Not knowing what else I had missed, I thought I would ask the Twitter community what they liked and used and see what came out of the wood work.  I’ve also included the Twitter id’s of the repsondants for you to follow if you want.

My Faves:

TweetLater

This cool little tool is a bit like an autoresponder for Twitter.  You can use it to deliver information on a scheduled basis.

I’ve been using this for a while.  I find it a great tool to use to remind my followers of my scheduled events.  When I set up my events calendar, I add the ‘tweets’ to TweetLater and schedule them to go at predefined times.

Of course, I don’t recommend that you use the scheduling feature to send your general interactive tweets - that really defeats the purpose of a ’social network’.

TweetLater also has an ‘auto follow’ feature that you can use to follow anyone who follows you…. This can be a bit problematic if you are followed by a Spammer.  Use with care.

@KimBeasley recommends checking your Followers once a week and following those that look interesting - a much better idea overall.

Tweet My Blog

A Wordpress Plug-In by Soran Jordansen and John Merrick that will ‘tweet’ your blog updates. Incredibly easy to use.

Tweet This

Another Wordpress Plug-In that allows your site visitors to Tweet your posts, just like they would digg or stumble it….

This Plug-In allows you to select which short URL service you want too.  You can chose the shortest one available or your favorite.

You’ll see in the bottom of this message my Social Bookmarking links and a link that says ‘Tweet This’ - well go on - Tweet away!

Twhirl

A desktop Twitter Application that lets you send your Tweets from your computer.  Written on the Adobe Air platform the application apparently works on PCs and Macs.  I like Twhirl because I can monitor several Twitter accounts, Friend Feed, Seesmic, Identi.ca and laconi from the same place.

Tweet Deck

I love the layout of TweetDeck.  It is wonderful. You can see all Tweets, your replies and your direct messages in the one screen.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to have multiple account support yet….

Whilst this doesn’t cover all of my faves, it covers the ones I use most on a daily basis.

Other faves that were shared with me include:

@transitenator shared Twellow as a favorite.  Twellow is a Twitter Search Engine and Directory.  I did a search for myself on Twellow and there I was!  So I have now claimed my Twellow profile and updated it.  Are you in the directory? Check it out!

@mzamp01 told me he liked TwitterFon because “It is a very basic Twitter App for the iPhone. Great for reading and replying, as well as tweeting”

@digijustin was using SocialThing, a new aggregation tool that is currently in Beta.  I’ve requested my invitation to join!

@adamradman shared TweetBurner, a way to easily share links with your Twitter and FeedFriend followers and Twitzu - a way to announce your meetups and events.

@nbabyak likes TweetBeep - a neat little app that will alert you when a key phrase is used, when a particular person tweets, or even if the tweet originates within a radius of a physical location.

@kimbeasley shared a post with her favorite apps - lot’s of good ones there.  As a productivity tool, HelloTxt looks pretty cool - it will allow you to update your status on several networks with one update - that sounds good to me!

With one simple Tweet, I learnt about several great tools that will help my productivity - I hope that it helps your Twitter experience too!

You can Follow Me on Twitter as @charlyjl and @howtovideos (get free hints and tips on ‘how to’ use your computer and the internet more effectively).

Do you have a favorite application?  Add it in the comments with your Twitter ID!

Effective Social Networking is really about managing my time appropriately.

When I look to ‘play’ on a Social Network, I consider the following three questions and if I can answer them in the affirmative, then I believe the network is rights for me. The questions are:

1. Is this place the right place for me and my business?
2. Am I meeting people who I would be comfortable doing business with and recommending to others?
3. Is this the best use of my time?

Remember though, to be able to answer these questions appropriately, I need to invest some of my precious time in these environments to see what they are about.

I thought I would recommend 5 networks that, when used effectively, seem to be giving me most benefit, maybe they will suit you too.  If you click on the links below, you will see my profile or invitation to join the networks and, if you do decide to join, you will automatically connected to me.

