What if there were a way to plan your blogging and twitter post while planning your other marketing activities?

We’ve talked about TweetLater and how a good balance of live, real time tweets mixed with some scheduled tweets about your current promotion can save you time and get results.

Now you can co-ordinate these tweets with blog posts, status updates to other social media sites and your schedule for business, marketing and even your personal life.

The service is called PostLater. This is a highly configurable tool for every blogger. You will want to add this to your blogging arsenal

In my consulting practice, I deal with successful authors and business people that are reluctant to blog or post to social media sites because they are concerned about the time commitment involved.

I know this is an issue for most bloggers. Most of the successful bloggers that are blogging as a part time activity use some form of schedule to get it all done. Some resort to paying an assistant to handle all the posting to make sure that posts go live at the times readers expect them.

One client writes most of his business advice posts weeks in advance. He has a strong following and great content. When I asked him how he did it with his busy schedule of speaking and consulting, he admitted that he paid a full time assistant to handle it.

By regularly posting useful original content that is helpful to readers, authors build up a following online and receive requests for interviews, business propositions and an increase in leads that are looking for more of what they see you do online.

Imagine how much money he’s saving by switching over to PostLater. When I told him how it’s only $9.95, he asked “is that per post?”  The price is really so low that you’ll wonder if it’s a mistake. No, that the cost to you for as many accounts and posts as you want each month.

Have you been using TweetLater, PostLater or similar scheduling tools?

Please share your experiences, results and ideas below.

Technorati Tags: postlater, schedule tweets, twitter tools, social media marketing

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The Affiliate Summit is the #1 show for those using affiliate networks on. The next show is in January 09 in Las Vegas

Tweeps are already buzzing about the show using #ASW09 as a hash tag in their tweets

The show will be one big Tweetup. Send me a tweet if you are coming and follow @affiliatesummit

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I’ve been thinking about things that Twitter might add to the service. Since you “talk” to Twitter by sending a message by text, web or desktop application… Anything that can be triggered by a keyword or command could be added.

There are actually very few commands for Twitter. The server picks up uses “DM” and “@” to sort messages. “follow” at the start of a tweet add the user. Search catalogs the words and counts their occurance

Other apps read the stream an do cool things.. the operating system remains wide open for expansion.

I’m reminded of the old text based system online. Compuserve, AOL, etc would inturpret commands such as “go news” or “go email” and change their behavior.

Great Apps You Can’t Use That Will Improve Twitter

@ev announced on on the Twitter Blog that Twitter has hired Rael Dornfest and acquired his company Values of n

Rael Dornfest is a famously talented engineer, author, and entrepreneur. Before founding Values of n, Rael served as Chief Technology Officer at O’Reilly Media and is known for his pioneering work on RSS as well being the series editor of O’Reilly’s celebrated Hacks books. I met him personally a number of years ago and have always thought he was one of the smartest guys I know.

A short while ago it became clear to Rael that while the innovative personal productivity and information management applications his startup had created were useful products with a loyal following, Values of n was not going to meet its huge expectations as a standalone business.

Rael is @rael on Twitter. He is the author of several books and proflicic programer.

Two of his applications may be just the technology that Twitter needs to invent the next step in the Twitter revolution:

SANDY: ” your new assistant. I’ll remember the details so you can focus on what’s important.”

• Kick off your morning knowing what’s on for the day.
• Keep your day moving forward with reminders right when you need them.
• Books to read, people to call, your cousin’s birthday — I’ll remember it all.
• Stay organized with everyone in your life — effortlessly.

All of this is done from your email IN box or by text message. Sound familiar?

STIKKIT: “little yellow notes that think”

Stikkit makes organizing your daily details as simple as jotting down a note or firing off email. Stikkit’s “little yellow notes that think” talk to the productivity applications you already use, as well as to friends, coworkers and family, giving you a universal remote for your life.

Both these sites will shut down on Dec 8th. @Rael wrote this post to explain

What Would You Add To Twitter?

It’s pretty obvious (even stated) that Twitter will be adding some of the technology from IwantSandy and Stikkit to Twitter.

Add a comment on this post now. Let’s make this open ended and postiive. What feature would you add to Twitter first?

I’ll review and comment on what I think might happen on tonight’s TwitCast. Join us at http://TwitCastRadio.com at 10pm Eastern or 7pm Pacific

I want sandy, twitter future, twitter revolution

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I’ve posted here many times about how a story where Twitter helps spread news is not news anymore. (kind of like reporting that journalist use telephones).

Now there is no need to sit glued to the 24 hour news feed. Just scan your feed for references that interest you and use Twitter Search to instantly see what’s up.

This morning, while replies to the many people who gave thanks for clean water, I notice a tweet that said “stop tweeting #Mumbai seems to be working”.

I’d read about the Mumbai violence a few times, it’s been a trending topic since the incident started.

But this was different. Could it be that a government was annoucing such nonsense? This I had to check out.

A quick click showed that many people were retweet (copying someone else’s tweet) with the message that looked like a rumor.

I don’t know @BradMays from Dallas. I’m sure he meant well. I’m also pretty sure (the RT at the beginning of the tweet) that he didn’t research the story and, since the RT was from a tweet from @Mumbai.. he was assuming that it was true.

