You know I’m anti-auto-posting. I hate that stuff. I unfollow and unsubscribe to people all the time because I hate it so much.

Still. In principle, it can make our lives easier. On the day I’m writing this post, I have a full day ahead: teaching, meetings, etc. I won’t have a lot of time to tweet out useful links. So, having the ability to load up a bunch of tweets and then let them go, especially on a day like today, could be a very useful tool.

Of course you could use Hootsuite. But I have just discovered something better. It’s called Buffer, and it works like a social bookmarking site combined with Hootsuite, but it also does analytics and lets you know when the best times to Tweet are. It’s pretty cool.

It works like this:

• You sign up for an account at BufferApp.com
• Connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts to your Buffer account
• Download the Buffer plugin for your browser
• Now, when you’re out on the interwebz, browsing about, and you find an article that you want to Tweet out, you simply hit the Buffer button on your browser. It will bring up a Buffer window, and you can choose through which networks you want to put that link out. You can put it out through your Facebook, Twitter, or both.
• Buffer chooses the top times to Tweet out, and also staggers your Tweets so that postings come out at apparently random times. Cool, hey?

This still doesn’t mean you can’t check in on your Twitter feed–you need to see if anyone has RT’ed you, or if anyone has responded to your tweets. Also, I tend to send more articles through Twitter than through my Facebook. While it’s cool to Tweet multiple times per day, I only usually post to my Facebook page once per day.

Buffer also gives you analytics and statistics: It will tell you who retweeted you, and even has a built-in dashboard to allow you to follow that person and/or thank them. It’s very thoughtfully designed!

Try it for yourself!