e-Business Australia

There are so many tools provided by twitter (some not immediately obvious) that you can take advantage of whilst using Twitter to make money. If you make the special effort to use all of them wisely this can have the effect of jump starting your business and really draw your customers to your sales point.

Lets take a quick look at the best free tools you can use if you cannot afford the POWER TOOLS that the professionals use.

1. TWEET DECK

You run this from your pc and connect to your twitter account with it, where you can pretty much handle all aspects of your twitter. It is possible to manage several Twitter accounts via tweetdeck, and control the whole “follow and unfollow” problems that professional users face.

2. SOCIAL OOMPH

(Formerly Tweet Later) allows for tweet scheduling (useful), offers the option of repeating your tweets as often as you like (known as recurring tweets, but only with the paid option) lets you automatically follow those twitter users that follow you, and also allows you to them private direct messages to say thanks when the do follow you, and also automate the process of no longer following those that have stopped following you. These free features above should be efficient for the vast majority of those just starting out, butt when you require something powerful you can upgrade to their paid service.

3. TWAITTER

(Soon to be called gremln) is available completely for free for anyone that has a twitter account, and you can login using the same username and password as you use to login with twitter. This service is really useful for scheduling both tweets and recurring tweets, and is free as mentioned above so is definitely a tool you just have to try if you do not want to use the services of professional twitter marketing providers!

4. TWITPIC

Twitpic allows you to share your pictures via twitter, which is a wonderful way of making all your new followers feel really welcome when they first follow you. Twitpic is free for anyone that has a twitter account and you can login using the same username and password as you use to login with twitter. Another wonderful feature of TwitPic is the option of sharing your pictures using a mobile device, perfect for the picture sharer on the move!

5. TWOLLO

This tool allows you to find users you want to follow. You simply search for tweets on a subject you like, and Twollo will find them for you and automatically starts following them for you. The only drawback for you if you do not have much money is that this service is not free, however if you are really serious about marketing on twitter you will want to get a paid service and start twitter marketing in earnest with professional strategies.

Indeed, professional twitter users are prepared to spend a little now in the early stages as they know the true power of twitter marketing, and they know that they can quickly recoup the small expenditure required to purchase the best twitter marketing tools. After all, you would not expect twitter marketing strategies to be free, now would you?

Did you know there is a new open source community project underway called the WordPress Plugin Database, located at wp-plugins.net, which is a user-friendly web site with about 2,500 WordPress plugins and counting?

”The WordPress Plugin Database is a categorized list of WordPress plugins, complemented by a WordPress Plugin Manager that allows one-click installs,” say the database developers. “For users, wp-plugins.net provides a browseable list of plugins, and RSS feeds you can subscribe to in order to get notified of new plugins and updates. For developers, wp-plugins.net makes it easy to publicize your plugin and keep users informed of new versions.”

As for us everyday non-developer WordPress fanatics who are constantly searching for cool new plugins to make our site attract visitors and earn some money, the WordPress Plugin Database is populated with plugins that can help generate web site traffic to your blog, sell your ebooks, share web site links, podcast your message, offer a public forum for returning visitors, and fight spam in the process.

Below is a short list of free plugins I discovered in this new database that can drive traffic to your blog, sell terrific products, and keep visitors on your site for a while – the perfect monetization strategy for every blogging entrepreneur.

Would you like to add a Public Forum to your blog? Simple Forum is a free plugin that is described as a “simple and straightforward forum that does the sort of stuff a forum is supposed to.” Simple Forum currently has 71 features you can use to develop a growing community of returning visitors who are encouraged to speak to each other, and who share common interests with you, the brilliant blog owner and forum manager expert. Search engine spiders love the fresh content provided by a community forum. Simple Forum can support your forum member’s comments in 17 languages: stuff.yellowswordfish.com/simple-forum/

Would you like to monetize your blog by selling your products and services with a WordPress shopping cart? The free WP eCommerce Lite shopping cart plugin is described as “an industrial strength, elegant, easy to use, fully featured shopping cart application suitable for selling your products, services, and or fees online.” You can upgrade to the eCommerce Gold plugin for just $15. If you don’t have any products to sell, you can set up this shopping cart to sell products offered by Amazon.com, Art.com, and so on: instinct.co.nz/?p=16

