Buffer: Schedule Facebook status updates, tweets, and LinkedIn updates. I believe in the near future more will be added, and this will create more opportunities for us to leverage Buffer further.

IFTTT: We can create tasks that are executed whenever predetermined triggers are set off. Tasks that users create and share for public use is called recipe.

Using the multiple channels within IFTTT, we can create many tasks, however this guide focuses on how to use Buffer to achieve social media success, and to make networking on the social platforms a breeze.

Over a dozen cool integrations have been launched since and lots more are in the pipeline to be unveiled soon.

Today, I thought I’d pick three of the most interesting and useful integrations to date and explain how you can make the most of them:

Ifttt: Put the internet to work for you

This is an integration that we launched a few months back and have updated and improved just last week for you.

In short, ifttt let’s you connect any two web services together. Say for example, you star an item in Google Reader, then a new items gets added to your Buffer.

Or you take a picture with Instagram and it gets posted to Facebook with Buffer for you. Here are 4 great recipes you can check out to make your social sharing smarter and easier:

Star something in Google Reader -> add it to your Buffer

Map out your Buffered Tweets in Google Calendar

When adding to Buffer -> save to Evernote

Favorite a Tweet -> Add it as retweet to your Buffer

Twylah: Make your Tweets shine

Only last week, we have unveiled our latest integration with a gorgeous Twitter app called Twylah.

If you sign up, the app will automatically take all of your Tweets and turn them into a beautiful brand page that displays all of your Tweets on a blog like page for you:

Now, Twylah also features a very cool function called the Power Tweet. It basically lets you send a Tweet for a great post you read to a designated Twylah page.

On there, it will be surrounded with lots of great content to keep your followers up to 40 times more engaged with your content:

Mr. Reader: A gorgeous RSS reader for the iPad

Another integration, that especially Joel is extremely fond of, is our collaboration with Mr. Reader. Mr. Reader is an amazing and beautifully designed iPad app for following RSS feeds.

You can pull in your Google Reader account and folders very easily. From there you can flick through your articles and add anything you find useful to your Buffer very conveniently:

Which Buffer integrations should be next?

You can check out a full list of well over 20 different apps, extras and extensions you can use with Buffer. For now, we are working with lots of other app developers to get you some more Buffer awesomeness wherever you want to share great stuff from.

Of course, we want to continue building awesome integrations for you, so now is your pick. Which other apps would you want to Buffer from? Let us know any suggestions in the box below.

If it was possible, I would spend all day on Twitter.

What can I say? I’m a fan of the quick communication and the ease of retweeting.

But I, like all of you, know it’s not possible. We have jobs to do, blogs to write, and projects to finish for clients.

And while engagement is essential to any kind of quality following, there are still things that you can do away from Twitter to bulk up your followers.

For this post, I’ve rounded up eight ways to do just that! Four of them are passive, set-them-and-forget-them tips; and four require a little effort each day, but are well worth the time investment.

So let’s get to it! We’ll start with the simple ones.

1.) Add your Twitter handle to your email signature

Who better to follow you than your current customers and fans? Adding a line to your signature that says “Find me on Twitter” (or even better “Follow me on Twitter”) and including a URL to your account saves your recipients the step of looking it up. They simply click and they’re there!

Since images grab attention more than text, adding a Twitter badge and hyperlinking it to your profile would be even better. Just don’t forget the call to action!

2.) Place social icons on your website

Your audience is already browsing products on your website or reading the content of your blog. So direct them to your Twitter account by showing them the different ways to contact or connect with you on social media.

Place social icons on your “about us” or “contact” page, though a presence on your homepage (like Fast Company) is even better.

If possible, use the icons that come with calls to action, like Mashable’s subscribe box on their homepage.

3.) Take advantage of the Twitter follow button

Even better than a Twitter social icon is the Twitter follow button. Perhaps it’s the built in call to action, perhaps it’s the social proof by displaying how many followers you already have, or perhaps it’s the one click action: but this button is an absolute must-have if you want to collect followers.

If you scroll up and look to the right, you can see that the Buffer guys use it on their blog; and their follower numbers are always going up. For other creative ways to display your Twitter follow button, check out this article.

4.) Add links to your Twitter account from your other social networks

You never know how people will stumble onto your company. Maybe they find one of your videos on YouTube, or one of their friends likes a status on your Facebook page. Luckily, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest all have the capability to link to your Twitter account.

For example, Dunkin Donuts’ Google+ profile contains links to all of their other social networks.

Once you spend some time updating your email and social networks, and tinker with your blog or site design (or pay a designer to do it for you), you’re done! You never have to think about them again!

The next four strategies do take a little more time out of your day, but as I said earlier, it’s well worth the time investment.

