I am still cross blogging with Edie from Millionaire Moms, and she asked me about my favorite topic!  Twitter!

Considering that we BOTH love Twitter, would you mind sharing your top 10 reasons you love it?  Also, I’d be interested in hearing ways that you’ve learned to use it effectively as well as how you keep its use from becoming a “time waster” in your work day.

Well, Edie that’s a tough one… there are like a million zillion reasons I love twitter…. but I will try to norrow them down to just ten

• It has helped me in my writing career. I had no idea that writers and publishers and agents use twitter the way they do, but I quickly discovered that they LOVE it. I mean, it makes sense–we spend all day at our computers writing away, and when we want a quick reprieve from the depths of our manuscript we have twitter right at our fingertips.
• I use it when I am bored at mommy stuff. Seriously. How often have you been at some goofy jump-a-thon birthday party bored out of your mind? I just whip out my trusty iPhone and log into my Tweetie App. (That’s THE bet iPhone App hands down for twitter, none of the others even come close.) Then I can laugh and talk to thousands of people instead of stabbing a plastic sprok in my arm for fun.
• The networking friends I have made through twitter is in-sane. It’s just so cool. I have mommy blogging friends, mommy writer friends, battlestar galactica friends–and they ALL make me smile each day with their tweets.
• People can’t be long winded. You can’t annoy me with a five page email in 140 characters, so if someone has something important to say, then they have no choice but to say it quick.
• My parents keep up to date on my life. I actually tie twitter into my facebook. (Lots of people say don’t do this, but I do it because I don’t have the time to keep up with both social networks.) My dad checks in and he gets to read my tweets throughout the day, and look at all the pictures I upload of the goings on of our every day life! He LOVES this, and so do I!
• The links are so up to date. I used to keep up with Digg and Redditt for the latest in big news stories, but they are so far behind twitter’s trending topics now, that they are almost obsolete. I think that’s cool that we get news the very second something happens. Makes me feel all informed!
• I can say whatever I want whenever I want. You have to be careful with this one, because sometimes you say something in twitterville, and then wish instantly you could take it back. Sure, there’s the delete key, but once someone has retweeted your stuff, it lives on in twitter forever and ever. But, for the most part when I am feeling something. I just say it.
• You get out of twitter what you put into it. My husband once asked me to build his business twitter account, and I tried-I really did. I got him a ton of followers in just a few days, but then he started complaining that his followers were just spammy and boring. Not like my real followers. That’s just it. Every single person I have followed, I have personally checked out, and I know exactly what their twitter stream is about. I don’t have to deal with a lot of spam in my twitter stream, because when I see something I don’t like-I just unfollow the person.
• People who follow me are for the most part interested in what I have to say. Sure, you have your twitter gamers out there just trying to build up their numbers, but most of the time-when I tweet about a funny ninja coat rack or a new blog post-my followers are genuinely interested. That makes twitter totally worth the time.
• You can tweet from the bath tub. I love that you can tweet from anywhere. And sometimes, I just put my phone in a baggie and take a bath while I get my social network on! It’s fabulous, you are making connections, meeting new people, sharing genuine interest in things, and getting clean all at the same time.

And, Edie also asked me how I kept it from being distracting.

Well, unfortunately I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t do a very good job there. I can get distracted for hours at a time in a heated twitdebate. So, I guess that would be my question for Edie!

How do YOU keep twitter from being a disctraction? Or, just social networking in general? We know it’s important to grow our business, but how much is too much?

Over to you, Edie

To those of you wondering: Yes, I put that twitter bird in that bathtub, and yes it took me longer than actually writing this post.

I am still chatting with Edie over at Millionaire Moms Media. If you’d like to see her part of the conversation, head over there and check it out!

Wow, Edie! That’s a great story. I think it’s neat how your blog helped you reach out to others in the same situation as yours. This crazy internet! I can’t believe the lasting friendships I’ve made with it!

She asked me:

Would you mind sharing how you got your start in blogging?  Also, can you share why someone who isn’t “new” to blogging chose to be an intern for Moms Talk Network? (We have that in common!)  What do you hope to gain out of your experience as an intern?

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This week I am going to have a cross blog conversation with the fabulous Edie from Millionaire Moms Media. She’s a really cool mom with lots and lots to say about profitable mommy blogging so she makes a perfect p

erson to do this with.

What is a cross blog conversation, you ask?

Well, it’s where we ask each other questions back and forth on our own blogs and the person over at the other site answers them on theirs. It should be interesting to see, because I’ve never done anything like this before… and I am going to start!

So, Edie-My question for you is this:

I noticed you have a mix of both pleasure and business on your blog. Occaosinally you mention a proud mommy moment, but mostly you talk about the things that matter to those momies out there wanting to make cash with their blogs. How do you decide your balance for those sorts of posts? Do you have a system, or do you just sort of go for it?

(If you guys have any questions for Edie, please let me know! We will be talking to her for a few days!)

Ever have a duh moment? One of those times where you smack yourself upside the head and roll your eyes at your own incompetence? This totally just happened to me when someone suggested to me that I just tell my readers I accept advertising.

Of Course!

Who better to advertise on my blog than the people who read it daily and really respect the things I have to say?

Don’t be scared to put yourself out there and tell your readers you are accepting advertising!

But, remember some things–make sure they understand that you are only accepting quality advertising, and that they are going to want to see your traffic, so you need to be willing to show that off, and to say no to advertising you aren’t interested in.

Also, don’t announce to the world how much you charge for advertising on your blog, you never know when you might want to change that magic number!

photo credit: stofiska

Okay girls!  I rolled the ranomd.org dice and…

The winner is Jendi!

Congrats girl! Just email jamie (at) totally the bomb (dot) com and I will get you set up with your super swanky new linktrack account!

Most of us link to our blogs through our twitter and facebook accounts, right? (If you don’t… then you should be, traffic baby!)

But the question is, are people clicking those links? Am I just linking out there into nothingness?

I wondered this for a while, and then I started using Linktrack to see if people were actually clicking the links I sent them.

Here’s a little tutorial video of how I use Linktrack in a blog post:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIvaPUJqr34

I don’t just love Linktrack because it’s the best little link tracking website out there, I also love it because it’s my husband’s creation. (So there’s a chance I might be just a little biased.) But, because it’s his website:

He’s agreed to give away a free account to one of you!

If you want to win a free Linktrack account, all you need to do is let us know in the comments below!

If you twitter about our little give away here, then that’s an extra entry!