Reciprocal link directories create backlinks to your site that helps improve your site’s search engine ranking, and most shared link directories are not free. Plus, most blogs don’t offer a shared link directory. The free WP Link Directory is described as “the first and the only one link directory plugin on the Internet for WordPress admin to store and maintain a set of links in classified categories.” This link directory plugin can match your blog theme: alectang.com/wordpress-link-directory/

Podcasting is a web site traffic generation phenomenon that has seen over 6 million people download MP3 podcasts. That’s not including the millions of people who prefer to listen without downloading. Here’s an idea. Why not record your blog articles as a podcast, and then submit your articles to podcast directories? Even if you don’t like the sound of your voice, there are software programs online that you can use to speak your written words with a more pleasing sound.

PodPress is a free plugin described as “a dream plugin for Podcasters using WordPress,” and “a full-blown Podcasters Plugin for WordPress.” With Podpress, you can post a podcast along with your article for visitors to download, or listen to without downloading. Why not interview an expert in your niche by telephone, and post your conversation as a podcast with your article? mightyseek.com/podpress

And finally, every high-traffic blogger would love to find a way to eliminate spam. Spam Karma 2 (SK2) is a free spam fighting plugin developed by the WordPress Plugin Directory guys. SK2 is described as “an anti-spam plugin for the WordPress blogging platform. It is meant to stop all forms of automated blog spam effortlessly, while remaining as unobtrusive as possible to regular commenters.” wp-plugins.net/doc/sk2/

By the way, don’t forget to upgrade your WordPress blog to the latest 2.3 version released in September of 2007. WordPress 2.3 offers new article keyword tagging features, which means improved search engine ranking and more web site traffic for you: wordpress.org/download/

Many online marketers are looking to Facebook notes to drive traffic to their websites. This fascination with Facebook is easily understandable. Facebook is one of the most popular social networking websites in the world. According to some estimates, Facebook attracts more visitors each month than any other social networking website available today.

Facebook is the most popular social networking website among many English speaking countries. Unfortunately, in the US, MySpace is still more popular than Facebook. At the time of this writing, MySpace has approximately 2 times more US users compared to Facebook.

However, this weakness can be easily mitigated when one notices the tremendous global popularity of Facebook; a popularity that extends to Canada and the United Kingdom. Facebook marketing is one of the most popular demands I receive from my clients. As a result, I have developed several marketing strategies that can be easily applied to Facebook by the novice webmaster.

One of the easiest methods of generating links on Facebook is by leaving a message on your contact’s Facebook note.

Facebook differs greatly from other social networking websites. Facebook prominently features applications as part of its product experience. These applications are programs that can be applied to any Facebook user’s profile. It is like an application you install on your computer. The applications are applied universally. Whenever a Facebook user logs into his/her Facebook account they will be greeted with the same applications, regardless of which computer they are using.

Several applications come ‘preinstalled’ whenever someone sets up a Facebook account. “Facebook Notes” is one application that comes preinstalled in all accounts. Facebook notes is a simple application that acts as a virtual notepad that can be used by all. Facebook users can write in their own notes or in the notes of others.

This presents two opportunities for traffic generation. You can generate traffic by promoting your website on your own Facebook note or you can promote your website on someone else’s Facebook note. Leaving a promotional message on your Facebook note is a simple affair. However, you should exercise caution when promoting your website through Facebook notes that belong to other people. Overt promotion can be seen as spam by some users and may result in you getting banned from Facebook. Exercise caution when you promote your website on someone else’s application.

To successfully promote your website, you should ’soft sell’ the website’s address. The best way to achieve convert marketing success is by genuinely contributing to the Facebook note. You should make informative and constructive contributions to the Facebook note. You can gently mention the website at the end of your post.

It would be even better if you utilize html to embed the link in some text. Facebook note accepts some html, but it does not recognize Flash or javascript.

Leaving an insightful message in a Facebook note application is just one way to market your website on this popular social networking platform. I have spent years perfecting the art of social network marketing and have seen many trends come and go. But in the dynamic and ever-changing landscape of the internet, Facebook is an immovable mountain that is here to stay. Websites who fail to leverage upon the phenomenon of social networking websites risk getting left behind.