5.) Use a scheduling tool

You’ve seen this equation before: Be real + share interesting content = new twitter followers. So to make your sharing smarter and more effective, schedule tweets to post at better times throughout the day.

With an 8-5 job, I don’t have the time (or access) to log onto Twitter every few hours and share an article I read at 7 am. So with tools like Hootsuite, TweetDeck, and my personal favorite, Buffer (pictured above), I can schedule my social media presence in the morning and don’t have to think about it the rest of the day.

Pro tip: As I accidentally found out, attributing authors in your tweets of their articles is a great way to pick up new, quality, like-minded followers.

6.) Write guest posts

While this is the most time consuming way to gain new followers, writing guest posts is also (in my experience) how you can get the most Twitter followers.

Write a killer piece of content, put a link to your Twitter account in your author bio, and send it over to a relevant blog. If people love what you’ve written, they’ll also love to follow you on Twitter to gain additional knowledge and insight.

Gregory Ciotti, and all of us that write guest posts for Buffer, put our Twitter handle in our author bio.

7.) Enter your Twitter handle when leaving blog comments

I had someone tell me in the comments section of my last guest post that they received an influx of new followers when they left comments on blogs.

I usually put my company blog as my website link in blog comments, but you can just as easily use your personal or company Twitter URL.

You can also make the default URL on your Disqus account your Twitter handle. Some blogs like Social Media Examiner even allow you to leave a comment with Twitter.

8.) Enter your Twitter handle in comments of blogs with Comment Luv

But if you’re hoping to attract people to your website AND you want to increase your Twitter followers, there is a way to have the best of both worlds.

By commenting on websites like Smart Boy Designs and Kikolani that have CommentLuv and the Twitter add-on, you can get links to your website, Twitter account, and a blog post.

That’s a lot of exposure, and a lot of potential to gain new Twitter followers (and blog readers)!

By the way, I’m not saying you should ignore blogs without the CommentLuv + Twitter add-on. You should leave comments on quality posts regardless of the comment system – you can always use your Twitter account for your website URL.

Okay, if by chance you’ve made it this far and you’re thinking, “That’s great, Mandy. But I rather get Facebook fans or Google+ followers,” then fear not! Most of these tips can be applied to other social networks!

You can use any URL that you want when leaving comments, you can (more or less) link all of your social media accounts to each other, and the handy Facebook subscribe button works similar to the Twitter follow button. Many guest bloggers will rotate their bio links depending on which social network they want to grow. Scheduling services like Buffer can post on other social networks.

Being active on your accounts and crafting trustworthy tweets can definitely help your following, but it’s nice to know that you can also take a break when you need to get other things done.

Now over to you!

Have you tried any of these techniques to grow your social media following? Which ones worked best? Any tips that you’d like to add?

About the author:

Why ShareFeed?

We always are on the lookout to be completely transparent about what we do and why we do it here at Buffer. To break it down, there were a few clear reasons the acquisition was attractive to us.

Firstly, Hiten Shah (@hnshah), CEO of KISSmetrics and founder of ShareFeed is one of the most knowledgeable people in the startup world. With ShareFeed, launched in 2009, he has gained insights into the world of Social Sharing, that probably no one else has.

The analytics and marketing extraordinaire that he is, he and his team collected tons of useful data and survey results from ShareFeed users. Having access to this data and Hiten as a mentor and advisor, has been one of the key drivers.

Secondly, Hiten mentioned to us: “I cannot fully focus on ShareFeed, and the users deserve great options and a product which is adapting with the trends of sharing”. Joining as an advisor to Buffer, Hiten can still shape a product he is passionate about, whilst continuing to kick ass with KISSmetrics.

What’s next?

For the next few weeks, we will do everything to help ShareFeed users transition seamlessly to using Buffer. We love to be in touch with all users, and we’re excited to get a new perspective from ShareFeed users. If you’ve been using ShareFeed, we’d love to hear from you! Tweet us or drop us an email.

Our aim is to focus on building the single best Social Sharing tool. For that reason, signing up to ShareFeed has been disabled. We will most likely keep ShareFeed running for another few weeks and then close down the service so we can stay laser focused on Buffer.

We are excited to continue with Hiten’s data-driven approach and work closely with ShareFeed users, learning more about their problems and desires for sharing on Social Networks.

Bringing Hiten on board has already had a significant impact to the progress with Buffer, and we’re super happy to be able to work with him more closely in the coming months and years.

What do you think about this move? Let us know anything you have in mind in the comments below or also feel free to email us hello@bufferapp.com about this.

Today, I’m very excited to have a powerful new integration ready for you. Twylah is a service that creates beautiful custom brand pages for your Tweets.

And as of this week, you can Buffer Tweets through their most powerful feature: Power Tweets.

