I have tendency to check out everything twitter… especially anything that is designed to automate what can be an otherwise pretty manual process.

And as some of my other posts indicate, I am definitely looking to both have fun and make money with my twitter time.

So when I saw a tweet about the Twitter Traffic Machine (TTM), as I am sure you will also see, assuming you haven’t already, I was curious.

The sales page video was fun and the price was $27.  So I figured, what the heck… if I learn one thing that makes my life easier or allows me to provide better content to my followers, money well invested.  And it has a 60 day money back guarantee.

The Twitter Traffic Machine is a series of training videos, 6 videos, created by Bill Crosby, using camtasia, that walks you through:

1. Setting up your Twitter Profile.  Basic but good information.  Probably nothing you wouldn’t have found with a little effort, but then again that is the whole idea of buying information so you don’t have to chase it down yourself.
2. Setting Up & Leveraging TweetLater.  I love Tweetlater so this video didn’t provide much more than the one on my blog here, but again useful information.  And very much part of the “system” as we learn later.
3. Setting Up & Using a Web Service that will provide automatic, targeted followers.  Given TTM is an information product, I am not at liberty to give away all its secrets.   Suffice it to say that this is a resource I wasn’t aware of and appears to be quite effective at doing what it is designed to do, find and automatically follow people based on specific keywords.  I use Hummingbird Software for this function, but this will work, if not quite as automatically.  And this service, like all of the solutions recommended by Bill, is free!
4. Content Factory Automation.  This is where Bill got creative and is the piece I definitely LEARNED from and made the $27 investment way worth it.  He describes in detail how to provide your followers with “some” automated content so not every single tweet needs to be from you personally.  Now this is definitely an area where, in the wrong hands, twitterville could get inundated with useless tweets.  But used intellegently, it could be useful for people that just can’t be at their computer all the time but want to at least appear to still be “connected”.  Tread carefully here.  Twitter is 100% permission marketing/optin based.  As I have said before, treat your followers as you want to be treated.  Nuff said.
5. Finding People.  Shows how to use Twitter’s search tool as well as another to find people that are interested in what you are interested.  Again, useful information, primarily for people new to Twitter.  Or at least quite a bit newer than me, now.
6. Setting Up TTM to Market TTM.  Not surprisingly, Bill is looking for his customers to be affiliates for his product.  Very viral.  He walks you through all the steps and if the product makes sense for you… well it probably makes sense for other new people.

If I had found this when I first started with Twitter (all of 6 weeks ago) it would have been a very valuable resource at all levels.  As it is, I still found a few nuggets that made it worthwhile to me.

You will have to decide for yourself, but if your intrigued, then by all means get it here

TweetTex

Not sure if you have run into Rich Schefren, but he is an amazing marketing guy, Internet or otherwise.  Here is what he has to say about Twitter as a marketing tool and some sound advice on how to leverage it! …..

But let’s face it–there’s LOTS of money to be made here. And I want to help you build your business by giving you a few simple tips and tools that can help maximize your profit potential with your followers…

1) Be transparent–TOTALLY transparent. Talk about your life, your family, your work. Be detailed and honest. Tell them about good days and bad. Show them what it’s like to be in your shoes. Your followers want to know about YOU–not just your products or services. So give them that insight. Then when the time comes to promote, you’ll find a much easier road in front of you.

2) Tweet early and often. One of the best ways to do this is to download a free desktop program called TweetDeck. This is a powerful way to stay on top of what’s happening with your followers (especially the ones you’re looking to JV with) and keep tabs on who’s talking about you–without logging in and out all the time.

3) Retweet constantly. Retweeting (or RT) is a fast, easy way to pass along something valuable you’ve found in another tweet by simply clicking on an icon. This is giving back in its purest form, a way to share the best information with your followers without asking for anything in return. And it WORKS. Retweet the good stuff and you’ll soon have a huge group of prospects who know, like and trust you.

Those are just a few things to help you grow your list of followers by leaps and bounds. But if you REALLY want to jump in with both feet and start making money fast using Twitter, you gotta get Joel Comm’s new book, “Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time.”

Get Joel’s New Book Here

Rich provides prudent and effective advice – especially when it comes to buying Joel’s book.  If you want to leverage and monetize Twitter, you are not serious unless you get Joel’s book right NOW!

Ok – been using Hummingbird Software for a while now and have 4 twitter accounts with in excess of 5,000 followers in about 3 weeks.

But I wanted to start fresh now that I know a little more so I created TwitterTex as a new account about 3 days ago.

Started using Hummingbird Software to actively increase my followers.  The first day, I went to 686 followers.  The second day it went to 1,147 followers.  I am now into the third day and the count is 1516.

In 2 1/2 days I went from no followers to 1516 followers and climbing.

If you are looking to monetize your Twitter time, looking to target specific niches, Hummingbird Software is amazingly effective at building your list.

Of course there is a strategy to how to optimize the use of Hummingbird Software AND everything we do with Hummingbird Software is strictly in compliance with Twitter’s TOS.

And you better be ready to Tweet like crazy.  As soon as I started with TwitterTex, I had 50 tweets within the first 36 hours.  And not junk.  We are talking about relevant content and lots of replies

Check back for updates on TwitterTex

If you are interested in a quick overview of Hummingbird Software just click away