February 23, 2012

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How to be consistent on Twitter: Buffer

June 21, 2011 By Emily Leary 8 Comments

Do you ever worry that your activity on Twitter seems too sporadic? You’re quiet for half the day/week, then jump on and post a handful of great links/thoughts, have a quick chat, then disappear off again? A new service called Buffer has the answer, and I caught up with one of its founders, Leo Widrich, to find out more.

Let me tell you a story…

About 2.5 years ago, I was just starting out with a new consultancy. As such, I hadn’t filled my client roster, and had some free time to network, learn, and promote myself and my business. So I joined Twitter. I monitored it all day, chatted, posted regularly, and manually made sure I was consistent throughout the day.

But of course, as I got busier, this became more and more of a challenge. I began finding the articles I wanted to share during my ‘free’ time, either at the weekends, late evenings, or very early mornings. These are great time to catch up on reading, but probably not the best times to start a work conversation.

So what is Buffer?

Leo from Buffer

Buffer isn’t the first app to offer scheduled tweeting, but it is the smartest solution I’ve come across so far.

Instead of having to manually decide what time each tweet will go out (a la Hootsuite), you just preset some times each day that you’d like to tweet (e.g. 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm) and then drop all the cool stuff you find into your Buffer, where it queues up and posts out throughout the day.

Add more goodies than can fit it in a day – it’ll buffer over into the next day. Decide you want them in a different order – it’s a simple case of drag and drop.

During the day, you’re then free to use what free time you do have to indulge in what Twitter (and all social media) is really all about – conversation.

In Leo’s own words:

“Buffer is a tool that helps you to tweet consistently every day without flooding your followers. It was an idea that came out of Joel’s use of Twitter [ed: Joel Gascoigne is co-creator of Buffer and an experienced developer with an MSc Computer Science]. He wanted to share more of the great articles he was reading, but without all these tweets in a row. Having a ‘Buffer’ which spreads out these tweets seemed to be the optimal solution.

“The heart of Buffer are the browser extensions. Whichever article you are reading on the web, just give it one click on the Buffer icon and add it to your Buffer. What we found is that many people tweet one article and add the rest to their Buffer. This spreads them out and never floods their stream.”

Why might you need Buffer?

Generally speaking, you might like Buffer if a) you don’t use Twitter much, or b) you use Twitter all the time.

Here’s why:

Leo: “We are seeing 2 groups of people using Buffer heavily at the moment. The first one is Twitter new comers. People told us they are overwhelmed with Twitter at first and with Buffer they come to gradually use it more and more in a piecemeal process.

“Of course another large percentage of Buffer users are Twitter Pros. So people who are very heavily involved in Twitter and also have a business interest. What many seem to appreciate is that they can save time and be more efficient by Buffering, yet still remain a genuine personality and not turn into an auto-bot.

“What I found for myself is that it is often hard to tweet consistently. Yet, only a consistent appearance, similar to blogging, can build trust and help you stand out from the rest.”

Are the spammers circling?

Just as I asked Proxlet and StrawberryJ.am, I had to ask Buffer if they see the app being used for spamming, and what they’re doing about it:

Leo: “We try to fiercely work against that. Our tagline is “Be Awesome On Twitter” and we aim to help everyone to flood users less.

So we basically try to optimize instead of automate. This means we try not to implement things such as pulling RSS feeds in or tweeting the same tweet multiple times.”

Get the very best from Buffer

I asked Leo what his top tips would be to get the best from the app. For him, it’s all about convenience:

  • Bring Buffer to you: “With our browser extension, you can go to Twitter.com and Buffer Retweets from your native Twitter stream.”
  • Know the shortcuts: “Press “alt+b” to bring up the Buffer box (again, needs the browser extension)”
  • Get jamming: “You can Buffer tweets from inside StrawberryJ.am, a Trend based Tweet aggregator”
  • Grab text for tweets: “Highlight some text and then click the Buffer icon and it will be turned into a tweet.”

For me, the ability to add multiple accounts (if you have a pro subscription) and set different times for each is a god send. So what feature is are other users loving the most?

Leo: “What a lot of our professional users are thankful for are the analytics we are providing for all Tweets that are Buffered. [ed: you can link your Bit.ly account into Buffer] It helps a lot to understand about how well your tweets are doing and if you should change your patterns.”

Plans for the future of the app?

Just like any new app, Buffer is promising, but could be more useful. I’d like to see it go truely mobile, for example, and then extend out to LinkedIn and Facebook. So what’s in the pipeline?

Leo: “We really want to built it out further in the future. One main goal is to allow people to Buffer from anywhere they are. We are currently in talks with many different reader and mobile apps as well as Twitter clients. The integration with Strawberryj.am was fantastic and definitely the route we want to pursue in the future.

An iPhone app is high up on our list and Joel is working away on it as we speak.”