Before we spill all the amazing stats that using Twylah and Buffer together will help you achieve, let’s take a quick tour of what Twylah allows you to do.

What is Twylah?

Twylah, in short is service, that makes your Tweets shine. If you sign up for their service, each of your Tweets that you send from now on, will be indexed and displayed on a beautiful brand page for your Tweets.

Here is an example of how this looks like:

This means, if you put your Twylah page as your Twitter profile link for example, visitors will get a much better overview about what your Tweets are all about. Instead of monotonous stream, that might only reach back a few hours, they will get a holistic overview about your Twitter presence.

Now on top of this, Twylah also gives each of your Tweets a designated page. This doesn’t only look amazing, it is also very useful. All around your Tweet, there are a ton of other interesting postings you have made, which relate to it.

How to give your Tweets exponential exposure

Now, purely by having all this related content on your Twylah page, Tweets you posted weeks or months ago, might become relevant again. They can gain traction and tend to have a much longer shelf-life than if they just circulate on Twitter.

The key to post your Tweets in that way is an amazing feature Twylah has built in. It is called a Power Tweet.

Your Tweet gets the look and feel of a small blogpost you have published:

How Power Tweets increase your Twitter engagement

Eric Kim, founder of Twylah, conducted some very interesting research with all Power Tweets, that are posted. The one thing he found is this:

“Power Tweet pages, by themselves increase engagement (as defined by time spent with your content) by 40X.”

Eric explained to me, that this is mostly triggered by the short snippets of text, surrounded by lots of other relevant content right on the Power Tweet page.

This means, that normally, people tend to spend 30 seconds with a piece of content, whereas if clicking on a Power Tweet, they tend to spend 3-5 minutes engaging with it. That’s powerful!

How Buffering increases your Tweets engagement

At the same time, here at Buffer, we analyzed well over 1 million updates posted through the service. We sat down and asked a similar question to Eric, do people click more or less often on Buffered Tweets? The results we published in our research were this:

“On average, people who start to use Buffer, see a 200% increase in clicks on links, retweet rate doubles and Klout scores increased 3.5 points. The data refers to using Buffer daily for at least 2 weeks.”

The main reasons for this we found were that Buffer posts your Tweets at optimal timing and makes creating consistent posting pattern more hassle-free.

All you have to do is Buffer interesting stuff, which of course, takes some doing, nonetheless can be done in a very timesaving way.

And now all together: Buffer Your Twylah Power Tweets

Buffer is now directly integrated into Twylah, which naturally combines the two above results. All you have to do is click the Buffer button, whenever you write a new Power Tweet from now on:

Being able to Buffer your Power Tweets, should give you a leading edge on Twitter and make your Tweets a lot more powerful.

Or to use Pam’s words, go and add some awesome-sauce to your Tweets:

You can give the new integration a go here. If you don’t have a Twylah account yet, just click the below button and you will get special treatment when signing up, getting your Twylah page in no time:

What do you think of Buffer and Twylah now being connected? Do you think this could help with your Tweeting? Let me know your thoughts below:

We realized one thing. Smarter sharing comes with posting algorithms, analytics and other tech improvements. At the same time, talking to lots of your and other awesome Buffer users, what makes sharing smarter, is to be able to do it right where you actually see the great content you come across.

That’s why we went ahead and built a brand new Buffer experience for your browser. Install one of the extensions and see the magic happening, wherever you are:

Get your Buffer browser extension

Each of these extensions is packed with brand new functionality to allow you to Buffer right from Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader and many other places. Let’s dig in:

Add to Buffer directly from Facebook

Which site do we spend the most time with every day? – is what we asked ourselves. Clearly one of the sites that came up a lot is Facebook above lots of others. It is a great place to discover new links, videos and photos.

Being able to share them in an efficient and straight forward way was always tricky. With the brand new Buffer integration, feel free to Buffer several updates without flooding your friends stream.

1. Buffer your status updates

You can now Buffer your status updates. Is it is too late or too early for any of your friends to see your update?

Just Buffer it:

2. Buffer images from Facebook

Also, from now on, whenever you click the share button on a picture, you can Buffer it. The best part? It Buffers the actual picture:

If you click the Buffer button on pictures, it will take the picture instead of a link and you can share it also on Twitter or LinkedIn right away:

3. Buffer links and status updates from Facebook

Of course, you can also just Buffer status updates with Buffer buttons on each of your sharing boxes

Reshare a status update with Buffer

And it of course also works when Buffering links you came across on Facebook:

Buffer directly from Twitter.com

What’s up there right after browsing Facebook for our daily Social Media activities? Tweeting of course, is what we thought.

On our hunt to allow you to share smart and efficiently wherever you browse, we went ahead and added Buffering functionality right into Twitter for you.

