I have been putting together a top ten Twitter tools list. First of all I would like to say that I never realized there were so many 3rd party Twitter applications out there. A lot of them are duplications of each other albeit some may have a small twist that discerns it from others.
I have broken them down into several categories. Functionality, automation, and design. My favorite so far is a program that falls in the functionality category called Tweet Deck. Tweet Deck puts your Twittering on steroids.
It opens a window that lets you create columns that you can customize and filter for example, when I am Twittering I have a column of "All Friends" which is what you would normally see, a column with "Replies" (same as the replies page in Twitter), but then I have one for "Fortunate 500" which are the students in Alex Jeffreys first coaching class, and then I have a column that is just a few select friends.
Pretty cool but this is only one feature. In the columns you see the avatar and tweets like normal Twittering. If you mouse over the avatar, 4 buttons pop up. Reply to this person, Direct Message to this person, Retweet this persons tweet, and Other Actions. The other actions brings up a drop down list with Follow, Unfollow, Email Tweet, translate, untranslate, add to group(column), view profile, search, favorite, mark as read, and delete.
At the bottom of each column are some more buttons that do the following: move column left, filter the tweets in this column, mark all as seen, clear seen tweets, clear all tweets, move column right. But wait there is more.
At the top of the window is another row of navigational buttons. These buttons open up the various columns like, replies, direct messages, groups, etc.. There is also a button that opens Twitscoop which is a "tag cloud" of sorts that shows you what everyone is tweeting about. Another button takes you to 12 second TV, which may give Twitter a run for its money if it catches on.
There is a button that takes you to StockTwits and to the top right are 4 more buttons which are Refresh, single column view, settings, and Logout. The most important button is the first button up top which is the Tweet button.
This opens a standard Tweet type box but it has a couple really neat features. There is a place below the box where you can enter a URL then click on a button and it will shorten the URL and insert it into your tweet. There is also a TwitPic button that will take a picture from your computer and load it to TwitPics while creating a nice little short URL in your Tweet to the picture.
Have you typed in to many characters? Not a problem. The box will turn red, letting you know that you have exceeded the 140 character limit. But not to worry. There is a button called Tweet Shrink which will automatically make your Tweet fit.
Last but not least there is a recent hash tags button. Tweet desck is easily my hands down winner for ease of use and functionality. You can do almost everything you need to do right from the one window. Of course, like most Twitter apps, it's free.
Filed under JT Recommends, Twitter by 
If you live in sunny Florida, like I do, then you can feel that spring is in the air. Hi 60's at night and low 80's during the day will give you a bad case of spring fever.
It stays green down here year round so you don't notice the seasonal changes as much. I like to sit on my porch and drink coffee in the morning and here lately it has become noisy.
Not a bad kind of noise, just lots of birds chirping their celebration of the arrival of spring. But that's not what I wanted to talk about. I want to talk about "tweeting", as in the kind of bird noise you here on Twitter.
I joined Twitter back in it's infancy, mainly to secure my username "jtmartin". I didn't really participate much until recently. I have seen the awesome potential and as such, have started to do some research and look at the multitude of software and applications that are available to increase your followers and automate your Twitter account.
I ran accross one the other day and gave it a try. I was really surprised by the results so I thought I would pass it along to you. All you have to do is follow the link and enter your Twitter info.
Then promote the link they give you, but remember to put your Twitter ID in the last part of the URL. You will still see results even if you don't promote, but like all things, the more you put into it, the better results you will see.
http://www.twitteringfortraffic.com/jtmartin
Did I mention that you also get 3 free Twitter ebooks for trying the viral software? It's a no brainer.
Check back regularly because I am going to be posting some other cool stuff about Twitter as I uncover it. I am probably going to put together a report that will list all the cool resources I have found.
Filed under Alex Jeffreys Coaching Program, Twitter by
It's almost 2am but I have finally finished updating my JV giveaway directory. I had to redo 2 weeks worth of work plus add all of the new ones that have popped up in the last few days. I still can't believe how many giveaways are taking place in the next few weeks.
I haven't even set a date for mine yet. I was going to try and pick a date when there wouldn't be a lot of other competing giveaways but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. I will just have to come up with a way to make mine stand out. 
The impact of Jason James Giveaway Riches is evident. He did a fantastic job explaining the ins and outs of running your own JV Giveaway. I know that I am using it as my guide and the fact that so many giveaways are springing up just after his launch is a testimonial to how good the product is.
Not only has he created a easy to follow step by step guide but he has obviously motivated a lot of people to take action. My hat goes off to him for creating an awesome product. I can't wait to get my giveaway off the ground.
My partners and I have been working hard although I have been working on getting other things straightened out. I am glad that I joined up with Garry Parkes, Gary Simpson, and Carl Barton. It would be really tough for me to go it alone this first time around.
