Blogging is especially exciting for the novice. Social media and networking in the course of blog promotion can be even more exciting.  Successful, professional bloggers warn that a lack of understanding and discipline in using twitter, facebook, and other social media sites can be a huge waste of your valuable time.

Hi. My name is Kathleen and I am a midlife A.D.D. Twitter addict. The 140 character messages along with the ability to tweet from anywhere, anytime, became an unsuccessful addiction.  The infatuation snowballs and before you know it, BAM three hours have passed and the daily to do list went untouched. I have to admit, blogging and social networking has been a great pleasure and truthfully a huge diversion to inexorable midlife complexities. However, this level of wasted time is obsessive, unacceptable and a lot like a drug addiction. I was warned. Shame on me!

Some time ago, I read Patricia’s post Comments Do Not Equal Sales. She is a brilliant writer, a passionate Lavender business owner, and one blogger I absolutely admire.  She was a queen tweeter, a tweet heart as she proclaimed! Through blogging and being very social, she formed a superb blogging network. Patricia went on to explain the time consumed creating that social network did not result in improved sales.

How are your sales figures for the month?”  Translated: “You still have a blogger mindset Patricia.  This needs to change…now!”… Just a quick message that I’m leaving Twitter now and the figures could be better!

To get my twitter infatuation and time management under control, I began to study and follow advice from trusted blogs – SweetsFoods, Basic Blog Tips, Lavendaruses, and BizChickBlogs to name a few. This infatuation took me almost a year to admit and revise can you believe that? These tools helped to cure my useless Twitter infatuation, improving time management and real connections.

Hoot Suite, as suggested on SweetFoods.com was my first Twitter tool. Tweeting had not yet taken total hold of my time however, Gera gave a great overview of the app, and I was convinced it was for me. Hoot Suite makes it quick and easy to view and use multiple twitter accounts and lists. The free version allows for five social profiles from eight different social networks and two rss feeds. The pro version is $5.99 per month and has tons of features with unlimited social profiles. A bit too much for my little blogging venture. Just recently, Hoot suite added an affiliate program. Program details include a 50% commission on first subscription payment with the minimum payout cap being $100.

If you happen to be a #FollowFriday fan, take the time to schedule your favorite #ff tweets in advance. I don’t know about you but Friday always seems to be a hectic day and I very much appreciated the scheduled tweets feature.

Leo Widrich, who I later learned is the cofounder of Buffer, wrote an awesome guest post review of Buffer for Basic Blog Tips. The main purpose of Buffer is consistent tweeting. With a free Buffer account, one can tweet as usual or add up to 10 scheduled tweets at once. Buffer browser extensions are available for Chrome and Safari. No worries for Firefox or IE users, there is a convenient bookmarlet for those. The Chrome extension is my choice. It has two options: tweet now or load for scheduling.

Thanks to Joel and Leo, I now use buffer to tweet featured products from my affiliate sites as well as posts from my favorite blogs! Of course, Buffer has an affiliate program too. This is my Buffer affiliate link. It’s not very shameful to share the Buffer link do you think.

I sound like Dr Seuss, link do you think… I won this Dr. Seuss Cookbook not to long ago and I just love Dr Seuss. Ok Ok I know stay focused. Anyway, affiliates who successfully invite friends to join Buffer are both rewarded with space for an extra tweet.

The third and most amazing of the Twitter Tools was introduced by my all time favorite blogger Ms.Tia Peterson. The editor in chief and mastermind of bizchickblogs.com graciously sent me an invite to her Biz Chicks Food tribe. Oh my gosh I was flattered. Perhaps after reading so many of my crazy A.D.D. induced comments, Tia knew I needed intervention!

Anyhow, Triberr is an invite only website where tribe members automatically share each other’s blog posts. Accepting an invite also entitles you to become a chief and create three tribes of your own. Not only does this expand twitter reach, it allows more time to really connect with others.

Multiple Twitter accounts and rss feeds can be added to your account for specific tribes association. For example, my food blog rss and foodie twitter account are associated with my food tribe memberships. On the other hand, my @WomanMomFriend account and this blog are associated with mom and women tribes. Another option I very much appreciate is the ability to allow or deny retweets.

Triberr.com

“Triberr is the brainchild of Dino Dogan and Dan Cristo”

Triberr Creates a Real Win-Win Situation

You Win – Your blog posts are distributed by your Tribe far and wide.

Tribes Win- People in your Tribe get to feed quality content to their followers and inject variety into their own tweeting efforts.

Followers Win- Followers are exposed to quality content created by your Tribesmen.

With expert folks like these, you know Triberr has to be quite remarkable. New features are added to Triberr quite often, as you might expect from a development crew such as these guys….  Always thinking, always improving.

These Twitter tools eliminated hours of wasted Twitter time for me. Thank You to the fantastic creators!

My next hurdle is to develop a disciplined daily overall blogging regiment. This problem will require a huge amount of work especially for a midlife person who is accustomed to working with priorities that oftentimes change hourly. Remaining optimistic is the key I do believe. Who knows I might even develop the skills necessary to write consistent killer tweets and content. Either way, all of this is blogging, tweeting, and connecting is much more enjoyable than midlife and its calamity any day!

I hope that you found my Twitter journey as helpful and amusing as I did!

**Hugs**

Kathy