With Twitter.com, you can now add new posts to your Buffer without having to move to another tab or opening a dashboard.

There are 4 key ways you can now add to your Buffer right from Twitter.com:

1. Buffer retweets

You can now Buffer retweets, so you can share more of the great content of your Twitter stream. And all that without ever overwhelming your friends and followers, having Buffer space out your posts for you:

2. Buffer new Tweets

You can also Buffer new Tweets from now on. Just open the Tweet box and start writing a new update:

Pro tip: This is especially handy if you want to post to different Twitter usernames, than you aren’t currently logged in. Just hit Buffer and toggle the other avatars and off you go:

3. Buffer blogposts via the Tweet button

One very handy feature is that if you now, click the Tweet button on any page, you will also be able to Buffer the post that you were reading:

Google Reader & Buffer

Now, that Facebook and Twitter were covered we thought some more. Which places on the web do you find awesome content so you should be able to Buffer from it? Google Reader of course – was our answer.

Whilst Buffer’s browser extension was already working inside Google Reader, we have now also put some neat Buffer buttons right inside your Google Reader. At the bottom of each post, you will now have a slick Buffer button available:

There is also a subtler icon available for you, so you can Buffer items in a more compressed view on Google Reader:

Reddit and HackerNews now Bufferable

As the last addition to complete the full guide of mastering the new Buffer browser extensions, we have added some neat add-ons to HackerNews and Reddit.

Reddit, tagged as The Front Page Of The Internet, now carries a subtle Buffer button on each item, so you can add it straight to your queue:

HackerNews, probably the most popular news site for startups and coding topics, has gotten a similar enhancement from us here:

Our most important goal is to let you Buffer from anywhere you go on the web. With these latest additions, I hope we have made a big step in that directions.

Go grab the new extensions for your browser here:

Get your Buffer browser extension

With these new additions, we hope Buffering is taken to a whole new level. What do you think of these additions? Where else do you want to Buffer from?

This is a guest post by Gregory Ciotti, a contributing Buffer Blog columnist. More about him at the bottom of the post. 

Twitter has fast become not only a very important part of the web as a whole, but also a very integral part to how we consume important and breaking news.

Twitter users are increasingly not only getting updates from those whom they elect to follow, but also by choosing to consume new information by searching for a topic in addition to following accounts.

The Twitter search portal now receives over 1.6 billion (yes, billion) searches a day. Twitter has also added things like “trending topics”, and major search engines have included option to search public social streams (such as Google Real Time).

With all of this potentially important information and news being spread on Twitter, how do users assess what information is reliable and what isn’t?

Fortunately, a recent research study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University reveals those answers.

Does This Really Matter?

You might be thinking, “Does reliability really matter on Twitter? What’s the worse that could happen, I get tricked into thinking a celebrity is dead when they really aren’t?”

While fake celebrity deaths and other pranks taking over Twitter’s trending topic are of little long term concern, what is a concern is the increasing reliance on social media for important news items.

This includes things like

1. Natural disasters (and subsequent aid efforts)
2. Politics & campaigns
3. Breaking news (think: protests, World news, scientific breakthroughs)

While I’ve personally covered studies on what influences users opinions on websites (in particular, blogs) on my research on blog design, social media is a different ballpark (since, by nature, people trust the Twitter website as a whole).

The Study

The study itself included 256 participants, ranging from 18-60 years old (average age of 32). All participants were required to have recently “read tweets” (ie: they used Twitter recently), 91% having read them in the last week, and 74% reading them at least once a day.

They found that people were not very concerned with credibility for users they already follow, and more concerned with tweets & users they encountered via search.

In addition, the results of the study found that people were most concerned with credibility for topics like news, politics, emergencies, and consumer information (product information & reviews).

That last one is especially important for business owners to keep in mind.

Last but certainly not least, the researchers found that there were 10 aspects which made tweets appear more reliable to their participants.

These were then grouped and scored on a scaled form [1-5] on how much of an impact they had, with 5 being the highest.

Let’s dig into their findings, shall we?

What really does make a tweet more trustworthy? Here are the results:

1.) The post was retweeted by someone you trust [4.08]

This is probably the most subjective of all of the measurements from the study, and yet, it’s still no surprise to see it at number 1.

Trustworthiness is a quintessential psychological element of social influence.

Quite simply, trust has been found to be the biggest factor for influencing someone, online or otherwise.

In this example, seeing Hiten Shah, a true startup expert retweet something about startups, immediately adds a huge amount of credibility to the Tweet. And naturally I will be inclined to click through much more frequently.

No need to overthink this one: be trustworthy, don’t link people to suspicious web pages, don’t take advantage of their willingness to follow you to promote garbage (or constant affiliate links), and above all else, only connect yourself, your name, and your brand to projects you are proud of.

