3-day Twitter Specials!

From Tuesday to Thursday this week (April 7-9), a few members who are listed in the March Co-op Shop will be offering unbelievable one-day special deals on Twitter.

To take advantage of these deals, you must be following the Co-op Shop on Twitter. Watch for tweets about the following companies: Me Time, Personal Child Stories, Let's Go Strolling, Care4Hire.com, Sassy Shampoo and Pages N Stuff, Inc.

I guarantee that you do not want to miss any of these deals!

Join us on March 31st at 9:00pm EST for our second Twitter party!

We are doing it again!

Our first Twitter party in January to launch The Mom Entrepreneur Co-op Shop was a huge success. We gave out 27 prizes in two hours and introduced the awesome products and services our new Shop offers to over 75 party goers.

On Tuesday, March 31st from 9:00pm - 10:30pm EST, we will be hosting our second Twitter party to announce our spring line up of offerings at the Co-op Shop.

In addition, we will be sharing tips for balancing motherhood and running a company, and giving away some amazing prizes. Join me and dozens of mom entrepreneurs from our Online Support Group as we chat the evening away.

Following is a list of the fantastic prizes you will have a chance to win:

1. Free 1.5 hour phone Beyond Balance Exploration session for working moms with The Executive Moms Coach (valued at $275).
2. Free one-year subscription to The Dinner Spin (valued at $48). The Dinner Spin is your weekly menu planner. Each week you receive seven creative, yet convenient dinner ideas in your inbox. Choose the recipes you want to prepare; customize your grocery list and follow the clever tips outlined each week in the menu game plan.
3. Free t-shirt from Just Be Products. Winner's choice (valued at $15-$24). Show the world how you...Just Be.
4. Free download of the popular ebook PR in Your Pajamas: Practical Publicity for Time Strapped Mom Entrepreneurs (valued at $29). Learn why you don’t need a press release, how to put together a media pitch and a media list in just minutes, the questions you need to ask a reporter when they call you, and more PR tips that helped sell a mom business just 9 months after starting.
5. Gift certificate for one-month of service to care4hire.com (valued at $29.99). Care4hire.com is an online database for families and caregivers to search babysitters, housekeepers, tutors, elder/companion care, pet sitters and other miscellaneous services.
6. Free copy of The Power of Women United from Discover Birth, which hits shelves this month (valued at $34.97). This book explores the triumphs and tragedies of 22 amazing women who forged their own path to success. This extraordinary book will touch your heart as it helps you to find your true self and follow your dreams.
7. Free LaborKit (valued at $54.95), includes over 18 high-quality items to help prepare for birth and make labor more comfortable. Breastfeeding friendly. It’s everything you need for the big day.
8. Free Yoga Booty Ballet workout DVD from Team Beachbody (valued at $30). Yoga Booty Ballet is a dynamic fusion of yoga, booty sculpting, and dance that will make you feel strong, confident, and beautiful!
9. Free Super-Soft Clean Shopper from Babe Ease (valued at $34.99). Protect your baby from nasty shopping-cart germs with the tried-and-true Super-Soft Clean Shopper! Designed to cover the entire seating area of a shopping cart, this product is fluffy and comfy, and it comes complete with a matching drawstring tote, a safety strap, toy loops and pockets. It's also machine washable and dryer safe!
10. Free set of books - Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten! and Let’s Get Ready For First Grade! from Cedar Valley Publishing (valued at $40).
11. Free long sleeve t-shirt from Me Time (valued at $29). Winner picks design.
12. Free Personal Child Stories custom made book (valued at $30). All books are created for each unique child using personal photos and custom text; no two are alike. You choose the theme!
13. Free satineesnugs bear blanket from My Embroidered Gifts (valued at $19.95). Winner chooses name to have embroidered on blanket.
14. Two free product coupons good on any fast fixin items at fastfixin.com from Consumer Queen (valued at $7.99).
15. Free Boca Beth Beginner Backpack (valued at $49.99).

Twitter party attendees will be asked simple quiz questions and will need to visit the Co-op Shop to find the answer. Tweet the answer and include the hashtag code #TMEcoop.