1. ECademy - even the free membership provides lots of benefits.  A social network aimed at Business people.  Add to that, I’m also seeing my results in the Search Engines, so it is worthwhile!

2. Ryze - specifically the Women Business Owners network.  That was the main reason I joined Ryze. I only use the Free service and have great benefits.

3. Naymz - Excellent profiling site and when you get enough reputation points (which are easy enough to get), Naymz will provide a ‘top link’ on Google for your name.  Great opportunity.  Again, the free service is excellent.

4. FastPitch Online - The free service is o.k on FastPitch, but I upgraded to their premium service and have access to the Press Release Service.  Since releasing my first Press Release last week, I have had several Google alerts for it.  It works.

5. LinkedIn - LinkedIn is definitely a business network.  I don’t use it overly much, but I do see Google alerts for my profile and the answers I provide to Questions.  Easy to use and setup, the free service is worth considering.

If you think they will work for you - then come and join me there.

Leave your profile links to your favorite networks in the comments below and I’ll visit and connect with you too…..

After spending over 20 years in the IT industry, generally as one of the only women in my chosen field, when I embarked on my online business building adventure that I would again be in the minority.   I was also a little worried that the women I would connect with wouldn’t really understand ‘me’.  I had experiences in the offline world when I met the Mums of children at the school my kids went to - because I came from the ‘corporate world’ and was very much a career woman.  Many of these Mums, although lovely people just didn’t get that I LOVED what I did and really didn’t want to a full-time, stay at home Mum.

It took a few months, but I realized that there was a small, but quickly growing community of Women who were using the internet to conduct business.  What truly amazed me was the width of this community - from very small Work At Home Moms (WAHMs) to women who had large corporate aspirations.  I just had to work out how to ‘tap in’ to that network and not feel so alone.

Eventually, I did and I have started to create a lovely network of women who want to be successful online. From there came my desire to help other women connect and realize that they too can be successful.

I then met Carol Deckert, through Social Networking.  Carol is a netweaver which means, simply, that Carol will connect people who can help each other, with thought to recompense.  To Carol, the reward is in doing a good thing and…. she knows that it will come back to her in the long run.

We quickly decided that have similar philosophies in life and have been working ‘behind the scenes’ to put together a package to help Women, or Ladies, in Business succeed and have it all….

Announcing - Ladies In Business Today, How You Can Have It All

Join Carol and I as we interview 8 highly successful and amazing Ladies In Business.  Each of these Women come from a different business background and focus and we want to help them share with you how they have managed to balance their Work and Home life to be incredibly successful.

We want our female listeners to know that they can achieve as well and learn some of the secrets that the 8 women we are interviewing have to share to make their lives easier.

For our male listeners, and yes! you are welcome, we hope that we can give you a better insight into the womens market and help you achieve more.

For those of you that have heard any of my interviews previously will know that I don’t do a standard Q & A interview.  I dig deep and ask my interviewee to give something that they haven’t previously revealed. These interviews promise to be fun and information packed and you will walk away with your head swimming full of ideas!

Just look at our speaker line up:

- Sharon Tieman (Australia) - Madame Marketing and author of “If I’m So Successful, How Come I Never Get To Be On Top?”

- Robbie Motter (USA) - Speaker, Coach, Public Relations and Marketing Specialist and expert in the Government marketplace

- Donna Cutting (USA) - Author of “The Celebrity Experience: Insider Secrets to Red Carpet Customer Service”

- Paula Constantino (USA) -  Founder of Women’s Support TEAM

- Lynn Terry (USA) - Internet Marketing Expert and Work At Home Mom

- Heidi Richards (USA) - Author, Business Coach & Entrepreneur

- Felicia Slattery (USA) - Teacher, Trainer, Speaker, Writer, Consultant & Coach who specializes in training busy professionals to succeed through effective communication.

- Janet Beckers (Australia) -  The Wonderful Web Woman, started her business from nothing in just 8 weeks and exceeded her previous years full time income in six months!

Each of these women will be sharing how they have met the challenges of developing a successful business and balanced their ‘outside’ life in the meantime.  They will provide practical advice that you can implement almost immediately on how you can manage your business to be successful (but not worn out!)

