Work At Home Dads Making Money With Twitter

Ken | August 12, 2011 | Comments (4)

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Sure, I get it. If you don’t currently use Twitter than at first it can seem kind of unimpressive. I mean, who wants to read 140 characters about your life, service or product? Who in the world could get any real substance out of that? On second thought, once you start Tweeting all those intelligent, witty little bits…what the heck is that gonna’ do for you? Twitter for parents can be a drag.

Well, lots actually. And if you’re currently not using Twitter then you’re missing out and if you’re sole purposed in Twitter is to keep the world abreast of how runny your eggs were this morning or how much you hate Congress then you’re just wasting your time.

Here’s how to make money working online using Twitter and reach thousands of people from your nice clean (or cluttered) work area at home:

Set up A Twitter Account

Users must be at least 13 in order to sign up and have an email account.
To begin, users must first register for the service and create a new account on the Twitter home page.
It’s a simple process and even the most inexperienced internet/computer user can handle it
The user’s full name and email address is required and then select a user-name and password.
Once registering is complete, users can check existing Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and other web-based email accounts to locate friends and family. In order to search the web-based email accounts, users (as with almost every service out there!) must enter their email address and password in order to perform this function.
Account settings include user location, time zone, adding personal blogs or websites, short bio, preferred language and mobile phone number.
Users can also personalize the look of the Twitter page by using a variety of pre-made themes and background colors or create a unique look.
A protection feature is also included. When this option is selected, the user will not be shown on the public timeline area.
Users have the option to follow other users or to “un-follow them.”

Add interests

When you add interests to your user profile it will let people know who you are. It will also inform Twitter software of who you are. This way the site can recommend that you follow with similar interests.

Okay, don’t make a silly mistake. If you’re a dad who is trying to make money online by being an affiliate marketer then adding “affiliates” or “internet marketer” to the list of your interests is not the best thing to do. If you want to network with others in your industry or niche I would recommend starting another account. Remember, you’re trying to attract a mass following of people who need your services and another Internet Marketer is more likely trying to sell his own products. The two of you will keep bashing Tweets against each other.

How do you find lots of followers, real quick?

Twitter is a powerful tool, especially for work at home dads or any other kind of stay at home parent. Please keep in mind that you need to set up your account first and foremost. Muy importante! You’re going to need a platform for the rest of our steps and Twitter is preferred one.

Special Note: Be sure to never follow or un-follow (or any combination of) more than 500 people in a day. Or you’ll be the twit and get de-Tweeted from Twitter! LOL. I crack myself up sometimes!

Twiends

This is a really cool site that allows you to find followers, based on a list of interests that choose. Everything is done with “seeds”.

Twiends works like this: When you follow people they give you seeds. When you have seeds then people can follow you for your seeds. Pretty easy to follow, yes?

I usually follow anyone with my own interests and who is giving away seeds. I don’t follow anyone that isn’t seeding. I also follow Tweeters who don’t have my same interests but are giving away 2 seeds or more.

Once you get your account set-up, in the right hand column there is a listing of “featured” Twiend users. They’ll be giving away 7 seeds for the follow. I scoop those up. Since I give 2 seeds to everyone who follows me that means when I follow just 4 featured users I get 14 followers! And they’ll go fast.

Sound confusing? It isn’t…just chill.

Tweet Attacks

Tweet Attacks is probably the most powerful piece of Twitter software out there right now for getting followers. It is a paid service but there is also a free, more limited one that is powerful as well.

It is completely automated so once you start your tasks you can minimize it and go on to do whatever else you want. (Mine is running right now.)

The key is to pick a person with a lot of followers that attracts a lot newbies. There are lots of them so you’ll have to find the ones that have followers of interests that would best suit you. Here is a list with Tweeters who have mega-followers.

Once in Tweet Attacks you set up your account and add it to the software. Then you can choose to “follow other user’s followers”, put in their Twitter account ID, i.e. @Problogger and set it to start task. I would recommend only doing 100-150 each time you run the task until you have about 700 followers. Then you boost it up to 300-350. Once you have around 1500 followers then go between 425-450. The reason you do this is because the program will pick a number in between the limits you set. So the 425-450 will actually follow around 433. Remember, you can’t follow or unfollow more than 500 a day and you have to leave room for people who just follow you on the happenstance, and the people who will be following you from Twiends.

Once you have run your first set of “follow” then two days later go back to your Tweet Attacks and set it to “unfollow” the same person you followed during the last task. Be sure to set your parameters to “Protect mutual followers” “Only unfollow users followed at least 2 days ago.” These options are located in the left sidebar.

This is not confusing! I can hear you thinking it now. Just chillax. Go to the website that I hyperlinked here and it will walk you through it. Easy-peasy-Casey Anthony is sleazy.

