I’m a bit of a cheerleader for Buffer. I’ve been a user of the app since it was first finding its feet so I feel a bit like a proud mama watching so many people realise how helpful it can be.

When Alicia wrote her awesome post How To Save Time On Your Twitter Marketing by using Buffer, I wanted to share with you some of the new tips and tools that are making my experience of tweeting with Buffer even simpler and faster. Here goes.

Sharing Is Caring

(image: Patrick Herrera)

I wouldn’t consider myself a curator or prolific tweeter; I’m a small business owner who can’t help but love reading about productivity, getting things done and any geeky tech/apps/processes that help with that.

When I find an awesome article I want to share, I’m aware it might either be the wrong time of day for anyone to notice, or I risk flooding my followers with a bunch of links in quick succession.

I therefore have two choices:

• be invisible and/or annoying, or
• try my best to reach my followers in the best way possible by using a scheduling tool of some kind

Some people consider scheduling to be spammy and robotic, however I think it’s kind of smart.

I don’t want to be that annoying person who floods you with retweets, and I also want to know I stand a chance of being heard. I’m close friends with my social alerts so conversation is never too far away should you respond to something I post!

If This, Then Buffer

If you’ve reached this far and agree a little scheduling could help you to manage your online presence a little better, let me share with you the newest app in my Buffer toolkit: ifttt.

ifttt [like ‘lift’ but without the ‘l’] takes the simplicity of Buffer one step further by allowing me to create actions for triggers – if I do this, then that happens. Something ifttt refers to as recipes.

Here’s just one example:

I’ve created a recipe so each time I mark a tweet as a favourite, ifttt responds to that trigger and gets busy with the action of loading the tweet into my Buffer as a ReTweet (RT). So now, when I want to RT something I’ve seen in my own timeline, I simply click on ‘favourite’ and job done.

Have a peek here for even more ifttt recipe ideas – the possibilities are nearly endless.

How Well Do You Know Your Audience?

As well as being a geek for productivity, I’m also a bit of a geek for analytics (can you sense a theme here?).

Another new bit of kit I’ve been tinkering with lately is SocialBro. Only this morning I tasked it with analysing when my followers are online and pushing those refined timings to my Buffer settings at the click of a button. Perfect integration.

There are certainly many apps and many Twitter clients out there but Buffer wins it for me right now. It’s super simple and it’s evolving with new features and collaborations all the time. Happy Buffering!

About the author

Alyssa Aldersley is a sidekick to superheroes and uses her superpowers to virtually assist other small business owners through her business, sidekickva. She’s passionate about productivity and getting things done and works hard to ensure her clients are able to swoosh their capes. Connect with her on Twitter @alyssaaldersley as well as on Facebook.

I’m going on the road!

I’m flying to Edinburgh to present a talk on social media at Farm & More – The Farm Diversification Event – an annual get together for the farm retail and diversified farming sector.

This includes producers of fantastic local and artisan foods, owners of farm shops and the ever popular farmer’s markets, parks and ‘pick your own‘ farms who offer great family days out.

This is all as a result of my talk at The Speciality Fine Food Trade Fair at Olympia in London last year.

Farm & More is organised by FARMA – the only UK-national organisation representing farm diversification.

Farm retail plays a huge part in the UK small business sector developing into wider areas including agri-tourism, entertainment and educational aspects. It’s worth over £2 billion a year adding valuable skills and jobs to rural communities.

It’s a real privilege to be speaking at the event. I’m a big supporter of local business and often choose independent shops and cafes over supermarkets and larger high street chains.

What’s more, I’m really excited to be sharing some creative and fun ideas on how social media can help promote the products and services of the local, small retailer. Plus, I’ve never been to Scotland!

What I’ll be speaking about on the day

• The one essential ingredient you need before you even start on social media
• Oops! The most common social media mistakes and how to avoid them
• Real life examples and success stories
• Turning the tables: audience social media clinic

Farm & More are on Twitter – you can follower them here: @FarmandMore

And you can find me on Twitter here: @AbsoluteAlicia

You know social media. You’ve set up your accounts and visit them often. You’ve got e-v-e-r-y-thing running like clockwork.

