Buffer: The Fire-and-Forget-It Twitter Scheduling Tool
Whether you're using it to send out coupons and discounts or to circulate industry news and analysis, Twitter is a powerful way to build a brand, maintain awareness, and communicate directly with your customers.
The problem? If you're as busy as I think you are, you probably post all of your tweets in bursts and then get on with the rest of your day. Not only is that potentially annoying to your followers, but it reduces your brand awareness to clumps in time every day.
Try Buffer, a service that automatically posts your tweets by spacing them throughout the day. It's really simple to use: After setting up a free Buffer account, just connect it to your Twitter account, and you're ready to go. From the Buffer website, you can enter a bounty of tweets and move on to other things without a second thought; each of your posts gets queued and sent on a schedule that's managed by Buffer. That means they'll go out at regular times during the day, and -- unlike alternatives like Hootsuite -- there are no settings to mess with. Buffer doesn't change the way that you post or add any extra machinery between you and Twitter; it's truly fire-and-forget.
If you prefer, you can install the Firefox or Chrome browser extension, which lets you tweet from any Website. See something you like? Click the Buffer button to post the link, add any extra text you like, and then send the tweet to Buffer.
You can use Buffer for free, which gives you a "buffer" that's ten posts deep. If you routinely send more tweets, or want extra features (like the ability to send to two or more accounts and access to analytics, then you can upgrade. You get a 50 tweet buffer and two accounts for $8.50/month, or unlimited tweets and 4 accounts for $25.50/month.
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