2.) The author appears to be (or is) a subject expert [4.04]

Authority has long been a proven technique for increasing influence.

As covered in Cialdini’s classic work that covers the psychology of influence, the concept of Authority is listed as one of the 6 key ways to be more influential.

Reason being, people seem to follow the advice of people they perceive to be as “experts”, even to extremes as found in the Milgram experiment.

On Twitter, positioning yourself as an expert largely has to do with the credentials you outline in your profile, your connecting website, and your following.

Dave Larson from @TweetSmarter has worked over 5 years on becoming the go to expert about all things Twitter and Social Media. It is no surprise that his Tweets, who are always very clearly on topic, are one of the most reshared and clicked on links.

Short version: be focused and work on becoming an expert!

Know that large numbers (such as followers) doesn’t always equal expert status, it’s more about showcasing your accomplishments in the short amount of space you have on Twitter.

3.) You follow the author [4.00]

Clarification here: this means that when you see a tweet via search or a retweet, as obviously you need to be following people to see their tweets.

So, if someone retweets another person’s tweet (with a link to an article), this study has shown that trust is exponentially higher if you already follow the original author.

Clearly another good reason pick up more Twitter followers, beyond the additional clicks and retweets of your content.

4.) Tweet contains URL you’ve clicked through before [3.93]

This finding spells out two implications in my eyes:

1. You should be tweeting a few stories from “big sites” (think sources for news, NYTimes etc.)
2. You should be working on getting your own site to be recognizable

It’s also been found that full URLs (when seen on Twitter) get more clicks than shortlinks that don’t reveal the address, especially if the person clicking isn’t familiar with you (or your brand).

Given this result, you might want to try throwing in a few articles a week from sites practically everyone had heard of, your favorite newspaper or large media source being a good place to start.

5.) Author is someone you’ve heard of [3.93]

Again with authority, this highlights the importance of building things outside of your Twitter account (you are, aren’t you? ;))

Most importantly, you need to be getting your name out there in your niche, which is far more important to your business than large exposure in any old place.

People often need to see/hear a name or brand multiple times before they remember it, this is called effective frequency.

A good place to start with building your brand/name is with content marketing, including running a blog for your business and investing some time in guest posting.

6.) Account has a verification seal [3.92]

I thought this one was particularly interesting, as I’ve always suspected that a verification seal does have a pretty solid impact.

Nowadays, you don’t have to be a celebrity in a traditional sense to get verified by Twitter, if you can build a fairly influential presence online, you are likely to get invited or able to apply to get verified and have the seal show up on your account.

You’ll notice that a lot of these aspects are based a lot off of what you’ve accomplished outside of Twitter… building authority is a very involved process, and includes much more than building a popular Twitter following!

7.) Author often tweets on the topic [3.74]

This is one of the most actionable aspects of the entire study.

This is because not only does tweeting about a very specific topic help with your credibility and trustworthiness, it’s also good practice for your business to use on Twitter.

You’ll notice that great Twitter brand pages like the KISSmetrics Twitter page always include links from other sites as well as their own, but the focus remains solitary: in this instance, all of the tweets are about analytics & conversions.

The advantage to doing this is that you start to become a resource for those in your niche, and not just a blatant self-promoter of your own content.

The Buffer Twitter account is also “guilty” of using this strategy very well, with links to Twitter + Blogging content from all over the web, making them a great account to follow to get more than just “Buffer updates”.

8.) Author’s tweets frequently include similar content [3.71]

As I mentioned above, this is one of the more interesting aspects for me, as it’s one that is completely under your control.

It seems as though Twitter followers enjoy users who have a “focus” with their Tweets, and it makes sense.

You might read a newspaper to get “the news” on a variety of topics, but do you ever do that with websites?

Do you ever go to Spotify in hopes of watching a video?

Will you head over to SlideShare in order to listen to music?

Similarly, do you visit your favorite Twitter Tips blog (hint: it’s this one ;)) to read articles about fashion or cooking vegan food?

Of course you don’t!

That’s why you need to give your followers what they want: your focus needs to be on promoting content your followers will enjoy reading, and that includes content other than your own stuff.

Creating a Twitter page that becomes a resource for anyone in your niche, and you’ll have “flocks” of followers heading your way with no promotion necessary.

9.) Author’s user image includes a personal photo [3.70]

This is another interesting one, especially for brand pages.

I’d imagine that when you are a huge national brand, this doesn’t really matter as much.

But what if you aren’t?

Some brands which revolve largely around one figurehead (even if in reality they are a run by a multiple person team) can get away with running a “headshot” of their lead member.