But have you?

If you’re not getting leads as a result of your efforts you might be making mistakes without even realising it. But that’s okay! We all make mistakes.

I’ve written an article over at E.Junkie outlining 5 common mistakes people make when using social media and how to solve them.

You can read the article in full here: ‘5 Social Media Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making‘.

If you like what you read please share it!

Do you wonder how so many people seem to be on Twitter ALL day and STILL get loads of work done?

Enter Buffer – a handy tool for sending and scheduling tweets in one click and a MASSIVE time saver.

Why scheduling tweets is a good idea

You can’t realistically be on Twitter all day. But if you don’t use a scheduling tool your only option is to bombard your Twitter followers with updates in real time when you happen to be online.

That’s really annoying for your followers.

At least, the ones that happen to be on Twitter at the same time as you.

The others will miss your updates. People log in to Twitter at different times so the chances of them missing your bunched up tweets are high.

This will significantly stunt your reach and makes Twitter an ineffective and poor use of your time.

Scheduling some messages to post automatically throughout the day will mean you’re visible to more people, seen consistently and become a familiar sight in your followers’ stream.

It keeps you seen while you’re off doing something else.

Why Buffer is the answer

With Buffer you can browse your favourite websites finding articles that will interest your followers, add them to Buffer and it will do the rest – send them out at a pre-determined time specified by you. Nice!

This is what Leo Widrich of Buffer has to say:

People that start to Buffer their Tweets increased clicks on links they posted by 200% within 2 weeks of using. The amount of retweets doubles on average. Finally Buffer users increase their follower count by 104 followers within 3 weeks on average.

Pretty impressive, right? And I believe him.

I’ve been using Buffer since July 2011 and seen great results myself. But before Buffer came along I used Hootsuite to schedule my tweets. I understood that scheduling was a brilliant way to make the best use of my time while reaching as many people as possible.

If I was starting from scratch I can see how Buffer would have an even bigger impact.

Why I switched from Hootsuite to Buffer for scheduling

• Because it’s soooo easy
• I can upload a number of messages with one click because I’ve already determined the send times
• I can Buffer from my desktop, laptop, email, Google Reader, Android, iPhone or iPad
• I can Buffer from within Twitter.com



• and in Twitter, it enables the old style RT (trust me, that’s a v good thing). This feature alone is worth signing up for!



• It has it’s own shortcut key so I can hit ‘Alt + b’ in any browser and add the page I’m on to my Buffer
• It does one thing very well: schedules tweets (oh, and Facebook updates). That’s it. I still use Hootsuite every day but I’ve switched to Buffer to share a regular stream of interesting stuff I find around the web

The types of Tweets to Buffer

Despite all its greatness Buffer does not help you with the social aspect of Twitter.

When scheduling your tweets you have to remember the importance of balancing them with interaction: the conversations, replies and mentions.

I’m on Twitter every day, but with the help of Buffer that real time use has been cut to as little as a few minutes on really busy days.

The types of tweets Buffer is perfect for are blog posts, articles, videos – yours and other people’s.

Avoid buffering anything time sensitive or that is part of the conversational side of Twitter. If you’ve already got your Buffer full of messages, it could be days before your time sensitive message is seen, and no longer relevant. Oops!

What else you should know

Buffer has 3 fee options – the entry level one if free. Give it a go and see if it works for you: Take me to Buffer

Sometimes, using social media can feel like an uphill struggle.

When people all around you are achieving success but you’re not, it can be deflating.

Trying to understand all the different tools at once can leave you overwhelmed.

After a holiday or when you’ve let things slip because you’ve been busy, it’s like starting from scratch.

Getting the momentum going again can feel like way too much effort.

This is often why people give up.

But wait – hold up a second!

Consistency is key to running a successful business.

If you fall away from view the relationships you’ve developed will falter.

If you stop talking to your customers they will no longer remember you when they need your product or service.

So when you feel like ditching your online marketing efforts, use these success strategies to keep you on track.

