iGoogle is a popular method for not only keeping track of your schedule but also streamlining your life. You can customize the page to have your email, google calendar (popular in it’s own right), RSS feeds, popular links and many other apps (weather, date & time) appear on the front page. It provides one stop shopping for organizing your life online and off. I was using this for awhile but decided that it wasn’t for me when I started using a shared computer and didn’t leave myself logged in all the time.

Smart Phones: It seems like everyone has an iphone/blackberry/droid/(insert awesome phone here) that does about a million things. As part of their multi-functionality many people have taken to using their phone as a means of recording their to-do list etc. I can’t argue with this as a means of schedule keeping, as I can imagine having one small device for all your phone/texting/scheduling/internet/music needs would be helpful. Given that I have always been miles behind the mobile phone cool wave I would estimate that I might give this a try when I get my first smart phone in 2015 or so. If you’ve got one, do you use it to keep track of your schedule?

Web based Programs: Instead of writing down your to-do lists and schedule on paper, there are numerous web-based programs that let you create lists and access them no matter what device you are using to connect to the web. I’ve used both Remember the Milk and Ta-Da Lists a bit as a means of managing my tasks, but stopped using both for various reasons.

I was using the Remember the Milk gmail plugin, which is was enjoying at first but after a while it became very buggy and was affecting the speed and layout of my gmail account and became more of a hassle than it was worth.  Ta-da lists was great for what I wanted to do (keep track of my life online, essentially) but I found that being without a smart phone or a laptop all the time gave me a number of occasions where I wanted to look at my to-do list when I wasn’t able to get online and that frustrated me.

This leads me to the current method I am employing to keep track of my schedule/to-do list that doesn’t require an internet connection and I can access anywhere.

Pen & Paper: That’s right, in this super high-tech world I write my to-do lists and schedule down in a small pocket notebook that I can carry around with me on the go if I like. It’s very old fashioned and low tech, but it works great for me. I get a ton of satisfaction from physically crossing something off the list once it is done, it strikes me as authentic to physically write stuff down and helps me remember on my own better as well. Also, I do so much stuff online it’s nice to write actual words down now and again even if I am not writing the next great American novel or anything.

While I may be very old school, there are plenty of other tech-ier options for those of you who prefer that method of doing things. There are a countless number of choices out there outside of the few I highlighted from my personal usage ; let us know in the comments – how do you manage your schedule?

Here are the details we know so far, from the TechCrunch article breaking the news:

• As previously described, the new system serves up ads based on keywords in Twitter search queries.
• Promoted Tweets will appear at the top of the search results page, with small text indicating they were sponsored. The Times piece notes that companies could use this to combat negative tweets (they can place a positive tweet at the top of the page)
• A Promoted Tweet isn’t guaranteed to stay afloat for a long time — if the tweet isn’t tracking well in terms of replies, clicks, and a number of other metrics Twitter is calling “resonance”, it will be pulled, and the advertiser won’t pay for it.
• One ad will be shown at a time



• Initial ad partners include Best Buy, Virgin America, Starbucks, and Bravo
• Advertisers will be paying on a CPM basis initially, with plans to adjust the model once Twitter can better gauge how people are engaging with Promoted Tweet

As you can see, the platform is initially being limited to a few big companies, so no opportunities for us just yet as Twitter sets to test of the effectiveness of the new system. One of my main concerns is how this advertising opportunity will eventually affect SponsoredTweets, which has been a decent revenue stream for Luke and I over the last few months. Keep in mind that according Twitter, “In the next phase of Twitter’s revenue plan, it will show promoted posts in a user’s Twitter stream, even if a user did not perform a search and does not follow the advertiser.” Eventually, we will all be seeing ads in our Twitter feeds and this appears to be one facet of the monetization of twitter by it’s owners.

Regardless of how it plays out, I feel like there is going to be a lot of opportunity for advertisers once Twitter unleashes their new ad platform to the public so stay tuned for that announcement and be ready to pounce.

In the meantime, sign up for Sponsored Tweets if you haven’t yet already and start cashing in on Twitter. If you don’t want to miss any additional updates, take a second and sign up for our RSS Feed as well.