Reading the profile page of @Mumbai didn’t tell me anything more. Whoever write the tweets is not disclosing sources, and used the word “perhaps” in an earlier post.

I have no idea whether there are officials in the Indian government that would prefer that people stop tweeting. I think it would be safe to assume that they don’t want notices about their movement revealed. No one wants to give their enemies their strategy.

Within seconds of looking at the search feed, I was convinced it was just a rumor. I don’t know this, but here I am reporting it.

And that’s the point… From now on, we get the raw feed of news as it happens. We edit what we want to see and believe. And we have the choice of waiting until after the even to get someone else’s filtering.

Immediacy is great. It feels like you are there. Be careful though, unfiltered is.. well, unfiltered:

Technorati Tags: mumbai, twitter in news, social media, twitter revolution

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The Twitter revolution allows us to connect with more people, build meaningful connections, and do business faster than ever before.

Seth Godin talks about how you can monetize these meaningful connections on his blog

A great article reminding us that your a better network will bring a better net worth

Share how you are using Twitter and the idea Seth talks about to build your network, make meaningful connections, and make more money online in a comment below.

We will talk more about this list on our TwitCast. Log into http://TwitCastRadio.com to see what time it starts on your computer

Please Tweet and tell you friends.

Technorati Tags: twitter, seth godin, connections, make money online, networking

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We are going to answer all your questions about Twitter, and share how others are using tools like Twitter (and apps) to build their network of meaningful connections, public relations, and get more done

Join us for this FREE event

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Advertising Age weighed in on the #motrinmoms incident from this weekend

“[It was] amazing to have that happen over 48 hours, on a weekend in the blogosphere,” she said. “People are now spreading around the apology; it’s such an immediate time frame.”

Indeed, seven of the top 10 search returns today for “Motrin” and “headache” on Google referred to the marketing debacle.

“We now have indisputable proof that online marketing, YouTube and Twitter and all that it encompasses is meaningful and has arrived,” said Gene Grabowsk, chair of the crisis and litigation practice at Levick Strategic Communications. “We are seeing real consequences to a mistake. If [social networks] didn’t matter, you wouldn’t see this type of reaction from J&J or consumers.”

The apology on the Motrin site.. Was it enough?

Shout out to @KatjaPresnal who got here SkimBaco lifestyle brand featured on AdAge and NY Times by compiling this video of angry moms
Technorati Tags: twitter revolution, twitter power, nytimes, adage, motrin, motrinmoms

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I’ve been holding off reviewing and recommending Tweetlater becuase so many tweeps in Stage 2 use the autoresponder to try to sell me.

I’m not against auto-responders (remember “no rules”).. but annoyed at the “hey check out my blog” copy that most use.

I’ve been using TweetLater for months to send a post that I know will be timely at a time that I’m not sure where I’ll be. Sometimes the “TwitCast tonight” posts are done in advance (though often a lot less than I think I could).

I’ve been using the new feautures a lot more. I like getting my @ messages in my email inbox and assume others will like knowing that they can catch more without actually using Twitter as much as me

@incSlinger wrote a good review of Tweetlater. I especailly liked the last line of his comments on auto-repsonders and auto-follow:

There is much written about auto-responders and their place in Twitter. Some people feel they are very useful, some feel that they are so un-human that it takes the Social completely out of Social Networking. Guy Kawasaki admits that he autofollows everyone on Twitter that follows him. Others send an auto-response with a link to a welcome video (an idea I quite like) but it isn’t for everyone. Some users feel it is rather like going to a mixer and having a taped message that you play to people who come up to you and say hi.

Read the full review of TweetLater here

My recommendation is to use caution with any auto posting. Twitter is about connecting person to person and there is little allowance for abusing people on social media today.

But if you use automation.. there are few tools better than TweetLater.

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It’s been a busy day on Twitter. The Twitter Moms have been roaring about a Motrin ad, it was the top search term under #motrinmoms plus as high as #3 for #motrin.

My take on the bad ad was posted earlier today on the Twitter Moms site

As of this writing, the offending ad was taken down, and I’m getting an error for the Motrin site, you can read a synopsis of the damage here

Long term, I think the more revolutionary change is how we get our news. Earthquakes and wild fires are reported faster on Twitter and now the Orange Country Register is openly showing that it uses photos from TwitPics and news from Twitter to cover stories.

Companies and brands need to be monitoring social media 24/7 and media needs to think about how this could change the viability of their future business models.

Now that we all are the media, what happens to the old school?Technorati Tags: twitter news, fires on twitter, motrin, motrinmoms

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In the top 10 words on Twitter, I noticed “TwitterRank“

Yes, once again, an site looks at your profile and give you a grade. Fun to play, not really much information to help you use Twitter better. Quoting @ryochiji, who wrote this toy, the Mashable story:

As for Twitterank’s future, it’s self-deprecating developer probably describes it best: “by tomorrow, most of Twitterdom will have forgotten about Twitterank. Thank goodness for short attention spans.”

What really matters is how you grade the time you devout to Twitter and social media. Great tools to help you connect and build meaningful connections. Use them as you wish, not for some rank.

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