A game changer

At the moment, I use Buffer for about five tweets a day per account, usually buffered up that morning. But overall, Buffer is only one of the ways I access and manage Twitter, along with Hootsuite, Twitter for Mac, Twitter for iPhone, Twitter.com and Bit.ly, according to my needs. Of course, Buffer isn’t intended to do everything those clients do, but if it keeps on the promising development path it’s on, that list could reduce.

So, have you tried Buffer? Is it working for you? What improvements would you make?

(Hat tip to Sarah Arrow for first making me aware of Buffer.)

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: , , , , , ,

What’s trending in your Twitter network? StrawberryJ.am has the answer

June 16, 2011 By Emily Leary 4 Comments

Every now and then, the green shoots of a really promising new Twitter app surface. One such app is StrawberryJ.am – a simple way to find out what’s hot among your Twitter friends. This week, I had a chat with one of the founders, Dennis Hettema about the value of ‘friend-based trends’.

What is StrawberryJ.am?

Still in beta and currently open only to those with invites, StrawberryJ.am connects up with your Twitter account and then sifts through your friend’s recent posts to figure out what’s been particularly hot in the last 24, 16 or 8 hours..

Dennis, an experienced developer, seasoned dotcom-er and one half of Hettema & Bergsten, explains:

“We are all about showing the best links shared within your own network on Twitter. We trend the links for your @account, Twitter lists, #tags and searches. The results are Reddit-like lists that are specific for your social network.”

The value of friend-based trends?

The beauty of the Strawberryj.am concept is that it’s not about filtering out the noise, more about making sure you don’t miss out of the really good stuff.

“I was always a highly infrequent Twitter-user as I could never really handle keeping up with the stream. Whenever I did decide to take a peek at my timeline, I virtually always found interesting links,” explains Denni. “So Strawberryj.am started with the question: ‘what were the most popular links that I missed today?’”

“For me, and I might be a little biased, it has completely changed the way I look at twitter. I check my strawberry stream in the morning and evening and use the daily email as a backup. It gives me a sense of calm because I know that anything that becomes popular will not be missed by me. I now use Twitter every day.”

So for Twitter users that don’t watch their streams 24/7, it’s a way to pick up on good stuff they’d otherwise miss. And for comms pros / those with particular topics they want to investigate in detail? That’s where the ability to see what’s hot within a Twitter list or hashtag comes in.

It’s early days for the app, and functionality is relatively limited, but I can see it blossoming into something really useful.

A friend or foe to spammers?

Often, a tool that makes Twitter better for bona fide users also has the unintended side-effect of giving spammers a leg up. Is this the case with StrawberryJ.am?

It is virtually impossible for spammers to dirty up your @account trends as these are links by people whom you actively choose to follow. Twitter lists are also fairly spam insensitive as they are (or at least should be) curated.

Search and #tags do tend to get spammy, though as spammers are learning how to hook in to Twitter trends. We are working on introducing silencing functions and would love to get in touch with the Proxlet guys to see if we can team up.

And what of those people who – legitemately – run several accounts. Could they skew the results? Yes, according to Dennis, but they’re working on ways to even this out, without penalising users.

Top tips to get the most out of StrawberryJ.am

I asked Dennis what users could do to make sure they get the best out of the new app.

Here are his tips:

  • Be particular about who you follow. Automated systems can be gamed. “I created an account called @chicagofoodtest to see if I could be on top of Chicago food related news in my @account stream and… well… Need to know anything about that scene? Ask me!”
  • Experiment and refine. “Set up some list & #hashtag trends and experiment with good combinations (my favourites at the moment: @scobleizer/most-influential-in-tech, #design, #recipe).”
  • Set up your daily email “so you never, ever miss out.”
  • Used timed retweets to reach the maximum audience. “Retweet from within the timeline using Bufferapp for maximum exposure.”

Ready for launch?

With StrawberryJ.am functioning pretty well, and the buzz on Twitter looking positive, I asked Dennis when we can expect them to open their doors to the public.

First of all, thanks to everybody for your amazing feedback! Up to now virtually everyone has been very positive about the product which is the best motivator I can imagine. Thanks :)

We would love to release the product to the public as most of the interface is quite stable, the reason why the doors are still closed is the immense load that this little system produces.

A week ago we had about 250 active testers who generated over 75.000 links per day. The numbers get very big very quickly. We’ve got some pretty awesome server people working on this though so as soon as we feel we can handle it, we will rip the training wheels right off!

We also have a mobile version in alpha, as soon as our server structure is optimized we will start work on making it launch ready. To be honest, I can’t wait!”

Want to try StrawberryJ.am right now?

It's invite-only, but I've got 50 'beeta' invites

If you want to try StrawberryJ.am before its official launch – and be part of the first group of users to provide feedback that shapes the future of the app – you’re in luck!

The lovely founders have been kind enough to give me 50 beta invites to share with readers.

Want one? Just head to http://beta.strawberryj.am/ and use the invitation code COMMS when you complete the sign up form.

Any problems, you can also tweet @StrawberryApp.