You can see this in action on the Copyblogger Twitter page:

If your presence online is really tied to you as a person, it makes sense to do this; if it’s a little more ‘faceless’ (see: the KISSmetrics blog, consisting of mostly guest posts), it’s better to use your brand’s logo.

Overall though, I would take this data as a sign that personal accounts are important in addition to brand accounts; I wouldn’t go around changing your brand accounts to have a ‘face’ in them, better to promote your brand, which is what your Twitter page should ideally be about.

10.) Author is often mentioned or retweeted [3.69]

Last on our list of influence, and I believe rightfully so, as this one is simply the culmination of those mentioned above.

An expert who provides a quality resource on their Twitter page, who tweets consistently about reliable, informative content, is simply bound to be mentioned and retweeted often.

Don’t focus on retweets and mentions all that much: focus on creating an influential and useful Twitter page, and these results will come naturally.

The Psychology of Being Influential on Twitter

I’ve noticed throughout this study that a lot of the aspects of a “trustworthy” Tweet or account has a lot to do with the 6 principle of “Influence”, noted by Robert Cialdini.

Specifically, 5 of the 6 pillars of influence are especially prevalent in the characteristics of a trustworthy account or tweet:

Social Proof: Simply enough, people look towards others very often in determining what to do (and if something is trustworthy).

Noted in the study are quite a few examples on the importance of authority and “proof” of that authority,  specifically, aspects like the “Verification Seal” have been shown to be excellent forms of social proof on Twitter, along with a healthy following and numerous mentions and tweets about the author.

Reciprocity: This comes in the form of “giving” people something.

On Twitter, this is present in tweeting about quality content.

This includes both your own content and that of others, you need to be providing value on Twitter for your followers if you hope to keep them engaged (no more buzzwords, I promise ;)).

Create a resource and people will reward you with retweets and increase clickthroughs to your links: you’ve earned it by providing value to them.

Commitment and Consistency: One of the most obvious connections from “Influence” to this Twitter study was the importance of consistency: giving people similar content over time was shown to increase trustworthiness.

If you constantly tweet about sociology, social psychology or psychological research, you will begin to be seen as a trustworthy resource on those topics.

However, if you extend your reach and start tweeting about men’s fashion, dog training and celebrities, you’ll be seen as a jack of all trades and a master of none, and thus not as trustworthy on any one topic (and you’ll likely be viewed as a spammer).

Dominate your niche with commitment and consistency, and you’ll be rewarded with influence.

Authority: Another obvious connection to make from Cialdini’s book and this study is with the importance of authority.

People will tend to obey authority figures, even under some conditions where it is more than obvious that they shouldn’t.

Take this crazy story on ‘Authority’: A doctor was once working with a patient who was having ear problems, when all of a sudden he was called away to an emergency in the ER and was forced to leave hasty instructions for the nurse.

He ended up writing: “Patient needs medication (it was a liquid) in R Ear”.

What he meant was the patient needed the medication applied to his Right Ear (R Ear).

Instead, the nurse, not questioning the doctor’s apparent instructions on the note, applied the medication to the patient’s REAR!

The patient didn’t even bother to speak up, even though he knew it was ear problems he was having!

Authority is a huge aspect of being trustworthy, enough to result in crazy examples as described above, so make sure you are building authority with your brand (just don’t go giving medical advice ;)).

Liking: Is it any surprise that people find people they “like” to be more trustworthy?

Not at all, and in fact, that’s one of the main advantages to social media marketing: really connecting with your customers.

Companies go all out in order to be seen as “likable” these days on social media, the above being a fairly funny example of this.

We’ve also noted in the study that people trust accounts with actual photos more than a logo in many instances: it’s easier for people to like other people than it is for them to like brands.

Some bigger Twitter accounts I know like to use things like “Quotables” and other bite sized tweets (that don’t include links) to better connect with their followers: your content doesn’t always have to be promotional in order to have an effect.

Over To You

Only one question today…

What characteristics do YOU look for when deciding to trust an author or an individual tweet?

Any warning signs you tend to avoid?

t the same time, if you are trying to make your workflow more efficient, getting by with just Twitter.com is a little difficult, you probably already know this.

As of a few days ago, we have therefore added a brand new Chrome extension that will give you a great new experience right on Twitter.com. With the Buffer button inside Twitter, you can add retweets to your queue, post to multiple profiles and lots more. Here are the top 4 features for you to turn Twitter.com into your most amazing Social Media tool with Buffer:  

1.) Post old style Retweets at optimal time

Ever since Twitter introduced the new way of retweeting someone, it became very hard to add a comment to your retweets. You can also no longer show your appreciation for others by mentioning them in your retweet easily.

