I read a lot of blog posts. As most of you probably know, I digest these posts for you, dear reader, in weekly programming digests - and if you didn’t know, go and check them out.
Each day I post articles I liked on Twitter. That means multiple links per day. I used to send my links through email and submit them before the dinner to Twitter in a batch.
One of my friends was complaining that I flooded his wall. Every tweet he saw was from me when I decided to do the batch. This is definitely not a good thing. I am very glad he didn’t remain silent and he told me what bothers him. Criticism is always a good thing and you should learn from your mistakes.
This batch approach, apart from it can drive some people mad and make them unfollow you, has a few other disadvantages too. If someone misses your batch you are invisible. There is no evidence of your virtual presence and activity. And you will become invisible for users from different timezones.
So I started to think, how to solve this problem. There must be some way to schedule your tweets. My requirements were simple. I wanted to schedule my tweet to a given time, I wanted an extension for Chrome and I wanted to be able tweet from my android phone and tablet.
I found a great application (or more likely a platform) that satisfies all my requirements and gives me much more features called Buffer.
How Does It Work?
You simple sign with your Twitter account. You can use Facebook, LinkedIn or a custom one. Buffer works with these social platforms too but they are not on my radar.
After signing you download a browser extension - Chrome, Firefox and Safari are supported. Or you can install application for your phone. Currently iPhone and Android are supported.
When you find a site that is remarkable for sharing, like chodounsky.net of course, you click on the buffer extension button in the top right corner and click Buffer. Link shortening is handled for you by Buffer worry about the length of the URL. For shortening you can choose bit.ly or use the one provided from Buffer.
You can set up your custom schedule when to post your tweets.
And if you use service for link shortening there are simple statistics that can track the performance of your links.
Mobile version uses the Share button on your phone. Therefore you can add content to buffer from every application that supports sharing. I use it with my mobile browser and the mobile version of feedly. And it works just great.
Conclusion
Buffer is a great application for managing your tweets and social activity in general. It is free for basic usage and the basic features are everything you should need. You should never flood your follower’s walls again.
You can use it with your browser or smartphone. Great tool!
