This guest post is by Derek Land of ThisIsInspired.com.

On the recommendation of BufferApp from Misty Belardo I have incorporated BufferApp into my Twitter routine—my Routwine, if you will. It’s been very useful, but also brought some interesting thoughts to bear. (In this article I may use ‘Buffer’ and ‘BufferApp’ interchangeably but they are same service.)

Now in case you don’t use Buffer or haven’t heard about what it is, here’s a brief biography: Buffer allows you to load up tweets in a queue, and it tweets them out at pre-determined times of the day and week—what times and which days are up to you to decide. You save a tweet, tell Buffer when you want it published, and it tweets for you.

Key features

A service like BufferApp can be very useful in the strategies of bloggers and online marketers who are looking to leverage the social power of Twitter to share information.

The great thing about it is how easy it makes queuing up a list of tweets that can potentially reach more people with similar interests to you—which can, at the very least, increase your Twitter reach, drive traffic, and raise your social influence.

In this functionality, Buffer differs from many current and past Twitter services (I refrain from naming names) that don’t let you queue tweets, or at least, don’t do so easily, and it’s far and away better with the whole scheduling aspect.

This scheduling is key, because without it, you (a) flood your followers a few times a day when you happen to be online, and (b) miss out on visitors and potential customers (if you’re doing any kind of online selling) because they may be on Twitter at a different time of day from you.

Certain features of this scheduling ability are only available to paid subscribers of Buffer—which also sets it apart from most other tweet schedulers. However, by supporting Buffer as a paid subscriber, you’re also guaranteeing that the developers keep it running like a well-oiled machine. I appreciate the value of this, and am glad the Buffer people have, from the start, incorporated a monetization method to keep the service relevant and useful.

Since I’ve started using Buffer (and, granted, I am by no means whatsoever a Twitter power user), my follower count has gone up, as have the number of clicks on those links I’ve tweeted. Engagement has increased, but that growth has been slight. In Buffer’s defense, I should note that I’m pretty straight-laced in everything I do, so building excitement and feedback is an ongoing struggle for me. However, to say the main benefit of Buffer would be driving traffic would be a bit self-serving, and also shortsighted: you can add followers in a big hurry, but this may come at the expense of conversation and interaction.

Therefore if you use Buffer or any tweet scheduling service to tweet your tweets for you, it is important to balance your feed with engagement and pleasantries. I’ll probably say this once or twice more in this article.

Who uses Buffer?

Buffer can fit into just about anyone’s “Twitter Life.” The app is not made for certain people, and its creators don’t exclude anyone by using jargon or confusing settings. Everything is straightforward, and even Twitter novices can begin using it fluidly in a few minutes.

I can see folks using Buffer for one or more of a few reasons:

• to drive traffic and increase link sharing
• to expand social influence
• to inform/educate people otherwise unreachable (offline)
• to increase the consistency of your Twitter presence
• to solidify corporate presence or brand.

If you are the “I ate a pickle omnomnom” type of twitterer, Buffer will probably hold little value for you. However, if you’re in a business looking to better leverage social media, you’re a designer wishing to increase the visibility of your projects, or you’re a blogger wanting to increase interaction and visitors, BufferApp will be the perfect fit. I’d venture to say there’s no reason not to use it, and the longer you delay, the more benefits of the service you’ll forgo.

How to use Buffer successfully

I’ve gathered a few pointers to keep in mind that may help you to make the most of Buffer as you incorporate it into your online social life. These pointers have been honed a bit to apply to Buffer but they apply equally to any social scheduling service, and by extension, to any online interaction.

1. Avoid letting traffic become the sole, soulless purpose of using Buffer; balance those tweets with meaningful interaction, DMs and @-replies. Be more engaging the more you tweet; don’t stagnate or sacrifice conversation for content.
2. Avoid queuing up time-sensitive information, like giveaways or news flashes. BufferApp tweets in ascending order the tweets added to you queue, and if you queue up a lot, it may be many hours or a couple days for those tweets to get out.
3. Avoid sending highly popular tweets to your Buffer queue. If Smashing Magazine has a WordPress theme giveaway (which, as you can guess, are always highly popular), queuing the tweet will likely cause it to fall on more deaf ears if you have a longer queue and/or fewer scheduled tweet times.
4. Balance Buffer with real-time tweets. The power of Buffer comes from setting schedule times when you are not online or actively using Twitter, or to tweet more on the popular days (Monday-Wednesday). Do not let it become the only way you tweet.
5. Adjust the frequency of your Buffer tweet schedule—make it more often if you tweet more, and less if your queue is shorter. This way, what you say is spread more evenly and consistently to your followers and readers.