With our latest changes to the browser extension, this should all work super efficiently now. All you have to do is click the Buffer retweet button and add another update to your queue to be posted at optimal timing later on:

2.) Post to multiple profiles from Twitter.com

Another helpful tip, that I have actually only discovered after using the extension for a while, is that you can now post to multiple Twitter or Social Media profiles right from Twitter.com.

Start writing a Tweet or a retweet and add it to your queue with just one click:

And when you do so, you can easily add it straight to multiple profiles you have connected to your Buffer account. Check out the example below here:

3.) Use the Tweet button on any website to Buffer

Another addition, that isn’t actually just limited to Twitter.com is that the extension also works on any page, that has a Tweet button installed.

Buffering the great articles you find, instead of Tweeting them right away, can be a huge win to get more engagement on your postings:

So, whenever you click Buffer instead, one more post lands in your queue and is ready to go out when more followers will see it:

Of course, installing the official Buffer button for your blog, will make sharing that article even more efficient.

4.) Buffer normal Tweets with one click

Lastly, you can also just start Buffering normal Tweets, so you can get all the additional analytics that Buffer has available for you. This includes number of retweets, clicks on links, mentions and favorites all saved for you:

You can of course do the exact same thing with replies, so your Twitter stream isn’t either 10 replies or 10 content Tweets in a row, but rather a mixture of the two:

How much are you using Twitter.com? Have you thought about giving the Twitter.com interface a full try? I hope with the new Buffer browser extension it will make your life a lot easier and most importantly save you tons of time when interacting on Social Media.

What are your thoughts on these new features? Any other places on the web you would like to Buffer from or to? Let us know below.

What an incredible journey looking back. It was a little over one year, in December 2010, that Joel first launched Buffer from his bedroom in the UK. Since then things have changed upside down – lots of times.

Today is a huge moment, and we wanted to take a time-out from our busy days and say thanks. Thanks to you and everyone else being on board of this crazy Buffer journey so far.

As of today, you and all Buffer users together have just published 10,000,000 updates via Buffer.  And our growth continues to move faster than ever before. We are now posting around 1 new update every second.

That’s well over 80,000 updates every day, or 2,400,000 updates every week.

I sometimes wonder how many books could be written by now with all those updates! Doing a little research all of you are writing 4 copies of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace every day, or well over 400 copies so far, with one book having well over 3,000 pages.

Thank you.

Where we stand to today could not have been possible without the kindness we see coming in every day from you and all the raving Buffer fans.

The number of supportive Tweets that reach us on the @bufferapp Twitter account day in day out. The amazing wall posts on our Buffer wall. Or the incredible number of friendly emails sent to us, it’s what makes it fun and well worth getting out of bed every day.

So, if anything, please keep doing that! :) Hit us up @bufferapp whenever you have a problem or even if you just want to chat on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Email us with whatever you have in mind to hello@bufferapp.com and we will be right on it replying to you.

Or if you want to get in touch more directly with the Buffer team, just Tweet us. Joel is at @joelgascoigne, Tom is @tommoor and I’m @leowid.

Really, I would want to go through the whole of our userbase, each and every one and send you a personal thank you note, if only I could get days to have more than 24 hours!

Adding awesomeness to Buffer daily – Tom Ashworth is on board

As things are going well and we are scaling out our daily production, we have also added an awesome new person to our team.

Tom Ashworth has joined us last week. Tom is a full stack developer from the UK, studying at Cardiff University right now.

And Tom is just amazing, he hacks away on the latest Buffer features and at the same time also works on helping out users via support. He also writes a very cool blog I enjoy reading.

Say hello to Tom @phuunet on Twitter and sneak in some feature suggestions, he might just be the one building them for you!

Buffer’s Happiness Hero – Alyssa Aldersley

Someone you have probably already been in touch with lots on Twitter or via email is Alyssa Aldersley. She is our official Happiness Hero, delivering happiness all day long for you.

Alyssa is also very vocal on her personal Twitter account @alyssaaldersley, not just on the @bufferapp account.

It’s really amazing to have her on board, the way she is able to handle requests either via email or Twitter is beyond awesome. Try for yourself, shoot us a note via email and get a super nice response from Alyssa yourself! (In fact, I myself sometimes email our support, just to hear some nice words from Alyssa.)

We’re really lucky to have you all on board. The best thank you we can probably give you is to make sharing content on the web even easier, more awesome and efficient with Buffer. And that’s what we committed to do, keep an eye out!

Over to you now, since really, this post is all about you. Is there anything you would like to see in Buffer in the future? Or any other thoughts you just feel like sharing with us?

The internet is a big place. For a long time, I found the task of organizing and remembering all the articles, images, videos, posts, tweets, and sites to be formidable. The mass of information only continues to grow, but I have latched on to 10 free tools that help me organize my online journey. 5 are common, and 5 are just getting big on the scene. I hope you can find some that help you as well.