• Don’t worry about what other people are doing, concentrate on your own journey

• Focus on one thing at a time. Whether that’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging or a newsletter – don’t take it all on at once. (That’s enough to make anyone give up!)

• Keep a content bank to store blog headlines, newsletter ideas, tweetable tips, quotes and images for Facebook to call on. Google Docs or an Excel spreadsheet is ideal

• Make a commitment to deliver consistently. Whatever your chosen form of communication make it a non negotiable part of your business

• Set tangible targets to focus your motivation: triple your newsletter readers, blog once a week, double your web traffic from Twitter

• Keep your end goal in mind, remember why you are doing it

Just get back on that bike and keep going.

2011 was a busy year for me:

As I approached my third year in business I changed direction, practically starting from scratch and re-branded. So, with the holiday season nearly here, I’ve decided to take a break until January. Wohoo!

I’m really excited to be spending time relaxing with friends and family (especially the latest addition to the family – my 5 week old niece) and recharging the batteries ahead of 2012.

Before I head off, I wanted to reflect on the year with a walk down memory lane with you, and share the most popular posts of 2011.

I’ve checked my Google Analytics to see which brought the most traffic to my site and included the top 10 below in reverse order.

I’m rubbish at maths so I didn’t do any fancy calculations, nor did I take into consideration that some posts are older than others – it’s a straight run down.

I hope you find some interesting content among this lot, and it helps you with your social media marketing in the year ahead.

Top 10 Blog Posts

10. 7 Steps to setting up Your Twitter account (November 2011)
Posted in November but already one of the most popular posts of the year. Taking your through the very first steps to perfecting your Twitter profile.

9. Perfectionist? 5 Ways to Beat Your Control Freak Tendencies (October 2010)
This is a guest post written by my business associate and friend, Tamsin Fox-Davies and featured back in December 2010, proving that a solid blog post can bring visitors to your site time and again. Thanks Tam!

8. How to Deal With Twitter Overwhelm (November 2011)
Another Twitter post from November. This time on getting organised. Many of the questions I receive ask how to keep on top of the massive flow of tweets in the news feed. This post tells you how…

7. How I Set Up My Business: Woman & Home Magazine Feature (March 2011)
Earlier this year I was featured in Women & Home magazine – a really proud moment for me! Even better, I received loads of messages from other women inspired by the article. It continues to be one of my most popular posts.

6. Facebook Page, Group or Profile – What’s Better for Business? (October 2011)
So many businesses are turning to Facebook to promote their products and services, and create a fun community there. Makes perfect sense as there are 800 million active users on Facebook! But what presence is best? This post goes through the options.

5. Get More Facebook Likes with Tagging (May 2011)
Another Facebook how-to. A frustrating problem for Facebook page users is getting more visibility for their page. This post explains one of the best ways to achieve more likes and raise your page profile.

4. Change Your Twitter Name Without Losing Followers [VIDEO] (May 2011)
My first how-to video! I created this when I changed my own Twitter name. I didn’t want to lose touch with all the people I’d connected with on Twitter over the years so I needed a plan! This explains the steps to go through…

The Top 3 (…cue drum roll…)

3. Social Media Giants – Why They Use Blue As Their Primary Branding Colour (July 2011)
My third most popular blog is another guest post, this time from colour expert, Karen Haller. I asked her why Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all use blue in their branding. Seems that I’m not the only one interested in the answer!

2. Twitter Tip: What is a hashtag (#) on Twitter? (July 2011)
I get asked this a lot so it made perfect sense to turn it in to a blog post!

1. Simple Twitter Tips: What Does #FF Mean? (January 2011)
My most popular post! I was originally asked this question by a client in January 2011. The post goes through what #FF means and how best to use it.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for all your comments on the blog, kind messages on Twitter and Facebook, and for sharing my posts around the internet. It really means a lot knowing that my stuff is useful to you!

Wishing you a fabulous Christmas and best wishes for the new year – Let’s make it a great one

The A board belongs to a coffee shop called The Haberdashery but I didn’t know that when I first saw the photo.

