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Hey there. Brian Sly-Haley here and today I’m going to be sharing with you one of
my favorite social media tools. And, it’s called the Buffer App.
Before we dive in, I wonder if you can do me a quick favor. That’*** the “Like”
button below. Cuz, that will help other people like you find this information a little bit
more easily in the future.
Buffer is an awesome social media tool that let’s you schedule all of your social media
status updates from one handy place. You can schedule them for the month, the day, they
year. It doesn’t really matter.
And, that’s great news if you’re using social media for your business because, the
last thing you want to do is log into your Facebook or your Twitter account all the time
to post status updates. When, really…all you have to do is log into Buffer. Create
a list of your tweets and your posts. Tell it when to schedule it…err, when to send
it out actually…and it will send it out automatically.
That is awesome!
And, particularly for me because you know, the problem I have using social media for
my business is I’m busy running the business. I don’t have a lot of time to waste on Facebook
or Twitter.
And, before I started using Buffer, about 2-3 months ago…I used to use the built in,
uh, Facebook post scheduler for all my status updates. And, what would happen was I would
log into Facebook every now and then. I’d have a plan of what I was going to do. And,
really, about 5 minutes in, I would, uh, get distracted by cat videos or, uh, pictures
of family vacations.
I’d come up for air an hour later and realize that was a complete waste of time. I could
have been working on more productive things.
So, what I love about Buffer is you can link up to 5 accounts with their free account.
You can link Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google plus. And, I say five accounts because
you can do personal or business accounts.
So, what I do. Here’s my little secret, is…every, at the beginning of every week,
I spend about 40-45 minutes, uh, in Buffer scheduling out all of my Tweets and my Facebook
posts for the week. And then, I’m done throughout…for the rest of the week.
I can log in from time to time to check in and respond to comments or anything like that.
But, really…it’s handled.
One of the things I really like about Buffer, too is it gives you some really awesome data
on who liked your post, who shared your post, who clicked on the links that you posted.
And, that’s a really great way for you to see what’s working…what isn’t. What
do people like. What are they responding to? And, it gives you a bit of an idea of the
things that you should post and share to build up engagement with your customers and your
fans.
With Buffer, there are two, kind of versions just like any other online service. There’s
a free and a paid version. I personally use the free version for my accounts, um, because
I think that’s really all I need for my business. What you can do is you can log into
5 accounts. You can queue or “Buffer” up to five…uh…ten, sorry ten posts at
a time.
If you want to do the paid version, it comes at the whopping price of ten bucks a month.
What that gives you is you can log up to….you can up to 12 accounts. You can add two team
members to your account to help manage your social media and you can have an unlimited
Buffer queue.
I really like Buffer. So, let’s hop onto the computer and see what it looks like.
Alright, to start using Buffer…all you really have to do is fire up the Internet, open your
favorite browser. I’m using Chrome and then head over to Buffer App dot com. That will
take you to the Buffer homepage. Uh, here you can log into your account or create an
account using your email address or any of your social media profiles.
I created my account with Facebook so I’m gonna go ahead and click Facebook. Now, I
love Buffer but when you are brand new to Buffer, it’s really underwhelming at first.
Because, you don’t have any of your accounts linked to it. There aren’t really any instructions
to show you what you’re supposed to do.
And, when you first log in. All you really see are a Buffer, Analytics, Schedule, Settings
tab, what do you want to share. And, there’s a box here in the middle, where my schedule
Tweets are that will ask you to connect your accounts. And, that’s really what I would
suggest you do is start there.
All you have to do is his the connect accounts button in the middle or over here on the lift
hand side of the screen, “Connect More.” Uh, that will take you to this “Connect
a Social Network” page. And, here…all you have to do is click on the profile you
want to connect.
It could be a Facebook group, a page, a profile. Uh, click that. It will ask for your username
and password. It will save that. And, then, once you link your account, it will show up
here on the left hand side of the screen under your accounts.
You can see here that I have my Twitter account and Facebook page. When you start scheduling
your posts that are going to go out throughout the day or the week, you’ll notice they
start showing up here on the left.
You’ll notice that’s what these little circles are. This 10 and this 6. That’s
saying I have 10 Facebook posts and I have 6 Tweets that are going out. The next thing
you’re going to want to do is, uh, create a schedule for your posts.
