There were some stunning facts released recently from both Twitter and Facebook:
Twitter is on track to hit 500 million accounts by February. At the same time, Facebook is looking at hitting 1 billion users in August.
On top of this, it seems as if every day there are plenty of success stories of how people found a job through Twitter, how they found new clients or speaking gigs via Facebook, or connected to new people to expand their network. So the benefits from using social networks professionally are extremely powerful. Yet building up your personal brand through Twitter and Facebook is often a hard and time consuming task.
So here are 6 tips on helping you build a stronger personal brand on Twitter and Facebook by saving time on posting and growing your network.
The key app I am using to make my day to day social media activities more painless is Buffer. It is a new way to tweet and post to Facebook at better times. You simply add tweets to your queue and they are “automagically” scheduled to be posted spaced out over the course of the day.
You can add updates from any website with the handy browser extensions (Chrome, Safari or Firefox). All you do is click the Buffer icon whenever you want to share an article, and click “add to Buffer”. In a recent study, Buffer has shown to improve clicks on your Tweets by 200% and get you (on average) double the number of retweets. All simply by filling up your Buffer and letting it do its work.
Another app that has facilitated my life greatly is called ifttt (“if this then that”). It allows you to connect any two web services together and combine their powers. Here are a few examples on what ifttt allows you to do:
You star something in Google Reader –> It is added as a Tweet to your BufferYou take a picture with Instagram –> it is added to your DropboxSave a bookmark to Delicious –> Add as a Facebook post to Buffer
Overall I found that ifttt just streamlines the process of using Twitter and social media in an incredible way. The best part? There are absolutely no boundaries of which types of “recipes” you can create. Be sure to check it out.
Another powerful way to make keeping in touch with your followers is to use Buffer’s functionality to schedule retweets right from Twitter.com. By installing the browser extension for Chrome, Firefox or Chrome, you will get a new little Buffer icon right inside Twitter.com
What I like to do then is browse my Twitter stream and whenever a Tweet is worthy of a retweet, I can hit the Buffer icon. That way I can spend a few minutes on Twitter and add 5 or so retweets to my Buffer, without ever flooding my stream.
This next tip involves the use of an awesome app I started to use a few weeks back called SocialBro. Amongst lots of great analytics insights, the app looks at your followers and finds out the best time to tweet for you.
Once you receive your report for best tweeting times, you can click the “configure in Buffer” button. It will set your top tweeting times as a schedule inside Buffer. From now on, all you have to do is add tweets to your Buffer and they are posted for you at these optimal times.
The one feature I couldn’t live without when reading on Flipboard or Zite is the ability to email in Tweets and Facebook posts right from the articles you are reading. On your iPad, just tap the “email link” as shown below. You can then type in your secret Buffer email and send it off.
Once you find your secret Buffer email you just hit the email link whenever you find an interesting post. Buffer will automatically recognize which email address your updates are coming from. It will put the subject line as the title of the tweet. At the same time, it also grabs the link from the body of the email and shortens it for you.
So all you have to do is hit “send” and a new tweet lands in your Buffer. Handy right?
There are also mobile apps available for your Buffer account. It means you can add Facebook updates or tweet to your Buffer while on the go easily.
Both the Android app and iPhone app have the functionality of adding articles right from the browser to your Buffer. Whenever you are reading a post, just click the “share” menu in Android and you can add the tweet to your Buffer.
I have a 15 minute train ride every morning. That’s a fantastic chance to browse the latest articles and add everything I like to my Buffer. It keeps my stream steady and my followers posted with the latest stuff I have found helpful. And best of all — it never overwhelms them with too much content in too little time.
One saying that I always bear in my mind is a quote I first heard from Tim Ferriss:
“You can’t improve what you can’t measure.”
So tracking how well you are performing on Twitter and Facebook is the only way to also get better with your tactics. Buffer comes with a handy analytics feature. Every tweet you send with the sharing platform will be tracked for you.
You will know how many clicks, retweets and reach you have received and — most importantly — who has retweeted, “favorited” and replied to your tweets. You can follow new folks that have retweeted you right from there or thank them for it.
With just one glance at your tweets you can see which ones are getting the most clicks. I have found this to be a great way to focus on improving your tweet copywriting, as you are constantly reminded what your followers are most interested in.
Having a solid following on both Twitter and Facebook has proven to be extremely helpful for me. Whenever there is an issue that arises or help I might need, I can just send out a quick tweet or post to Facebook and there will be a ton of replies. Over the past 10 months, I have grown my audience on Twitter to around 5000 people, purely by providing interesting content through Buffer.
Do you think some of the above tips can help to make you more productive using Twitter and Facebook? What other methods are you using to grow your audience?
Leo Widrich is the co-founder of Buffer, a new way to Tweet and share Facebook posts more intelligently. He also blogs Twitter tips at http://blog.bufferapp.com/. You can follow Leo on Twitter at @LeoWid.
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