Buffer App For Firefox: The Easiest Way To Schedule Tweets From A Web Page

We have had numerous Tweet-scheduling apps reviewed and tips shared on MUO including this round-up of the best tools to schedule tweets. We have also profiled Buffer App as well. However it deserves a more thorough look because it does offer an innovative approach to updating your Twitter account.

I am sure for many people, your process looks similar to mine. I start working by going through all shared news, email subscriptions and updates from blogs I follow. This is the time when I actually want to tweet a lot. Then I start working and try not to get distracted by sharing anything on Twitter. Obviously, I don’t want to tweet dozens of good stories within an hour – that’s where various Twitter scheduling tools might come in handy. However scheduling takes more time than I usually have. Besides, it somehow makes tweeting less fun because you get distracted from the normal Twitter flow by the need to think about when you want the tweet to go live.

Buffer App offers a different approach: you drop your links into your Buffer account and the tool queues them for future publishing. This way you can still enjoy your spontaneoustweeting without stuffing your Twitter stream with multiple updates within a short period of time.

With Buffer, you set your schedule once and then let all your tweets get published based on your schedule daily:

The free Buffer App plan currently allows you to have 10 tweets in your Buffer queue which has proven more than enough for me – but I am not that heavy a Twitterer. This also means the free account has been considerably extended since it was first reviewed on MUO.

While the Buffer App itself lets you enjoy your genuine tweeting without thinking about how often the actual tweets get published, the newly developed Buffer for Firefox addon increases your Tweeting productivity.

As an active Twitter user, I’ve tried various ways to easily tweet any page (without repeated copy-pasting work) including the Bit.ly bookmarklet, HootSuite Hotlet and others but the Buffer App one seems the easiest to me. It offers 3 major ways to instantly tweet any page or “buffer” the update (for it to then get published on Twitter based on your set schedule):

1. Tweet / Buffer With Your Keyboard

I find this option a huge time saver – and that’s actually the main reason why I am sticking to the addon. What can be faster than tweeting with the key combination:

CTRL + ALT + b

The above combination will also let you tweet any text from the page. Just highlight it and use the shortcut to generate the tweet:

2. Tweet / Buffer Any Page Using The Status Bar Icon

Tip: If you have lost your status bar in FireFox 4, try Statusbar 4 Evar to get it back:

The same option is also accessible from the context (right-click) menu.

3. Buffer Your Retweets

Our retweeting tends to be as spontaneous as tweeting itself: you go through your timeline, click through links and retweet easily with one click of a mouse. However we tend to forget that our retweets get published to our stream and all our followers see them, so it’s a good idea to somehow schedule the retweets as well.

The Buffer extension adds a tiny icon to each update on your Twitter home page, which lets you quickly add retweets to your Buffer account:

While I am using Buffer on FireFox, there seems to be extensions for other browsers as well.

Have you tried using the Buffer App yet? Any better alternatives? Let’s share our feedback in the comments.

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Ann SmartyAnn Smarty is an SEO Consultant, Internet marketing blogger and active social media user. Please follow Ann on Twitter as seosmarty