Pros and cons … Wait, what?

In short, Buffer is a fantastic service. It does one thing, and it does it very well. Are there ways the Buffer People could tweak their app? There are a (very) few. And, Buffer People, if you are reading this, keep doing what you’re doing—these are thoughts others may not share and are, at best minor points far removed from my Scale of Irritation.

• An option to randomize the queue prior to each tweet: This may seem a bit inane. However, consider that both content and tone may fluctuate through the day or week. Also, you may find yourself queuing up a few tweets in a row on the same topic. An option to go random would resolve these minor issues.
• A faster pop-up for the bookmarklet (which sometimes does not work) and browser extension: However this may be the result of a slower server, server cache settings, and the like. My high speed connection is just fine, and the pop up still lagged a bit.
• Possible cooperation with app developers to incorporate send-to-Buffer in apps like Tweetbot, et al.: This would easily put the use of Buffer on a par Instapaper, and possibly replace the need for email-to-Buffer. Cross-app services like these have both stability and practicality in our increasingly busy social and work lives.

These problems, as you’ve already read, are exceedingly minor. And one additional point about the browser extension and bookmarklet: If you click it once and nothing happens, give it a few seconds before you click it again.

Is BufferApp for you?

I would very much like to see Buffer establish itself as a regular online service, much like Tweet Marker (but with wider support than Tweet Marker). As I write this, the team is preparing to roll out Buffer for Facebook.

For casual twitterers, there is no real con in using Buffer, and by that same token the pros are significantly diminished also. I’m not trying to be mean; if you use Twitter to simply catch up with friends or as a chat tool, then using Buffer will be counterproductive.

For businesses and bloggers, the key con of using Buffer rests on the one using it: not correctly balancing community interaction of a few personal tweets with the stuff you save in your Buffer queue. Don’t leave the social aspect of Twitter behind, or get so caught up in the mere act of tweeting that you forget why you started using Twitter in the first place. As with everything in life, balance is key.

Twitter is a place for sharing information; I’ve come to rely on Twitter for news more than CNN.com (my old standby), and for the latest trends, tips, and tricks in web development and design. To me, Twitter is a wonderful tool for learning, and for engaging with other writers, designers, and potential clients. And Buffer has put a “functionality polish” on the way I use it.

Twitter is a social place, even if for some there is a distinction between “casual social” and “business social.” Let’s make it more friendly by using it smartly, whatever app or service we use.

Derek Land has designed and developed websites for clients around the world and written on blogging and social ethics for several widely read online publications. You can follow him on Twitter at derekland or visit his website at www.ThisIsInspired.com.

This guest post is by Amy Porterfield of AmyPorterfield.com.

When it came to building my business with social media, I lived by the motto, “More is better.” I applied every social media strategy I learned, stacking plan after plan and idea after idea.

Then I read Tim Ferriss’ new book. And everything changed.

With Tim’s 4-Hour Body, I realized I was a sucker to yet another myth in my head just like I was when I was little and my mom used to tell me I couldn’t swim for an hour after I ate or I would lose my lunch.

In his book, Tim talks about a concept called the minimum effective dose. He says the minimum effective dose is the smallest dose (a.k.a. activity) that will produce your desired outcome. In real-life terms, it’s that sweet spot that is exactly enough, no more, no less, that gets the results you’re after. It’s that place where you can achieve the most dramatic results in the least amount of time possible. Anything beyond that point is a waste of your time.

Tim uses the example of boiled water. Boiled water is boiled water. There’s no such thing as “more boiled.” Make sense? Or if you go to the beach and you spend 15 minutes in the sun, you get a tan. But anything beyond those 15 minutes and maybe you start to burn. Once you pass a certain point, you actually can create setbacks. Essentially, doing too much can trip you up.

Then it hits me: with social media marketing, more is not better. In fact, more is worse.

Whether you are using social media to gain greater exposure for your blog, build awareness for a product or sell your services, it’s natural to want to do all you can to get results. But did you know that when you do too much, you could actually halt real progress? In fact, when you try to do too much, it can mess up your momentum and cost you profits and valuable relationships in your business.

How does this relate to your success?

To apply the minimum effective dose to your social media efforts, you first have to realize what may be a dirty truth: you’re trying to do too much.

At some point, we’ve all been there—we try to be everything to everyone and make promises we can’t keep, schedule meetings on top of meetings and start new projects that never get finished. It’s human nature. The challenge is that when we take on too much, there’s no time to think things out—and you begin executing in a bubble, ignoring your intuition and making decisions that lack creativity and strategy.

