image, the title of the blog post and the link to the post. I usually edit the tweet before I add it to the queue.

Buffer pre-fills the tweet with the title of the blog post and the link to the post, but I like to edit the text of the tweet and sometimes add hashtags.

If I'm sharing a post from another blog, I add “by @TwitterHandle” to the tweet. I always like to give credit right there in the tweet using the blog’s Twitter handle. It can be an annoying second step… but it’s worth it.

Before I “Add to Buffer”, I first copy the blog’s twitter handle onto my clipboard and then I have it ready to paste in the tweet.

Add To Buffer

The Buffer browser extension makes the regular website Twitter.com so much more powerful. You can add to your buffer directly from your Twitter stream.

So I go to one of my Twitter Lists, look for good tweets to RT and then simply click on the “Add to Buffer” icon.

You can specify which of your profiles to use and then click “Add to Queue”.

In the drop down list, you can also choose, “Share Next”, “Share Now” or “Schedule Post”.

Buffer Retweet

If you have the browser extension, when you’re on the Twitter website and you click the RT icon on a tweet, in the popup tweet window you'll see a Buffer Retweet button.

This Buffer Retweet is one of the easiest ways to make new friends and followers on Twitter, and show your old friends some love.

It’s a win-win. You need to quickly fill up your buffer with quality content and they want their content shared.

More Power Tips Next Week

There's so much more I want to share with you about how I use this tool, but I think I’ll pause to let you go add some awesome tweets to your Buffer.

Next week, I’ll continue and show you some more power tips.

Did You Miss Anything?

If you’re new here, you’ll definitely want to catch up…

What Do You Want To Know?

What would you like me to cover next week? Shoot me back a quick reply and let me know.

Talk soon,

Susan (and Janice)
5 Minutes For Mom

ps. To tell your friends about this "Become a Better Blogger" email series, you can send them here.