Having talked to Jonathan before about Internet Marketing, we know personally that he is more than willing to share exactly what it is he is having success with and is great at providing guidance – something you get plenty of in his new guide.

Lots of people get into online marketing without really knowing all that much about it, and this guide will be a real helpful way to sort through all the information out there and get down to the basics and start earning money. Here is what you are getting:

In this guide, I go over the techniques that I have used to generate over $4 million dollars in affiliate marketing commissions including PPC, PPV, Media Buying and Social Media Affiliate marketing!

I have been working extremely hard on this guide and I believe that it will be of great benefit for both newbies and more experienced affiliate alike… I mean, even if you get just one good nugget, it was worth it right? Well, I plan on many of you getting more than one nugget.

Also notable, and a cool feature, is that you aren’t restricted to reading the guide in a .pdf like many ebooks, you also get access to it online. It’s a great read and after only getting through the first half I’ve already gotten some great clarification on setting up PHP redirects and some great info on the increasingly popular PPV marketing that was very informative.

Download your copy of Affiliate Marketing 101.

[To get on my soap box for a minute, it is important that people not forget about the dire needs in Haiti now that the blitz of news coverage and TV specials have faded. People still need food, water, medicine and other essential supplies to help them continue to rebuild their homes and their lives. Your donations are still needed and still important.]

For those curious, here are a couple of shots of the front and back of the shirt:

Sounds great you are saying to yourself, but I didn’t make it out to ASW so I guess I’m out of luck (exactly what I was thinking myself). However, to get even more people involved, they gave away the few extra shirts they had via email to those who couldn’t attend and I was lucky enough to get one!

I got to thinking about what a good way to display my wearing the shirt would be and decided that I would wear it throughout the course of a normal day and all the places I would go, taking some photos and more importantly keeping track of the comments people made to me as I traveled.

Here I am heading into the airport wearing the shirt:

Best Comment on the shirt at the airport (at security): “Hey Everyone, make some space for the King to catch his flight!” [Waiting in line less at the checkpoint? Don't mind if I do!]

One guy, who may or may not have been enjoying himself a bit much at the airport bar, came up to me and offered to trade shirts with me. As nice as his dress shirt was, we weren’t the same size and I was much more comfortable not changing shirts with a total stranger. The shirt definitely has drunk appeal though.

I also had a bunch of people in the terminal comment on the shirt saying how nice it was, how cool it was and wondering where they could get one so it seems like people outside the affiliate industry like the shirts too and would be happy to wear them out.

After the airport I took a break to check my email and do some “work” online. Translation: I checked and returned some emails, opened up AdWords, got distracted by a GChat from a friend, ended up looking at fantasy baseball rankings for 30 minutes before remembering why I turned on the computer in the first place.

I will occasionally wear certain shirts for various tasks as an internal motivator (State Champs shirt for working out etc.) and this one is probably going to be a good one for me to get some work done in. I can just tell myself that I am the King and so are my campaigns!

My girlfriend, who usually hates most of my wardrobe, commented that this shirt “wasn’t so bad”, so even some of my harsher fashion critics like the shirt and I can keep on wearing it.

After getting some emails sent and some work done, it was time to move on to the next task, which is always a ton of fun – coaching some track.

I am a part-time track coach in addition to all the other stuff I have going on, so I decided to take the shirt to the track.

It was a successful workout for the team and many of them had some interesting commentary on my shirt choice in between intervals. For example:

“Are you auditioning for a part in the new Alice in Wonderland movie?’

” Is that shirt something you wear to intimidate people in poker games?”

“Make some space for the King of the (timing) Clock, everybody!”

Despite the jovial ribbing from the team, they all thought it was a pretty cool looking shirt and were asking me where I got it, thus giving me a chance to explain to them a little bit about the affiliate marketing I do. Several of them were pretty interested in it, so I may be referring some new affiliates soon thanks in part to wearing this shirt.

Lastly, after a busy day, some friends and I went out for some dinner and drinks. Naturally, the shirt came with me.

While watching some Olympic curling at the bar (awesome event by the way) I was approached by a lady who offered to buy the “King of Hearts anything he wants to drink, because he clearly is the coolest guy around.” Not wanting to insult my new friend I decided to let the minor detail that my shirt clearly has a diamond and not a heart on it slide, and accepted a free beer. This shirt is really paying off!

