Should you use BufferApp and Tweet Old Post

Finally I have decided to write a blog post on BufferApp and Tweet Old Post. So that everyone is on the same page, Buffer App is a tweet scheduler service and to be fair it is very good. On their website they say….Add Tweets and facebook posts to your Buffer from anywhere and we automatically share them for you through the day.. 

Tweet Old Post is a wordpress Plugin that tweets your old posts to get more hits for them and keep them alive. Tweet Old Posts randomly picks your older post based on the interval specified by you. The primary function of this plugin is to promote older blog posts by tweeting about them and getting more traffic – again this service / plug in on the whole seems to work reasonably well, although I did see someone that had 6 or 7 old posts all go out at once.

So, what is my issue? As most of you will know I am a massive fan on good old fashioned tweeting, replying, listening and then engaging with people. I do use Twitter to share my own website links, and others. I do not believe in automation or auto following  / unfollowing etc… I like to get to know people before I start to follow them and you will certainly never get an auto welcome direct message from me.

Now before you shout Mark your a hypocrite, yes, I have occasionally scheduled a message if I knew that I was out of action for a day or so but it really is a very rare occasion. I tweet from my phone and pc so never really feel the need to schedule or automate my tweets. I like to send things out and then more importantly be around to answer the replies.

The issue I have with those using BufferApp and Tweet Old Post is that it makes them lazy as it seems to be all they do. They seem to lose all sense of balance. Their accounts no longer have much of any original content, no or hardly any replies or engagement with others, as they get a feeling that why ‘be in the room’ when I can just pump out content, old posts all day every day which will get me followers.

It may well get you followers but its the engagement with those followers that turns them into listeners, and then over time possible brand advocates. I am actually thinking of unfollowing a few of the people that I follow as quite frankly I keep seeing the same old posts and links. I am not blaming the tools ie BufferApp and Tweet Old Post and I am not saying stop using them.

What I am saying though is use them sparingly. Keep creating new interesting content, reply and engage with people and above all keep that balance to your account. Over the next few years, good content will take you so far. The magic ingredient will be some form of context. So that means building those relationships with people and you cant do that with any form of automation. You do that by good old fashioned hard work.

I have already pretty much started to ignore some people’s stream as it has quite frankly become boring, mundane, and just consists of all the old stuff just going out at different times of the day…

Let me know what you think….comment below…