Automatically Scrape Content and Add to Buffer

Have you ever wanted to automatically scrape quality content and then add it to your Buffer?

That sort of automation opens up a lot of possibilities.

In particular, it makes a form of intelligent social media automation possible, something I will try to explain in more detail later in this post.

For now, I want to let you know that Buffer integration has been added to Flutter. This integration simply allows Flutter to add it’s recurring tweets to Buffer rather than posting immediately to Twitter. In doing so, it combines the power of Buffer’s scheduling features with Flutter’s recursive scraping capabilities. With this combination, a type of Twitter automation that comes across as authentic to followers is possible.

Example:

It’s best to use a curated (dynamic content) source for this type of automation. That way, the quality of the content is guaranteed. An obvious source for curated content is an aggregator. So for the purpose of this example let’s go with Hacker News.

To set up this recurring tweet with Buffer integration, you’ll need a Flutter Pro account. Once signed up, browse to the new recurring tweet form. The form inputs for ‘URL’ and ‘Selector’ are shown in the image below. You can also set up this recurring tweet with one click from our example tweets showcase.

Notice the ‘Add to Buffer’ option. With this option checked, every time Flutter scrapes the source for new content, instead of tweeting the result, it will simply add it to your Buffer. 😀

Just to be as clear as possible. Notice the schedule set for this particular example:

This means that Flutter will scrape the title and link of the top Hacker News post every hour on the hour. When it does, as long as it’s not the same as a previous tweet it will add the tweet to your Buffer.

This integration combines the power of recursive scraping (Flutter) with the power of customised scheduling (Buffer).

With this combination, a subtle and intelligent level of automation can be achieved:

1. The quality is ensured by the community of the aggregator (Hacker News)
2. The automation is provided by Flutter’s recurring schedules.
3. The randomness is provided by Buffer’s schedules.

It will appear to your followers that you are curating the content and adding it to Buffer yourself. Obviously this works best if mixed in amongst authentic tweets.

I’ll leave it at this for now, but I plan to write in more depth about the different types of Twitter automation that can be achieved with Flutter (and other platforms) in the future. Stay tuned!

Happy Flapping!

Tweet more, work less! It’s easy with Flutter. Tweet relevant dynamic content on a recurring schedule.