Meeting these fellows has been another huge benefit of joining Alex Jeffreys coaching program. Well I'm dead tired so I am calling it a nite. I am going to crawl into bed and snuggle up with the wife. I've got to get up early and get some people set up and on their way to building a list with giveaway events.
Filed under JV Giveaways by
For those of you who don't know, I have been experiencing mega problems with my computer and now my web hosting. The computer is back to normal and I have all my software reinstalled with a minimal loss of a few files but no big deal.
I lost 2 weeks of work and content with the web hosting fiasco and my data bases got all screwed up. The support guy said he was going to try and recover my info off the old hard drive. I guess that means they had a server crash. They never really said what happened.
After 2 days of waiting I assumed all was lost. I have been concentrating on getting my Giveaway directory back up to speed because, as you know, the Giveaways have been popping up right and left and I have been working my butt off keeping my site up to date.
So today I fire up the computer and my blog comes up with my lost posts and the sign up form for my new ebook back in place. Surprise! Surprise! (any Gomer Pyle fans in the house) I checked my safelist and my other blogs and they are back to normal as well.
The funny thing is that now the blog post I made the other day is gone. So, I need to redo that post or at least touch on the main thing that I wanted to say. It was mostly a rant about my screwed up hosting but I am over it now and am just glad things are back to normal.
Mostly, that is. My email is still acting screwy. I can't view my email using Outlook like I usually do. I have checked all the settings and frankly I am getting tired of messing with it. If you want to send me an email make sure you use this new email jt@oventures.net
This is on my first ever hosting account that is with Zoot Hosting. It was part of a deal that I got when I joined as a lifetime member to Adtactics safelist a couple years ago. I have never had a minute of downtime with this hosting. I don't use it much because I am limited to one domain name. But, I only paid a one time fee and I have the account for life. Not a bad deal.
The weekend is here and I have worked a deal out with the wife. She is going to take the kids and vacate the premises as much as possible this weekend so that I can work in peace and try to get caught up. I have made great headway so far and should have every thing back to normal this evening.
Then I can continue setting up some peoples giveaway products for them. (thank you for your patience everyone) Then to get in touch with my partners in crime and launch a JV Giveaway event!
Filed under Building A Business by
I have seen a lot of my fellow students needing help with the whole JV Giveaway thing. I have built more than a few blogs and websites, so things like setting up a thank you page or a squeeze page are pretty much routine for me.
I do remember how much I struggled with tasks like this in the beginning so I totally understand people having problems with this. Just because you have detailed instructions or even a step by step video, it can still be a daunting undertaking for a newbie. For me, in the beginning, it was mostly very frustrating and time consuming.
I have come up with a solution for those of you who are struggling and want to get started with your list building. Here is what I propose.
I will set up the following for you at no cost.
- a squeeze page for the product that you want to give away.
- a thank you page that will alert your subscribers that they must check their email and confirm.
- a download page that your subscribers will be taken to after they confirm their opt in.
- I will set up your first follow up message in Aweber (must be Aweber)
- a video that will show you how to set all of this up yourself.
- a video that will show you how to take these same pages and make them work for other giveaways, simply by changing the information in a config file.
- I will show you some ways to promote your JV giveaway links at no cost.
This will let you go ahead and get started with your list building while you learn. I will not charge you anything for this but do expect a few things in return. This will make it a win win for all of us.
Here is what I will require from you:
- You must sign up for my JV Giveaway notification list at http://marketersmantras.com/giveaways
- When ever you join a JV giveaway, you will join from that page through my referral links. (you have to join through some one's link, it might as well be mine)
- You have to promise to participate! Please don't waste my time. My time is limited so I will not be able to help everyone. This will be on a first come first serve and I will work down the list as I can.
- If you don't have a product, hosting, auto responder or any of the necessary tools to participate in a JV Giveaway, you will join through my affiliate links.
I hope this sounds fair to you. If it doesn't…tough titty. That is the deal. I get paid around $40 per hour at my regular job and my time off is worth waaaay more than that to me. I am doing this because I remember how hard it was when I first got involved with internet marketing. I also realize that the majority of the visitors to this blog are fellow students of Alex Jeffreys coaching program.
I can knock out these web pages fairly quickly but I will only be able to do a few per day. Depending on how many people sign up for this, I will try and designate an hour or 2 on the weekends where we can talk or chat via Skype if you have any questions.
If you are interested, then leave a comment and email me here: giveawayhelp at jtmartin.net
I wrote out at because those f—-n spammers use software to harvest email addresses and the software looks for the @ symbol. I am going to play this by ear and see how it goes. I can't promise anything except that I will do my best to get you set up and show you how to do it your self so you will no longer need my help.
PS – Now is the time to start building your list. Ever since Jason James launched his Giveaway Riches product, new JV Giveaway events are popping up all over the place. There have been over 6 new ones announced just in the last week. Lots of list building opportunities. Don't miss out. I will help you.
Filed under JV Giveaways by
