Tweet-scheduling app Buffer launches share button for blogs

Tweet-queuing app Buffer has had a pretty busy year so far, and as we enter the final month of 2011 it has announced the public launch of its Buffer Button across the Web, which it says has been outperforming Google’s +1 button during field trials.

We first reported on Buffer back in February, noting at the time:

“Buffer is a quick no-nonsense Web application  that lets you designate fixed times for your tweets to go off.”

To explain a little further, whenever you find something tweetable on the Internet, you add it to your ‘Buffer’ and the app schedules the tweets for you evenly throughout the day. This is a key differentiator over the likes of HootSuite and TweetDeck, which require users to manually schedule the tweets.

In August, we reported that Buffer had added full analytics for all buffered tweets, as well as Google Reader integration. Whilst later that month it announced that it had hit 1m tweets ‘buffered’, followed not long after by the rolling out of a native Android app. And then the big announcement arrived in early November – Facebook integration…at last!

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Today, however, Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich tells us that its presence in the social sphere just got another shot in the arm, with its Buffer Button taking pride of place in that little social bar you see at the top of articles online – alongside your Twitter tweets, Facebook Shares, and Google +1s.

The button was first launched at the beginning of September and it was tested with a few blogs, and it’s launching properly today for the public. Its launch partners include KISSmetrics, Jeff Bullas and Smedio. So what happens when you click ‘Buffer’?

Well, you need to have a Buffer account set up, which takes seconds to arrange. And then when you click the Buffer Button, you’ll see this:

I’ve only connected with Twitter for this, so it’s only my Twitter account showing up here, but you can also connect with Facebook. So you can select which account(s) you want to share a story with, and then hit ‘Add to Buffer’, which will then be scheduled at pre-defined intervals throughout the day.

“The Buffer button consistently outperforms the +1 button on all these blogs with higher usages, this was an astounding early trend”, says Widrich. “In just one day, we served over 100,000 button impressions. Over 300 blogs have installed the button already and it is growing by the minute.”

Admittedly, this is only a very small, limited sample, but it will be interesting to see to what extent the Buffer Button takes off across the Web. Also, the button could confuse a lot of people who haven’t heard of Buffer before – thus far Buffer would only be seen online if someone had installed it themselves in their browser. Now, people will see it and wonder what it does, so this will be one challenge it faces. But at least it will get ‘Buffer’ in front of many more eyes.

Anyone can add the Buffer Button to their blog from today, simply click here.