Carol and I also want to find out what each these amazing women feel and think about marketing to women in this day and age and what they would do to change it!

Seriously, this is MUST HAVE information for any marketer. These women are successful in their chosen arenas and are reaping the rewards as a result…. Do you really want to miss this?

We will be opening the lines up to a Question and Answer session - so you will be able to get the answers that you have always been looking for!

Find out how you can listen LIVE for free….

http://ladiesinbusinesstoday.com

The first interview is this week - September 16 with Madame Marketing followed on September 17 by Robbie Motter.

Register now and you will receive updates and notices to remind you about the series.

And you can listen for FREE - all you need to do is register and you will get the full details.

Can you really afford to miss this information?

http://ladiesinbusinesstoday.com

for more information about the series and how you can listen LIVE for free!

This isn’t exactly an Internet Marketing related topic, but…. it will help your Internet Marketing endeavours.  My friend Judith Stephens, The Money Lady, has recently launched her new site Yes To Financial Fitness which, in Judiths own words:

is all about the money — learning about money, talking about money,  attracting money, using our growing knowledge and financial expertise to benefit you greatly.

So what does this have to do with Internet Marketing - simply, we want to build online businesses to make money.  Whether that money is to pay out debt, improve your living standards and lifestyle or even to give more to charity - it doesn’t matter, the starting point remains the same - we want to make money.

The problem for many is that we aren’t educated about money until it’s too late.  We don’t know how to manage it (it sometimes seems to manage us!) and we don’t know how to make it work for us.

Judith wants to change that - she wants to help people learn about money and improve their lives.  In a recent interview with Katherine Reschke from Passions That Pay, Judith shares her thoughts on developing a healthy Money Mindset.

When you consider the spate of emails that have been sent lately within the Internet Marketing arena playing on the ‘doom and gloom’ of the recession, the lack of ready funds and the general poor state of the economy - it was great to listen to Katherine and Judith speak in terms of developing and maintaining a mindset that attracts wealth and financial wellbeing.  That discussion alone reinforced my decision to delete any message from inbox with those negative subject lines.

One of the interesting points that Judith raises, which is really pertinent to Internet Marketing, is pricing your products and services.  Judith feels that many of the issues with pricing is that we just ‘don’t know’ what is acceptable or what works and as such, we may very easily underprice and hurt  ourselves in the meantime.  I found this a fascinating discussion because I came from the Corporate world where I was responsible for determining the price points of our services and ensuring profitability.  Judiths discussion reminded me of so many things that I have been ignoring in the scheme of things - like marketing time, free giveaways, product development and just plain ‘non recoverable’ time.

So why is Mindset so important when it comes to money?  It’s a simple as preparing your mind to attract, receive and to manifest money in our lives.  When we have the right money mindset we have so many positive options available to us: We can make more money; We can be part of something bigger and work for the greater good… and so on.

Then there was the discussion about ‘opening your eyes to money’. Katherine relates a story about a friend who decides that she will be aware of pennies just laying around, and all of a sudden there are pennies everywhere!  However, Judith points out quite succinctly, that if we decided to become aware of $10 notes, there would be an abundance of them as well.

I found this interview absolutely fascinating and it has made me stop and think about what I can do to improve my money mindset.  Listen to Judiths interview below:

So what’s you’re money mindset?

Until now, I have been relying on placing my email address and Skype contact details on my pages.

I’ve tried installing the various Help Desk software but the free versions just don’t quite ‘cut the mustard’ and the really good ones outside my budget at the moment….

Today, my colleague Darren Blake contacted me and told me about his new product - No Tech Desk.

This simple little program requires absolutely no MySQL and it is so easy to install.

It is also really easy to customize and continue the branding through your site.

The system also allows you to add Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) so you can answer your customer questions before they lodge the call.

I’ve just installed No Tech Desk on one of my domains - the one that I want to use for my support desk and I just love it.