Other excellent comments included:

From our waitress: “Will the King be picking up the tab?”

“Sick shirt, dude! Are those, like, new Burger King promo shirts or something?”

After explaining to several people where the shirt came from, what affiliate marketing was and that I was in fact, not picking up the tab for the entire bar or distributing free Burger King it was time to leave. All in all it was a pretty eventful day for the shirt and I got some potential new referrals, a free beer and lots of (generally) positive commentary on it.

As for the shirt itself, it fits nicely and is lightweight which is great for the coming warmer months. Another huge plus was that the shirt itself is tagless and made from 100% cotton so it’s really comfortable to wear. I like the look of it and will continue to wear it out and about and who knows, maybe I’ll keep getting free beers with it! Thanks again to Tom and everyone else at Affiliate.com for designing a cool shirt and sending me one for free.

One of the biggest hurdles I think people new to this whole making money online thing have to get over is the mindset of doing things you have never done before. To those who aren’t currently making money online, the mere concept of using the Internet to make a living seems either absurd or really easy. Those are the two main reactions I get when talking about it with other people – “You can actually make REAL money online?” or “So you just slap up some blog posts, Google ads and maybe make a few tweets, right?” WRONG!

Making money online doesn’t have to be inaccessible, impossible, or even that confusing but it does require work. It is much more than slapping up some blog posts with ads and waiting for the money to roll in. It’s also something that can be a reality for many people, as you see stories about people making it big online all the time. You just have to be willing to challenge that conventional wisdom and not succumb to the pressure of others.

As Luke and I found out, when you start out in the business you are going to fail, and fail a lot. You need to be willing to accept that there is a learning curve and you will not be a millionaire overnight. However, once you get the hang of how to set up a good PPC campaign, connect with your audience and make some connections in the industry things will improve and you will start to see results. The problem is most people can’t get over the initial assumptions many have that Internet marketing is easy and when they meet some adversity, they give up and walk away. Don’t be so quick to throw in the towel.

We struggled a lot in the early going to make campaigns that would break even in PPC, didn’t have a good sense of what niches we wanted to work in and were constantly changing which offers and networks we were working with. This left us with little practical knowledge of any particular vertical, no strong relationships with any affiliate networks or affiliate managers. After regrouping and really buckling down and focusing in on more specific areas, we found our campaigns slowly improving and began developing relationships with various affiliate managers. As Luke alluded to in his previous post, if you need something, ask for it – and if you’ve built a relationship with someone, they’ll be more willing to help you out and give you some great suggestions to build on.

Now that we have some contacts in the industry, other opportunities for collaboration are opening up and we are starting to see some really positive growth in our online endeavors. So don’t give up at the first sign of trouble, be willing to challenge the conventional wisdom and make sure to build relationships through AIM, Twitter, blog comments and other means to give yourself a support network to power through the tough times. You’ll be surprised how successful you can be if you give yourself a shot.

Last week I talked about using Twitter, through Sponsored Tweets, to bring in some extra income quickly and simply. Hopefully you took advantage of the opportunity and have signed up for Sponsored Tweets by now. If not, I have another reason why you might want to consider joining up – contests for awesome prizes!

Izea founder Ted Murphy (the people who developed Sponsored Tweets) has held two great contests using his platform so far, giving away a Dominican vacation and a Canon OES Digital Rebel 15.1 Megapixel Camera Kit so far. Now they are having a contest for a cool $1000 in cash, and this is open to International as well as US entrants this time.

All you have to do to win (once you are signed up for Sponsored Tweets, of course) is be the person who refers the most new members before November 16^th. Winner gets to send out a $1000 tweet and you can withdraw that money and do whatever you want with it.

Contest Rules:

• All referrals must be Twitter accounts over 120 days old

• Entrants must be 18 Years of Age or older

• Any use of Twitter bot spamming, or other spamming, will render you ineligible and will result in suspension of your account.

Sign up, start referring and good luck!