Aaron Lee (@AskAaronLee), a social media consultant based in Singapore, tweeted it. He’s passionate about humanising business using social media. He’s also got 230,000 Twitter followers.

The tweet Aaron posted contained an image, just like this one, of this exact A board. Location unknown (at the time).

The picture really tickled me. I visualised a bunch of kids racing between the tables, buzzing on espresso, squeezing kittens. Parents oblivious to the mayhem. NOT the kind of place I’d want to go for a flat white! But that’s precisely the point.

Seeing this sign actually made me want to go there. I imagined the cafe would be chilled, fun, quirky, relaxed, friendly. Which usually means quality food and coffee too.

Anyway, on with the story. After I saw Aaron tweet this photo, I decided to share it on Facebook. It wasn’t long before a friend commented

I know this place. It’s in Crouch End – I walked past it last week.

Crouch End is about 6km from where I live in London – I’ve been going there regularly to meet friends and go shopping for years. It’s also got loads of great coffee shops so it’s difficult for them to stand out. I couldn’t believe that the cafe in the photo was a local one! The tweet had originated in Singapore so I assumed the location was somewhere far, far away…

Being a coffee addict that works from home means I’m always on the look out for new places to drink coffee, work or hold business meetings.

My friend and I arranged to meet there. Funnily enough that meeting led to business for both of us. Not only that, the cafe was as I expected it to be.

The staff at The Haberdashery are friendly, food home made and delicious, and they make a mean flat white (rare around these parts!). A really nice neighbourhood cafe and far removed from the coffee shop chains along most high streets. It turns out that they pride themselves on being a hub of the local community running events, activities and charity fundraisers. It also has a thriving Facebook group (this makes me v happy).

So now I’ve got a new place to visit when I’m in the area. I’m also telling all my friends plus blogging about it here!

This probably wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for social media, and it certainly wouldn’t have happened if the coffee shop owners hadn’t chosen to stand out and be different.

So what’s the point of this story? Twitter, Facebook, blogging – they’re not strategies, they are ways to communicate. If you stand out, dare to be different and do things that get people talking, social media can help people spread your message. Make it easy for them. What are you doing differently?

Last month I was a guest at Dream Corner, a weekly radio show inspiring women of all ages to follow their dream and passion. The show, hosted by Viv Oyolu, airs on London’s independent radio station OnFM 101.4.

Viv and I had a lot of fun talking about social media and how Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging can help small and local businesses promote their goods and services to a wider audience, creating a stronger community network.

I was pretty nervous about being on the radio let alone being interview for an hour! Viv made me feel really comfortable. That combined with being asked about a subject I’m passionate about meant the time flew by – it felt like we were on air for only a few minutes!

You can visit Dream Corner and listen to my interview with Viv here: Alicia’s Dream Corner interview

Oh, and look out for the short video of me and Viv taken literally minutes before we went live!

In the beginning, when you’re following 50+ people (which isn’t a lot), it’s tempting to read every single tweet that comes in to your stream. You feel obliged to, just as you would read every email in your inbox. There’s so much good stuff being shared you don’t want to miss it!

And this good stuff is jumbled in with the not so important tweets – things that you have no real interest in. But you want to keep following because:

(a) that person is your friend
(b) they send other useful tweets
(c) you want to keep up with them for a valid reason only known to you
(d) they’re following you

By the way, (d) is not a valid reason to following someone on Twitter, especially if you have no interest in them and they tweet nonsense. Go on, unfollow.

The good news is with regular use the overwhelm subsides. You realise you can’t read everything, it’s unrealistic and stressful. You let it go, follow more people, get in to skim reading your stream, but inevitably miss important updates. So what’s the answer?

Activate the Twitter filter feature!

The best way to filter your Twitter stream is with Twitter lists. You can add profiles into categorised lists created and organised by you. These can be public (everyone can see and follow the list), or private (only you know the list exists). Important: You don’t even have to be following someone to add them to your lists so you could keep tabs on someone without them knowing or choking up your stream. Handy. And, yes I admit a bit sneaky too.