Winners will be determined by a sequence of random numbers, which will be generated using Random.org. Public recognition will be given to the winners in Twitter who will need to email their name, email address and phone number to traci@themomentrepreneur.com.

To follow the party, simply follow me @TMECoopShop or visit tweetchat.com, enter the code #TMEcoop and follow the party's conversation.

And don't forget to shop The Mom Entrepreneur Co-op Shop for Easter, Earth Day and National Women's Nutrition Week as well as every month in 2009.

Make sure you are also following the Co-op Shop on Twitter to be alerted of special offerings and sales from now until Easter.

Win great prizes at our Twitter Party Tuesday night

If you are a member of Twitter then you have probably seen the reminders about The Mom Entrepreneur's Twitter Party to launch our new Co-op Shop.

Tuesday the 27th from 8:30 pm - 10:30 pm EST, we will be introducing the new Co-op Shop, offering tips for balancing motherhood and running a company, and giving away some amazing prizes. Join me and dozens of mom entrepreneurs from our Online Support Group as we chat the evening away.

Following is a list of the fantastic prizes you will have a chance to win:

1. $15 gift certificate to Navan Foods
2. A complete set up of a Facebook page for a business or organization, including photos, video, description, social media links, applications, contact info. and more from Step Ahead, Inc. ($300)
3. Box of 24 truffles and personalized card to send or keep from Cards 4 People ($35)
4. Long sleeve t-shirt from Me Time ($29)
5. $24 gift certificate to Yummy Spoonfuls
6. $20 gift certificate to Let's Go Strolling
7. One copy of Gratigories! card game from Gratitude Games ($16.99)
8. Second copy of Gratigories! card game from Gratitude Games ($16.99)
9. One Gratitude Games Pro Package from Gratitude Games ($29.99)
10. One Vision Your 2009, three-week, one-on-one Coaching Program with LaSara Firefox, MPNLP ($199)
11. Seat at the Vision Your 2009 teleclass, with LaSara Firefox, MPNLP ($19.99)
12. Another seat at the Vision Your 2009 teleclass, with LaSara Firefox, MPNLP ($19.99)
13. Six educational board books and CDs for infants and toddlers from Little Hands Learning Company ($23.95)
14. Playmat from Mimi & Maya - winner can choose color and personalization ($129)
15. A bath/body assortment of items from Pre de Provence, Pure Living and European Soaps from Old World Limited ($30)
16. Jerry Garcia tie, 100% silk from Old World Limited ($45)
17. Laundry mom t-shirt from LTDchix ($20)
18. $10 e-gift certificate from Coco-Zen
19. Product coupon good on any fast fixin item at fastfixin.com from Consumer Queen ($7.99)
20. 2nd product coupon good on any fast fixin item at fastfixin.com from Consumer Queen ($7.99)
21. 3rd product coupon good on any fast fixin item at fastfixin.com from Consumer Queen ($7.99)
22. Just Be t-shirt from Just Be Products ($24)
23. Set of books - Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten! and Let’s Get Ready For First Grade! from Cedar Valley Publishing ($40)
24. $25 gift certificate to restaurant.com from Coupon Divas
25. Box of Swan Chocolates from The Mom Entrepreneur ($9.95)
26. Harry and David Winter Tower from The Mom Entrepreneur ($19.95)
27. Set of acupressure wrist bands for the relief of nausea from Psi Bands ($15)

Twitter party attendees will be asked simple quiz questions and will need to visit the Co-op Shop to find the answer. Tweet the answer and include the code #TMEcoop. Winners will be determined by a sequence of random numbers, which has been generated using Random.org. Public recognition will be given to the winners in Twitter who will need to email their name, email address and phone number to traci@themomentrepreneur.com.

To follow our tweets, simply follow me @tracibisson or visit tweetchat.com, enter the code #TMEcoop and follow the party's conversation.

And don't forget to shop The Mom Entrepreneur Co-op Shop for Valentine's Day and every month in 2009.

Good Luck!

You are invited to a Twitter Party

On Tuesday, January 27th from 8:30 - 10:30pm EST, The Mom Entrepreneur will be hosting a Twitter party to officially launch its new Co-op Shop.

If you are a member of Twitter, please join us. Either follow me @tracibisson or visit http://www.tweetchat.com/ at the designated time and enter the code #TMEcoop.