If you are in a contest mood, Jonathan Volk is running a Twitter contest on his blog (see how valuable Twitter can be!) with some cool prizes – first prize is dual 22” monitors! Check it out here.

You earn points for tweeting his blog posts, following him on twitter, subscribing to his newsletter and RSS feed, becoming a fan of him on Facebook and making a blog post about him or the contest.

All of these things are really quick and easy to do, and each gets you a chance at some cool prizes that can really help further your online endeavors. While you may not win every single one (or even many of them) it’s a good way to leverage your online presence for the benefit of your business. For example, you could win the prizes, but assuming that you don’t there is still value in referring new Sponsored Tweets users to earn referral income, getting your name out there and building relationships with other like-minded people. That’s one of the main reasons people like Jonathan host these contests is to build their brand, so make sure that you take advantage of the opportunity to do the same.

While Nate and I certainly don’t have the kind of money necessary to buy radio time — especially a national spot, which I’m assuming it was. Maybe through the AdWords radio option — doing so must really be paying off for the affiliate whose running the ad (with the cost of radio advertising, they definitely wouldn’t be running the ad if they weren’t seeing some serious ROI!).

I’m sure none of you have the money necessary to run radio ads either (if you do, you shouldn’t be reading this blog. heh) but my point in writing about the commercial I heard is how important and how profitable thinking outside the box can be. Doing what everyone else isn’t doing is the key to making money with affiliate marketing when you don’t have a ton of money upfront to put towards pricey and competitive keywords. I’m sure there are dozens of ads competing for face time within the “free xbox” niche, so the particular affiliate running the radio ad went elsewhere where his competitors aren’t.

Whether its PPC with long-tail keywords which have fewer competitors; free classified listings sites like craigslist.org; Facebook & MySpace advertising; print classifieds (which are getting cheaper by the day); radio or television; or anything else you can think of, thinking outside the box really is the key to success.

Part 1 is going to cover some common basic terminology you’ll need to be familiar with:

Affiliate Marketing: The namesake of this whole enterprise, affiliate marketing can be defined in various ways. In it’s simplest form, it simply refers to the directing of traffic to certain websites in return for compensation. It’s obviously more in-depth then that, but on it’s face that’s the basis for what affiliate marketing it: driving traffic to websites in return for money.
For more information as to what affiliate marketing is all about and the history of it’s development feel free to check out the following links:
Affiliate Marketing Wiki Page
Affiliate Marketing Starter’s guide (log in to read beginner article – lots of other great content too)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO is focused on improving the volume and quality of traffic heading to a website by optimizing facets of the searching process. There are numerous factors that go into determining the “top” websites and SEO focuses on using a number of techniques to improve a given page’s rank in the search engines, operating under the theory that the higher up on the search list a site is, the more traffic it gets. SEO can include anything from how a website is designed and coded to improving content and making the spidering process – or automated content indexing done by search engines – smoother and more relevant.
One of the resources we used to familiarize ourselves with a lot of the basics of SEO was this beginners guide from SEOmoz.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Similar to search engine optimization, SEM is focused more on driving traffic to a given website increasing their visibility on search engine sites. Popular ways to do this include using SEO techniques, as well as purchasing paid placement at or near the to of relevant searches. Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing are two huge programs used to garner better search results for your site through the process of bidding a certain amount of money on various search keywords, with the more popular and shorter ones costing significantly more.

Long-Tail Keywords: A very important part of affiliate marketing is making sure you not only drive lots of traffic to your website but also to bring the most relevant web searches to your site so they are more likely to click on your advertisements or buy products from your store. Search engine queries are referred to as “keywords”, and the most common, shortest keywords often provide the most general traffic.

Long-Tail keywords are 3-5 word phrases that will often direct more specific traffic to your website, and is a great way to target a niche audience. For example, a lot more people would search for “herbal remedies” then would search for “herbal remedies for acne”, but if you were looking to sell herbal acne medicine, the latter would be a much more relevant group of customers. It’s about balancing the volume and relevance of traffic with the costs, especially as you are just starting out on a tight budget.

Stay tuned for more in this continuing series and as always if you have suggestions for terminology you want defined, programs you want explained or strategies you don’t fully understand feel free to bring those up in the comments section.