The problem scenario: the social media junkie

One of my most recent clients was a self-proclaimed social media junkie. When it came to online networking, she did anything and everything to boost her online exposure. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging, YouTube, FriendFeed, shiny new social apps, networking gadgets, widgets and tools, you name it, she was all over it. And if a new social media strategy was discovered, she was ready to implement at any time.

Not only was she overwhelmed, confused and stressed, but also she was not seeing results. After a few coaching sessions we discovered that her audience was not using Twitter, and rarely checked into their LinkedIn accounts. She instantly quit wasting her time on these networks.

Also, although she loved making videos, and hated writing blog posts, she was producing several written blogs posts a week because she thought the “hard work” would pay off. Since she was not confident with her writing, each post would take her three to five hours. The misconception that she needed to post multiple times a week was costing her time and money. After monitoring her blog we learned that her audience responded better to video blogs vs. written blogs. She stopped the written blog posts immediately and now posts videos multiple times a week, each taking her about 30 minutes to record, edit, and post.

She was doing too much and was completely sabotaging her success. When she took a step back and stopped “doing,” she was able to see what was working and what was a waste of time. This insight was not clear until she finally stopped “doing” and stepped back to assess the situation.

The solution: create more white space

Harvard Business Review recently published an article called, This Space Intentionally Left White. To get an edge on the competition, the author suggests we “slow down to see more.” She goes on to say that we need to “radically alter a small moment of time each week—to schedule a time for doing nothing but thinking—and pay attention to what emerges in the absence of the noise of our normal activity.”

When you slow down and think about your next steps, things get a lot clearer. You are able to see the pockets of opportunity—and that is where your sweet spot, that minimum effective dose, starts to become more apparent. Setting time for the white space allows you to uncover the areas where you are doing too much and wasting your time—and easier, more strategic opportunities come to the surface.

Spacing out

Are you mired in too much? Make it a habit to find two hours a week where you do nothing but think, not do. No multi-tasking, no emails, no cell phones, no journaling. Just you and your thoughts. Think about where you come up with your best ideas—in the shower, or listening to music in the car—it’s when you’re likely doing an automated activity that allows you to just think.

And next time you get that overwhelming urge to take on yet another project, remember this myth buster: more is not better, it’s just more. Choose your best dose instead—the minimum effective one.

Amy is the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies and a social media strategist for entrepreneurs and small business owners. You can read her weekly blog here and check out her latest program, The Simple Social Media Formula, here.

This guest post is by Dan Zarella of of danzarrella.com.

I find myself in the quantity of followers versus quality of followers debate quite a bit. And one of the fundamental questions of that argument is the concept of influencers. There are clearly some social media users who have more reach and more influence than others, and it is obviously a good thing to have as many of them following you as possible.

Content sharing frequency

A few years ago, when Twitter had just launched and was used primarily by social media geeks, I did a survey. I asked takers how often then shared content with their friends. I found that people who were on Twitter tended to share content more frequently. Those bleeding edge social media users were clearly more influential. For many mainstream markets, whose customer bases aren’t full of hardcore social media users, the percentage of the audience who is on social media (especially the newer platforms) tends to be more influential and connected.

Great tools like Klout and Twitter Grader exist to help you identify influential users, but it becomes tricky and often expensive in terms of time and resources to scale your reach by targeting individual, high-value users.

Death hoax timeline

On the flip side of the coin is the concept of contextual influence. A few months ago there was a death hoax about Nelson Mandela on Twitter. A few Blackberry messenger spam was sent to a number of South African people one morning informing them that Mandela had died. One user, @lebolukewarm, tweeted the phrase “RIP Nelson Mandela” and got around 70 retweets. The phrase then began to trend worldwide on Twitter and received mainstream media coverage.

Lebolukewarm isn’t traditionally influential. He had less than 1,000 followers when the hoax started. He would never show up on any Klout report. It’s nearly impossible to specifically target this kind of influencer, he was just in the right place at the right time. The same was true for many of the users who got tons of ReTweets about Osama Bin Ladin’s capture.

The only way to optimize for having influencers like Lebo following you is to cast a wide net. Since you can’t target users like him, you can only hope to get a lot of followers, thereby increasing the probability that someone like him is following you.

Dan Zarrella is the award-winning social media scientist at HubSpot and host of the upcoming webinar: The Science of Social Media on August 23rd at 2PM ET.