Lists also make pinpointing users or information on a particular topic really quick and easy saving valuable time and helping you keep your use productive and focussed.

Here are some creative ideas for lists

I’ve got resource lists, friend lists, client lists, VIP lists, event lists with attendees of conferences, mastermind lists, even seasonal lists which become my focus at certain times of the year but serve no interest the rest of the time. (For example, each July I turn in to a crazed Tour de France fan. My TDF list feeds my habit for one month without clogging up my stream the rest of the year).

So now you’ve got some ideas to chew on, how about putting some lists of your own into action? Remember, if you want to be keep your eye on the Twitter gold and build a great community you’ll want to get your stream organised. You can find your list options on your profile and home page.

I love food and I love talking about it. Good, bad, hot, cold, sweet, spicy, I’ll try anything once (with the exception of jellied eels). People’s eating habits are fascinating. It’s a bit like that reliable British conversation staple: the weather. We have so much of it here!

So, when I was approached by MyDish to help them with a social media campaign I jumped at it. Talk about food all day? You bet!

Who are My Dish?

A unique social networking recipe website dedicated to saving British family recipes for future generations.

When Carol’s mother-in-law, Maureen, passed away, Carol discovered scraps of paper with Maureen’s handwritten recipes on them. The recipes brought back memories for Carol’s husband, reminding him of his childhood whenever he tasted them.

It dawned on Carol that many family recipes that have been treasured over generations are lost because they’re not stored properly – and so she came up with the idea of MyDish.

Carol made headlines when she became the first person on Dragon’s Den to be offered double the amount of money she was pitching for. MyDish received investment from Deborah Meaden on Dragon’s Den, and she remains a board advisor to the company. (Dragon’s Den is the popular BBC2 programme where entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to millionaires willing to invest their own cash).

The request

MyDish were looking for help raising their profile and increasing visits to their website.

Being an online portal, leveraging social media was an obvious choice. It’s accessible, low cost, campaigns are easy to implement quickly, it achieves results fast, and there’s a community already there who are familiar with online networks.

The idea

We decided to run a two week online competition around the topic of nostalgic food.

MyDish has previously run a smaller nostalgic food campaign on their Facebook page. As it had been successful we agreed to take this idea out to a wider audience.

Everyone has a favourite dish that reminds them of childhood whether it’s school dinners, or something more homely and hearty, so it was an natural topic choice. It’s an easy question to answer, it inspires conversation, and makes you feel warm and fuzzy! It also fits nicely with MyDish’s values and purpose.

The plan

The basis of the competition was to encourage people to tell MyDish what foods make them nostalgic and be entered into a prize draw to win £100 Marks & Spencers vouchers in time for Christmas.

I created a short video with people talking about their nostalgic food memories to get others thinking about their own and to demonstrate it’s simplicity and feel good factor. The video was uploaded to YouTube and used on the competition landing page. You can watch it here:

We then create a simple landing page where people could include their entry to the competition:

The landing page included a big tweet button to encourage people to share the details with their friends on Twitter and help the competition spread:

During the competition period we engaged the MyDish fan base on Twitter and Facebook to promote the competition and generate more interest through nostalgic food themed conversation.

The bloggers

I enlisted a number of targeted bloggers to write about the competition and generate interest by talking about it on Twitter and Facebook. They produced fantastic reads that really captured the essence of the competition! Here they are:

What Food Makes You Nostalgic – Yummy Choo Eats

My Dish Nostalgic Recipe Competition – Come Dine With Rach

I’m Lost In Lovely Memories! – Jenny Eatwell’s Rhubarb Ginger

Bringing Back The Nostalgia – Lite Bite

A Nostalgic Nut Roast with Pine Nuts – Becoming A Vegetarian

Nostalgic Food – Just Annie QPR

The Result

With still a few days to go there have been 2000 entries to the competition, a big increase in visits to the MyDish website and raised brand awareness. I’m waiting for final figures – will report back soon!

In the meantime, there’s still time to enter the competition – you can do so here: My Dish Competition but be quick – it closes November 20th.

Good luck!