We have lots of prizes and giveaways to offer, including chocolates, t-shirts, gift certificates, a playmat, educational board books, the set up of a Facebook page and much more. We will reveal all of the prizes and how to win in our Tuesday morning blog post.

Stay tuned!

Webinar on Twitter basics for mom entrepreneurs

Erika Geiss from WAHMmagazine and I are offering a 60-minute Webinar on Thursday, November 6th at 12:30pm EST on Twitter basics. I was able to secure a low $5.00 registration fee for subscribers of this blog to attend. We will be discussing how to use Twitter to market your company and build online communities. We will have time for Q&A as well.

To register, please visit http://www.thewahmmagazine.com/webinarspecial.html. I hope you will join us!

Diary of a Twitterholic Wannabe - part 3

This is the final post in a series of three about the phenomenon we call Twitter. If you missed part one, you can read it here and for part two, click here.

After everything that I had learned about Twitter, I now wanted to find ways to promote my tweets on my other social networking sites and expand my reach. First, I created a Twitter badge (or widget), which allowed me to have a live feed of my tweets on my Facebook and MySpace page as well as all of my blogs and company website.

I also discovered FriendFeed, a social aggregator that consolidates updates on social websites. Several of my sites feed into my public FriendFeed, including Twitter, my blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and delicious (a social tagging site). My subscribers can now read all of The Mom Entrepreneur, Advice from the Media Mavens and Kids in NH posts and information in one place.

Then I found Widgetbox, which allowed me to create a blidget (blog widget) for each of my blogs. I installed the blidget for one blog in the other blog and vice versa (a great cross promotion strategy). I was also able to install on my website. In addition, my blidget was included in Widgetbox's public directory. Now others can install either The Mom Entrepreneur or Kids in NH blidget if they are interested in my discussion topics. So far 18 people have installed on a blog or website. This was a great way to buzz or spread my message.

Lastly, I located a program that allows me to post to many of my social networking sites, including Twitter in one location. Hellotxt lets you communicate with all of your networks at once. So for instance, the Twitter badge cannot yet be installed in LinkedIn, Pownce, FriendFeed and other places. So you enter your message into your Hellotxt account and it instantly appears in the social networking pages you associate with the program.

Twitter continues to evolve and grow and there is still so much to learn about how to use it effectively. One person who I rely on and follow loyally for his social marketing advice is Chris Brogan. To continue to learn more about Twitter and the social marketing trend, follow The Mom Entrepreneur on Twitter and follow Chris Brogan. Chris is #28 on the Twitterholic list...and maybe someday I will make the list too!

Happy twittering!

Diary of a Twitterholic Wannabe - part 2

This post is number two in a series of three about the phenomenon we call Twitter. If you missed part one, you can read it here.

After learning how to use Twitter Search, I decided to search-out and listen-in on conversations that mom entrepreneurs were having on Twitter. My goal was to reach out to them by following their tweets. When they decided to follow me as well, I sent them a direct message (private message between two Twitter users) through Twitter inviting them to join The Mom Entrepreneur Support Group. This social network very quickly proved to be a useful resource for finding and reaching my target market.

In addition, I registered my Twitter user name and some additional terms at TweetBeep (like Google alerts for Twitter) so that I could be more proactive in monitoring potential opportunities.

As my followers grew, I needed to find a way to engage them in conversation. I wanted to start that important dialogue that helps online relationships grow. I discovered Tweet Later, which allows micro-bloggers to send automated thank you notes to new followers. It will also allow you to automatically follow new followers if you choose to do so. Another nice feature of this program is that it allows you to schedule future-dated tweets so that you can be consistent with your posts. I decided to use the thank you note feature.

According to Dewald Pretorius, you must be conscious of best practices when using the automated thank you note feature in Tweet Later. "When writing your thank you note to your new followers, do not include any self-promotional text and/or links. It invariably leaves a bad taste in the mouth of your new follower. Think about it. Here you are, you've just decided you want to follow someone, and the very first thing they say to you is, "Hello, do you want to buy my stuff?" Not good. Send a very simple, warm, and friendly thank you note. The promotional stuff will happen over time."