What do you think of StrawberryJ.am? Just another app, or the start of something really useful? Let me know your thoughts.

Filed Under: Interviews

Proxlet founders interview – can it really fight Twitter noise?

January 20, 2011 By Emily Leary 12 Comments

This week, I was lucky enough to catch up with Aaron White and Chris Ricca, the co-creators of a new Twitter service that promises to ‘fight Twitter noise’.

Proxlet is a way to filter your Twitter feed. Nothing new there…Twitter allows you to create lists, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and the like allow you to manage those lists. But it seems Proxlet wants to take things one step further, and make things simpler. It promises to “block apps, mute users, and filter tags on Twitter” – and it’s getting some high profile attention.

“Proxlet works with Twitter.com & the most popular native clients to fight noise,” explains Aaron. “It can block annoying apps, over-talkitive users, and irrelevant hash tags. Ultimately, we want Proxlet to be the quality control tool for your tweet stream. People who love Twitter, but wish they had more control, are most certainly our target audience.”

The Proxlet system is certainly user friendly, but the list of supported clients could use some work. There’s a Chrome extension, and support for TweetDesk [EL: corrected on Proxlet.com] Tweetdeck Desktop, Twitter for iPhone, Twidroyd, Seesmic for Android and Spaz, but nothing for Tweetdeck or Hootsuite as yet.

Good stock

Aaron White, co-creator of Proxlet

Technically, the Proxlet developers know their stuff. Chris served two years on the drop.io development team and Aaron studied Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. “[I] fell in love with the startup world & hacker work ethic,” Aaron enthuses. “Chris & I met over Twitter, and when we were both publicly ‘kevetching’ about the noise, we decided to take action. Proxlet has been a fantastic learning experience both technically, and in terms of bringing value to a lot of folk.”

Impact on Twitter

So what do the pair think the impact of Proxlet might be on Twitter usage, and on apps like paper.li, known as much for irritating Twitter users en masse as it is for proving visually attractive ‘digital newspapers’?

“Anecdotally, I am seeing people using the service following more people than they did before using Proxlet,” Chris explains. “Which makes sense – we can only bring in so much information during a day, so if I turn down the knob on certain types of information, I can follow more people. In the longer term, I would like to see services be better citizens on Twitter. If they are too flagrant, people will just shut them off.”

A dream tool for spammers?

Talking of bad behaviour on Twitter, my first thought when learning of the Proxlet service was that it was clearly open to abuse. The blurb promises it will “Block apps, mute users, and filter tags on Twitter.” Are the pair concerned that people will use Proxlet to effectively pretend to follow people, just to grow their reciprocal follower numbers?

“I think Proxlet appeals to those folks who are looking to enhance the quality of their stream, rather than ‘game’ the system,” Aaron contends. “Those who try to amass a following via reciprocity tricks aren’t trying to solve a quality problem.”

“Yeah – I’m not concerned with people trying to boost follower counts,” Chris confirms. “You can usually spot those accounts from a mile away, anyway. Above a certain number, every follow is fake.”

Improving the Twitter experience

I’m not convinced that Proxlet won’t be abused a fair bit, but it’s true enough that it isn’t the only tool to make that kind of ‘gaming’ possible. But what of the argument that using a proxy is a needless step – if you don’t like the sort of stuff a person posts, unfollow?

Chris Ricca, co-creator of Proxlet

“We built Proxlet because we wanted more control over our Twitter experience,” explains Chris. “For more casual users, following and unfollowing will probably be enough. But we wanted more options. It has made Twitter useful for me again.”

“I find it very useful to mute folks who are at conferences that I am not interested in,” adds Aaron. “Sometimes, it’s enough to mute the conference’s hash-tag. However, some folks don’t always use the tag, so muting them for a few days can do the trick. Alternatively, if someone is tweeting about a live sporting event, I might throw a quick mute on them. *Especially* if they are rooting for the wrong team…”

Of course, even during the big game, you might not want to ignore people who address you directly. “We’ve tried to be careful with Proxlet to provide control, but not break the social fabric of Twitter,” assures Aaron. “You will still see a tweet if someone mentions you, or direct messages you, even if they are muted.”

The future of Proxlet

So will the developers be using the usage data they gather to help make Twitter a nicer place?

“It would be great if Proxlet could become an early warning system for spammy behavior on Twitter,” says Aaron. “Would love to share that data with folks, and offer auto-blocking features if they were valuable. We’ll be preparing an in-depth look at some of the muting trends, stay tuned! Suffice it to say, you can probably guess the top three apps or so.”

“Proxlet’s plans right now are to learn from our users and improve the experience, and thankfully our costs are low enough to let us do exactly that.”

It’s certainly an interesting proposition, but for now I’ll be keeping it old school and continuing to control the quality of my home feed by choosing who to follow wisely. Then again, those paper.li mentions are indeed incessant, so there may come a day when Proxlet’s (term filter option) becomes irresistible.

Emily

Filed Under: Featured, Interviews, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,