Social Oomph

Social Oomph is automating your Twitter account so that it can look lived in. Remember, you can’t be constantly on Twitter for you to be effective at time management as a work at home dad. So the best thing to do would be to have someone, or something become your personal Tweeting secretary.

Here’s how I works. You set up a Social Oomph account and you plug in a whole bunch of Tweets. The best ones to add are your own blog posts or great “Top 5, Top 10…Top 100″ lists in your chosen niche. People love “Top” lists. Then you add the URL and shorten it so that it minimizes the characters. This is important because, sure you have 140 characters to work with but if you use ALL 140 characters then people won’t have room to re-Tweet it and you’ll be losing out on free distribution possibilities.

Once you have about 15-25 Tweets and “saved as draft” then you can schedule each one to go out at a certain time. I usually do mine in 4 hour increments, which is about 6 Tweets per day. You can do as many as you’d like but the more often you do it then the more Tweets you have to have in the saved drafts options else Twitter will realize that you’re Tweeting the same messages too often and will block it for duplicate content. Nichts gut!

I like the every four hours options and here’s why. Say if I write a blog post (like right now) which is not yet added to my saved drafts list. Once I’m done, I’ll post to my blog and then go to Social Oomph. I’ll add this to my saved drafts and then Tweet from the dashboard there right away. This means that when I go back to automate my Tweets for next week this post will be there and I might send it out a couple more times depending on the traffic that I get initially.

Ok, so all of that wasn’t so bad, right? You’ll find that once you follow back to those sites you’ll see that it isn’t has hard as it may seem. The 1-2 hours that you spend gaining followers and automating a week will be worth it.

Ok, so how do you make money? Well, there’s lots of ways and I can’t cover them all here but I’ll start you on some good ideas.

Pick an affiliate and start tweeting or….

There are lots of affiliate marketplaces out there. I used Click Bank and Commission Junction. They are easy to use and join. With Commission Junction you’ll have to be “accepted” to some of their advertisers affiliate programs but it’s painless and you do mostly nothing.

Once you join you get your text link and start tweeting it with a witty, sales pitch in 140 characters or less.

Remember to shorten your URLs so that you minimize the characters and also to hide your affiliate link. Again, not to trick anyone but it will protect you as well. Someone could see your link and put their own in it. Click Bank actually offers “hop links” which will cloak your affiliate link.

Wondering where to shorten URLs? Here’s one from the “Big G”. I like Google for a lot of stuff because they are trustworthy.

Sponsored Tweets

The name says it all. People will sponsor your Tweets. You get paid for Tweeting their messages. A word of caution, if you’re new at Tweeting or marketing then only choose the options that have 100% approval for now. Some advertisers can be picky about the message that you’re Tweeting. That’s ok, it’s their money.

Keep your eyes open for .20-.40 cent opportunities with 100% approval. I got one for a $1.00 once! This won’t make you rich but it’s a good way to start using your Twitter account for online money making. Again, all of your Tweets should be consistent and have some contextual relevance to your followers and your “brand”. If you’ve been selling yourself over Twitter as a vacuum cleaner guru don’t then start Tweeting about linoleum floors and how great they are for .40 cents a tweet. You’ll lose all kinds of face with your current carpet followers!

Other Ways of Making Money With Twitter

There are a few other ways of using your Twitter account for money making. You can go to places like Fiverr.com and Tenbux.com and create jobs announcing that you will Tweet other people’s messages for five or ten dollars. This should only be offered once you have at least 2k followers. But that won’t be long or difficult with your Twiends and Social Oomph accounts.

Eventually, once you a lot-and I mean a lot-of followers you can start going to private advertisers and offer to Tweet their messages. I would recommend doing this on a “so many Tweets per month for a set price” method. Don’t get into CPC and stuff…just too much of a pain. Using these two sites initially will give you some practice with it though.

The Most Important Thing About Twitter And What I Love About It.

I like getting my blogs out there with Twitter. I love tweeting my latest posts and seeing the influx in online visitors to my site immediately. Of course, 75% of them will read and then click away or just click away immediately. However, the 25% that read multiple pages once getting here, seeing an ad they like and click on, and/or leave comments makes it all worth it to me.

I have done all the stuff that I just explained to you and made some money doing it but the greatest satisfaction for me is putting myself out there using my account. Like I said in the beginning; Twitter is real time and immediately effective.

So here we are about 2k words later. I think the power of Twitter in regards to online jobs for dads and making money is important enough to post this type of in-depth article on the subject. As stay at home parents we need to take full advantage of what we can to get our names and services out there and with a robust Twitter following it is made easier.

…start Tweeting…

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