As an active Twitter user, I sometimes get caught up in posts that cater more to me, myself, and I, rather than my followers. It’s hard to gauge exactly what posts my Tweeple are clicking on, and what times they engage most frequently with my stream of content. In a valiant effort to keep my reputation of having creative, engaging posts, I’ve turned to Buffer.
Buffer uses internal data to select four times which are optimized for best CTR and RTs
Buffer is a service that’s recently hit the news stream for its study that claims it increases click-throughs on Tweets by an average of 200%. How exactly is this happening? Buffer uses its internal data to determine the best posting times based on the user’s audience. Buffer will populate four posting times in a 24-hour period that are prime for optimizing Tweet engagement.
When you schedule a post through Buffer, it automatically pushes the content out at the next time of the four it has chosen for you. You can choose to schedule your posts at other times or “post now” as well. Once posts are pushed out, Buffer tracks the engagement on each Tweet so you can see what people are clicking on, ReTweeting, and how much reach the Tweet gained.
In the dashboard you can see the number of RTs, clicks, and reach
Buffer also shortens links within the posting section with bit.ly. An added feature that can further track your linked Tweets is the ability to enter your bit.ly account username and API key so the links are shortened unique to your tracking account. What other goodies does Buffer have to offer? There are paid upgrades to the app, which give more scheduled Tweet storage, more account linking options, and more analytics. Buffer is available for Android and other mobile integration as well as a variety of browser extensions. One of the most efficient extensions I’ve seen is the Chrome extension for Buffer. Installing it allows you to be present on any page and right-click, selecting “Buffer this page.” The result is an automatic dialog box that populates a Tweet around the page, and an option to schedule it into Buffer. Convenient and resourceful? Quite.
What does this mean for us busy folk that try to keep up with Twitter and need more engagement insight? Buffer gives you an easy way of scheduling posts at predetermined times for optimal engagement. After those Tweets post, Buffer let’s you know how you did in terms of clicks, ReTweets, and reach. Buffer even let’s you, with a simple right-click, schedule a post around something interesting you come across in your web travels. Buffer makes Tweeting interesting content and engaging your followers less of a chore, and more of a growing experience. Just ask those using it currently, who’ve [on average] seen ReTweets double, click-through rates triple, and Klout scores climb after just two weeks.