The Famous 5

1.) Evernote

I have been using Evernote on and off for a couple years now, intensively since January. It is the single most useful tool I’ve used for organizing and remembering online activity, notes, and ideas.

I use the Evernote web clipper to send pages directly to my account, which syncs easily between web, desktop, and iPhone. In fact, I’m writing this post on Evernote!

Coolest feature? – Evernote recognizes written text.

2.) Buffer

I’m a pretty new Buffer user, but so far I love the service. It makes your Twitter usage much more efficient and valuable. Buffer allows you to schedule your Tweets and Facebook posts at important times throughout the day. I don’t want to sit on twitter all day, but I also don’t want to only send tweets out 5 at a time in the morning and at night.

With Buffer, your problems are solved! Use the Chrome extension to grab web pages and convert them to tweets.

Coolest feature? – The main one, an ability to schedule your social media output.

3.) Flipboard

My brother turned me on to Flipboard, and it’s been my news and information source ever since. It connects your social media accounts and interests in to a customized e-zine layout.

Flipboard is easy to use, navigate, and share. Star your favorite tweets, instagram pics, and email news sites to remember.

Coolest feature? – Beautiful layout and navigation. Disclaimer: For now, only available on iPhone and iPad.

4.) Google Reader

This is the best tool I’ve found for consolidating all your RSS feeds in one place. For Gmail users, the layout is similar and easier to navigate. There are days where I will read 50+ articles in under 15 minutes, scanning through and picking out the ones that stand out to me. Great articles are starred for later reference.

FYI, Buffer connects seamlessly with reader, making it easy to re-tweet articles and connect with authors. Who doesn’t like to be re-tweeted?

Coolest feature? – All the sharing options you’d want, e.g. Buffer, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, email, etc.

5.) Amazon Wish List

Specifically, the browser extension. As you travel the internet, you find products and gifts for yourself or others. You think, “Hey this would be nice for so and so”.

Click the wish list button on your browser, and it’s automatically added to your Amazon Wish List, which can be shared with anyone. Never forget a gift or future purchase again.

Coolest feature? – Create multiple lists for organizing the goods.

The 5 New Tools You Need To Know About

6.) IFTTT

I joined a couple weeks ago, and this is my new best friend on the internet! IFTT stands for IF THIS THEN THAT, and you can create application tasks centered around answering IFTT.

For instance, IF THIS (happens) e.g. I take an Instagram photo, THEN THAT (happens), e.g. said photo is automatically saved to my Dropbox account. I set one up that will automatically sends a thank you tweet when someone follows me.

Coolest feature? – There are literally hundreds of ready-made “recipes” for you to initiate right now.

7.) BlissControl

This handy site allows you to control all of your social settings in one place. Change your profile pictures, bio, recover passwords, and more. You can use the service for 13 social media sites, including all your favorites (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest).

Coolest feature? – The streamlined nature of the application makes it a huge time-saver.

8.) SocialBro

This provides incredibly (almost overwhelming) statistics for your Twitter account. From the beginning, Social Bro syncs your followers and provides up-to-the-minute stats, custom searches, insights, and more.

Like I said, it’s a ton of useful information, and I’m still wading through it myself!

Coolest feature? – Shows the best times to tweet based on your followers! So sync that up with Buffer and you’re in business.

9.) Pocket (formerly Read It Later)

This is a wonderful tool for simply grabbing an article or web clip that you want to read later (see what they did there?!), but don’t want to add the entire site to your RSS reader. Pocket, which has just launched yesterday, provides a clean, easy to read layout, and also can link up with your smartphone. All your future reading items in place, ready when you’re waiting at the DMV.

Coolest feature? – Pocket also directly integrates with Buffer, Evernote, Box.net and lots of other great sharing options.

10.) WorkFlowy

If you are the kind of person that always wants to be in on the next cool app, consider WorkFlowy for your list-making, note-taking, project management, and brainstorming.

The layout and flow has a clean, undisturbed look that will allow you to focus on what you actually want to be working on. You can also use it to collaborate with others.

Coolest feature? – Use Twitter-esque commands, i.e. hashtags and @co-worker, to search and communicate within your WorkFlowy.

What do you think?

I hope this helps you find a few (or 10) new tools for navigating the glut of information online. Do you use any of these tools already? What tools do you love that we didn’t list? Share your thoughts in the comments!

About the author: 

Matt Ragland is a writer who ranges on topics from productivity, social media, spirituality, creativity, and outdoor adventure. He is the Assistant Director at Camp Rockmont, and enjoys trail running, football, and coffee. Check out his blog, then follow him on Twitter and/or Google+.