If you want to be popular on social networks, timing does matter. You don’t want to swamp the timeline (or home page) of other people even if all your posts are super awesome in your opinion. However, it is not always easy to remember each good post or image that is worth sharing, which is why having a social media scheduler is a pretty cool idea. Services like Buffer have been around for quite a while, letting people share interesting posts at customizable intervals. Times have changed, however, and not a lot of people who own smartphones use social networking sites from their computer. That is why Buffer’s release for iPhone and an update to the Android version comes as a great news for heavy Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn users. Other than scheduling posts, Buffer is also convenient for sharing items from sources like Pocket, Reeder, Flipboard, etc.
If you are already using Buffer on the web, simply sign in to the app with your existing account credentials. New users can link their social accounts with the service without having to sign up. Buffer is not a client for any social network, so don’t expect to see your past posts within the app; only items published via Buffer are taken into consideration.
Creating a new Buffer post is easy. For manual shares, hit the top-right icon, write something, add a picture if youwant, and you are good to go. However, the real fun begins when you start making use of the dedicated sharing menu in the app. Buffer can add a bookmarklet of its own to Safari, letting you share anything you come across with a single tap. Content you receive in mail can be posted to social media pretty easily too. Buffer supports plenty of third-party apps including Reeder, Pocket, Feedly, Instapaper and Tweetcaster. Anything interesting that you find in these apps can be scheduled for posting on your behalf at a later time.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to change scheduling times from within the app; you will have to go to the Buffer website to do that. To make things a little more convenient though, you can set as many posting points on your profile as you want, and Buffer posts automatically when the next point is reached.
You can get analytics data for all the posts shared using Buffer. The displayed fields include retweets, favorites, likes, re-shares and clicks.
In the free version of the app, you can only schedule a limited number of posts. Pro users (who have purchased the extra feature pack on the Buffer website) can schedule as many posts as they want. The iOS variant of Buffer is optimized for iPhone and iPod touch, and the Android version works on any device running Android 2.2 Froyo or later. You can download the app for your device using the following link.
Download Buffer for iOS
Download Buffer for Android
[via Lifehacker]