And, you do that by clicking on the account that you want to create a schedule for. So,
it could be for instance, uh, my Facebook page. Click that. Head over to the schedule
tab. And, that will give you your schedule of what times Buffer will automatically send
out your content.
It comes with a, kind of default pattern that you can change. But, basically, if the day
of the week is highlighted in green, the post is going out on that day. If it’s not highlighted,
it’s not. So, right now I’m not schedu…err…I’m not sending posts on Saturday and Sunday.
You can change the time of the week that you send your posts. Apparently, right now I’m
sending one at midnight, uh, 9:22am and 4:11pm. You can change these just by hitting the little,
uh drop down menu and saying, actually I want to schedule this for, uh, 10am.
Or, you can delete a time. Just click that little button and it goes away. You can add
a new time just by hitting that box. A new box will pop up here and you say, uh, I’m
gonna send this out at 7:58pm. You don’t have to save or anything because it automatically
saves for you. Which, is really cool.
When you start posting stuff, Buffer gives you really cool analytics. And, that’s what
I would like to show you next. Just, hit this analytics tab and it shows you these are all
the Facebook posts or the Twitter tweets that you sent out and it will show you that you’ve
send…err…this particular Facebook post. It, you know no comments, no likes a reach
of 7 and no shares.
Um, the next one down, you can see no comments but one Like, one click and a reach of 9.
So this is a really good way for you to see you know what’s working and what isn’t
for your audience and you can kind of see, well…this kind of post works. We’re gonna
go with that , this post didn’t work. We’re gonna stay away from those in the future.
How do you schedule your posts? You can do it one of two ways. You can hit this what
do you want to share box at the top of the page. That just opens up a little text box.
Here you can type in a message. Like, I typed in “I’m using Buffer App now.”
You an also pick what accounts you want to send your updates to. So, if it’s highlighted
you’re sending to that account. If it’s not, you aren’t. So, like, I’m gonna Tweet
that I’m using Buffer App now. Highlight my Twitter account now. You can send it to
both, or I’m just going to Tweet so it so I’m gonna take off my Facebook account.
You can upload a picture. You can set a custom time. You can Tweet it now or you can say
Buffer and send it out later. And, that’s what it does.
To get out of this screen, just click anywhere off the page and it will go away. Now, let’s
say you’re surfing the internet and you come across a really cool article you want
to post to Buffer. You don’t have to copy the link and then paste it here, come back
here and do it this way.
Buffer has these really cool browser extensions that you can install in your Browser. Like,
I’m using Chrome. They have a Chrome extension that I installed and it put this little button
up here. And what that does is, whenever I’m surfing the Internet. Like, I found this article
on Social Media Examiner, um, “How to Use Facebook Website Custom Audiences.” Let’s
say this is something that my, my audience would really enjoy.
All I have to do now, is just head up here to this little button. The three stacked triangles.
Hit that. It brings up a very similar box to what we just used in Buffer. And, you can
do the exact same thing.
You can change your message. You can what account you’re gonna send it to. If you
want to, you can add another account if you forgot to add one. Again, I’m just gonna
Tweet this. Um, you can add a picture. You can schedule a custom time, send it now. Or,
you can Buffer it.
And, that will just go out, later.
How do you install those? The way you do that is you head back over to Buffer. And then
you scroll to the top of the page. You hit, um, My Account and then you want Apps and
Extras. And, then when you hit here, click this little green link “Get more Apps.”
And, that will take you to all the apps that they have available for your browsers, and
your iPhone or whatever else you’re using. Basically, you scroll down until you find
the browser that you’re using. So, like I’m using Chrome. So, I installed Buffer
for Chrome, that’s what I did and that’s what this little box is up here.
All you have to do is hover over it, click install now. It takes you through the install
instructions and then you, um, can just start using whenever you’re on the internet and
come across something really cool to share.
Alright, so that’s the Buffer App. I think it’s an amazing tool. Especially, if you’re
using social media for your business. I’ve actually shared it with a couple of my friends
who are small business owners and they’ve already that, you know especially with Facebook
they’ve seen the amount of engagement with their fans increase since they started using
it because they can really focus on what’s working.
They don’t waste as much time on Facebook going down rabbit holes and it’s working
out really well for them. I strongly suggest that you check it out.
That’s about it for today. If you, haven’t already done so…I’d really appreciate
it if you’d hit that like button below. That will help other people find this information
in the future. And, I’ll see you next time.