Check it out at http://askcharlyleetham.com/support/

The price is nothing to be ignored either.  It is under $10!  For less than $10, you can have your support desk up and running and be providing the next level of service to your customers.

Get No Tech Desk Today

I was contacted by a friend who was being challenged with one of the steps and invited me to ‘listen in’ to one of their group calls.  I was very honoured and in the process of listening to the call, I became very interested in the challenge.

As a result, I started on the challenge videos, to see what was being taught.

I truly recommend that anyone look at the 30 Day Challenge and watch the training that Ed and his team have prepared.

I watched the Keyword Analysis videos with interest. The series of videos, whilst promoting Marketing Samaurai, also show you how to manually investigate your keywords and determine not only appropriate keywords but analyse whether there is a niche there to promote to.  These lessons are like gold!

My next popular lesson is ‘Becoming A News Master’, part of Week 5.  This video describes, and shows you how to use Google Reader and a cool add-on in writing blog posts and attribution.  Well worth watching.

Which brings me to Add-Ons.  In the Thirty Day Challenge Pre-Season, Ed and his team share a number of great Add-Ons for Flock, and of course, for Firefox.  Well worth the time.

As a learning experience, I recommend that you have a look at the Thirty Day Challenge.  It is free and the learning tools are pretty cool.

Here are the events that are currently looking for contributors.  Join as a contributor now and put your free product in front of 100’s if not 1000’s of people.

Massive Summer Giveaway
Start: 2008-06-16
End: 2008-09-04
Become a Contributor
Become a Member
Run by yours truly and Scott Drake

Video Lists Giveaway
Start: 2008-08-15
End: 2008-09-07
Become a Contributor
Become a Member

Viral, Rebrandable Money Machines
Start: 2008-08-12
End: 2008-08-26
Become a Contributor
Become a Member

Internet Marketing Stampede
Start: 2008-08-19
Become a Contributor
Become a Member

Olympic Giveaway
Start: 2008-08-08
End: 2008-08-24
Become a Contributor
Become a Member

Original PLR Giveaway
Start: 2008-08-29
End: 2008-09-11
Become a Contributor

These events are underway and you can join as a member:

Massive Monthly Giveaway - August 08
Start: 2008-08-11
End: 2008-08-18
Become a Member

Big Jason from Big Marketing Blog is in the Blogging Idol competition.  Blogging Idol is a contest to see who can increase their blog subscriber count the most in July.  He’s out to win it and he’s offering over $40,000 worth of prizes to help!  To be in the running for the prizes, all you need to do is visit The Big Marketing Blog and enter.

Big Jason has persuaded Jack Humphrey of the Authority Site Center, one of the most influential social media experts in the world, to do a 1 hour webinar to show each person who enters how to use blogging and other social media to become an authority.

This is an awesome concept - it is worth studying just to see how Jason has created a buzz and what kind of a buzz it is.

The interview is below and I hope you find it as interesting and informative as Tonya did.

During this interview, Tonya asks me my favourite tools and shares a couple of her own. Here are links to a couple of the ones we discussed:

RoboForm is an awesome tool - I don’t have to keep my passwords in memory, RoboForm does it for me

G.Ho.St - Virtual PC, access your desktop anywhere in the world…. (I haven’t checked this out yet, but it looks really cool)

I will be speaking on August 7th and will ’share the stage’ with some of the most Amazing Speakers from Around the World Showcased in Two Different Tracks for Business Owners and Virtual Assistant.

I will be sharing how YOU can master your technology challenges, and take control of your web presence, and how you can even do it using free and inexpensive resources.

During this presentation I will share some simple techniques and tools that you can employ in your online business and be effective online.

Just look at this line up! Mari Smith, Dr Sally Witt, Mary Pat Kavanagh, Lou Bortone, Kathie Thomas, James Roche plus more!

Erin Blaskie, the event organiser, has some fantastic package deals to ensure that you get the most out of this event. Visit the Summer Speaker Series now…..

Join me on August 7th at 5pm EST and learn how YOU too can take control of your technology challenges.