I decided that was good advice. So I set up my automated message to read:

"Thanks for the follow. I am interested in learning more about you. Please introduce yourself."

With that in place, I decided to research what else I should be doing on Twitter. Since I own a marketing and PR firm, I needed to find media using Twitter.

I subscribe to The Publicity Hound newsletter and in one issue, Joan Stewart wrote about a wiki (a website that allows online collaboration) created by Harry Hoover entitled Twittering Journalists that contains a list of media people and media outlets using Twitter. Joan blogged about it as well. Bingo! I began following the media that interested me and found that many returned the favor. When the media post a tweet about a topic that relates to your expertise, you can send a direct message to introduce yourself. Again, you only get 140 characters so your elevator pitch needs to be perfected before doing this.

Watch for my next post, which will continue to inform you about the basics of using Twitter. In the meantime, let us know how you use Twitter.

Oh...and if you are already on Twitter...follow me at www.twitter.com/tracibisson.

Twit, Tweet, Twitter....Diary of a Twitterholic Wannabe

This post is one in a series of three about the phenomenon we call Twitter. Many people in The Mom Entrepreneur Support Group I run, and clients, have been asking about this form of micro-blogging. What is it? Why should I care? How do I use it? My goal is to answer these questions and more.

For me, Twitter started as an experiment in April of 2008. As with any new social activity one engages in that is unfamiliar, I played around to see what this tool was all about. I started an account, created a profile, uploaded my picture and started twittering (sending Twitter messages).

My first tweet (an individual message (or “update”) posted from Twitter) was:

"New to Twitter - not quite sure how this works but I am sure I can figure it out. Love this social networking stuff."

I could have very easily written...

"I am here, now what?"

That is the way I felt. I had already established profiles on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Fast Pitch!, started three blogs, built a blogsite and was experimenting with Squidoo. So what did Twitter have to offer me?

Well, what ensued was countless hours of research and many late nights of playing, experimenting, connecting and fiddling. There is still so much more to learn, but I finally have a handle on this crazy and unique world of social networking.

Social marketing professionals will advise you to have a plan before engaging in different online activities and I agree. However, it is amazing what you can learn by just doing. This is how I approached Twitter.

Twitter has so many tricks, tips, resources and other information for helping you to understand how to use it. Probably the most useful resource at the writing of this post is the recently published Twitter Handbook. This 181 page PDF is chock full with information. It will seem overwhelming at first, especially if you have never used Twitter. So put it aside for now and keep reading.

Start by posting some practice tweets, which are limited to 140 characters. My second tweet was:

"Working on my blogging clinic, which will be offered for four sessions in April in Barrington, NH."

When the blogging clinic write up was ready on my website, I tweeted again about it and included a link to the page on my site. Now remember, you are limited to 140 characters. This can easily be used up with one URL; especially a blog URL. Visit http://www.tinyurl.com/ and turn your long URL into a short URL. You can even customize your URL so it is easy to remember.

After my third tweet, I began receiving messages in my email inbox that people were following me (subscribing to my tweets). Cool! So I clicked the links to learn more about these followers. They included other publicists, a few mom entrepreneurs, some colleagues and Barack Obama (he is probably following everyone - since he is the top twitterholic). Now I had followers. Did that make me a leader? Possibly.

I kept tweeting about different things, encouraging followers to click on my links and watching to see if anyone else followed me. I noticed that some of the posts from the people I followed included an "@" symbol and someone's user name. I had no idea what this was or how it worked. I learned that it was a way to have a conversation with other twitterers and respond to specific tweets. I was now gaining a better understanding of the interactive features of this social network. Not only could I tweet in response to a tweet posted by someone else, but by visiting Twitter Search, I could learn who was "talking" to me and about me.

At this site, I entered "@tracibisson" in the search box so I could see who on Twitter was responding to my tweets. Geez, there was a lot of people "talking" about me. So I "talked" back. Then I searched for "mom entrepreneurs". I discovered that several people were talking about this topic. Interesting. I had an idea.

Watch for my next post, which will continue to inform you about the basics of using Twitter. In the meantime, let us know how you use Twitter.

Oh...and if you are already on Twitter...look me up at www.twitter.com/tracibisson.