The Real Tim Jones

Ted Murphy is Giving Away a Years Supply of Cereal

Tim_Jones — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:52:45 +0000

Ted Murphy of Izea, Inc. comes up with some of the strangest promotional stunts and this one is no exception. Ted covered himself in Cheerios in his bathtub to promote his “cereal give-away.” Ted will be giving away 52 boxes of cereal to a random winner of the contest. The first video, below, shows the promotion, but be sure to check out the second video that gives the behind-the-scenes view of the making of the promotional video.

Win a Bathtub Full of Cereal from Ted Murphy on Vimeo.

Making a Bathtub Full of Cereal from Ted Murphy on Vimeo.

Ted gave two methods of entering the contest. The first, through Twitter, is to Tweet the following: “RT @tedmurphy is giving away a bathtub full of cereal. Help a family in need http://urlbrief.com/0910d7″ The second, blog about Ted’s contest and include one of his promotional photos or videos on your blog post, much like this post.

Additionally, Ted said that if he gets over 500 comments on his blog post about the cereal give-away, he will donate 52 boxes of cereal to his local food bank, so get over and comment on his post! This is a great cause and should I win the 52 boxes, I will be donating my winnings to the local food bank, also. This is another great promotion by Ted and I look forward to many more.

Twitter Track is Back!

Tim_Jones — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:54:37 +0000

Well, at least some version of track is back. Several people, including Sam Harrelson and the guys over at TWiT quit using Twitter for a while, due to the lack of a “track” feature. Apparently, the people at TweetLater also mourned the loss of this feature, as they’ve brought it back from the dead.

TweetLater allows a user to send Tweets, even when they are not online. In this sense, it’s similar to TwitterFeed, but you can set up any Tweets, not just those coming from an RSS feed. I used to use another service TweetLater provides, where you can have a direct message to people that start following you on Twitter, automatically. This became too generic and impersonal for me, so I quit using it.

This past weekend, they came out with two new features. The first tracks all replies made to your Twitter account. This helps you see the important conversations between you and your followers. Personally, this functionality was already covered by TweetDeck. The second feature was bringing back the track feature. Track, on TweetLater, allows you to track individual keywords and have the report sent to you by email at an interval you select. I’m sure Sam or someone else will tell me exactly why this is not a pure “track” system, but at least some innovators are taking steps in the right direction, as obviously no one at Twitter has any interest in working to bring the track feature back.

Market Leverage Contest Update

Tim_Jones — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:15:29 +0000

I wanted to give everyone a quick update on the Market Leverage contest to let you know that there is still lots of time and opportunity to win this contest and a new Flip Mino! As I said in the original blog post, most people just ignore the contest and do not enter. This leaves tons of opportunity for the select few that will go for it. We’re a little over half-way through the month and there is no clear leader, so it’s anyone’s contest to win!

This is a great month to enter a revenue contest, since we have Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming up in just over a week. Take advantage of these massive shopping days and get some quality content and PPC campaigns in place over the next week and you could win big, this month. Not only will you get a good start in affiliate marketing, but you could win a new video camera or $75 to go with your earnings!

Zac Johnson has a great post, today on how to find quality, tight niches on which to focus your marketing efforts. Go over and check it out for some ideas on what products or services to begin promoting.

Later this week, I will be posting some tips and tricks for PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns. I will also point you towards some free clicks that may be available to help take the sting out of starting a PPC campaign.

So, subscribe to my RSS to get the latest news, ideas, tips, and tricks from The Real Tim Jones and go sign-up with Market Leverage and make some big money for the holidays and win a Flip to video all the holiday action!

My $36,000 Disney Cruise

Tim_Jones — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:22:32 +0000

Well, maybe not that much, but it came very close to costing me that much money! You see, Disney provides cellular phone service to guests on-board, however, the information sheet you receive upon boarding states in bold letters at the bottom, “contact your service provider for any roaming charges that you may incur.”

I did not pay a lot of attention to this warning, as I had no intentions of using my cell phone during the cruise. As I stated on Twitter last week, having wireless internet access seemed a bit too much for a vacation, anyway. However, as I boarded the ship, I learned that my paternal grandmother had passed away, so I knew I would be getting some calls from my Dad and I might need to be able to communicate with him during my cruise. So, I gave T-Mobile a call to find out about any additional roaming charges I’d incur for these calls. As expected, they were quite high at $4.99 per minute (only slightly less than the cruise sea-to-land calls at $7.99 per minute). What I did not think about was the fact that my BlackBerry is continually transferring data.

The T-Mobile customer (no) service rep was kind enough to inform me that I would incur this $4.99 per minute charge just for having my cell phone on over the weekend, due to the data transfers! I was just going to leave my phone on for the whole cruise, even if I did not use it to make a call, as was my wife. It’s a good thing we made this call to T-Mobile, or we would have received a bill for $36,000, just by leaving the phones on over the 3-night cruise! That would be one expensive cruise!

Biz Web Coach Launched!

Tim_Jones — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:01:46 +0000

He’s one of the first people I followed on Twitter (and I mean really followed). He is one of the few people I look to for business and marketing advice. Now, he’s launching a whole new brand called Biz Web Coach! Jim Kukral often leads the pack with innovative marketing ideas and his business acumen.

Many people know Jim as the emcee of Affiliate Summit or The Daily Flip guy. He’s a consummate brand evangelist and advocate of the philosophy of giving more to get more. Today, he launches his new brand with this philosophy in mind. His new site provides tons of free information, audio files, videos, and he’ll even provide your business with a free assessment over the phone. For a small price, Jim can become your personal business coach, providing direct interaction with Jim and his consulting services, as well as support for your online business venture.

I don’t want this to become a sales pitch, you can read that, yourself. What I can say is that I truly look to Jim for business advice, to help solve problems, for ideas, guidance, and thoughts. He’s a leader in the online industry and I have a great deal of respect for him.

I encourage you to check out his site and learn from one of the leaders in this industry. Take a look at all the free information he’s provided and get a feel for who Jim is and what he can provide to your business. I urge you to use his services if your looking for business advice, for solutions for the challenges you encounter, to boost sales, or require additional consulting services. This is a perfect brand launch for Jim, as he’s already The Biz Web Coach.

Also, Jim has provided the opportunity to promote his services with an amazing affiliate program that pays well and Jim even provides his personal support and services for this program, too.

UPDATE:
Here are some other sites that are talking about Jim’s big launch:

Black Ink Project 2.0 Released!

Tim_Jones — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:14:15 +0000

My original post on this release was nothing more than a sales pitch, so I trashed it. If you want to read the sales pitch for the new Black Ink Project, you can go to the sales page.

I acted as a “guinea pig” for Jeremy Palmer by taking part in the original Black Ink Project, as well as Black Ink Project 2 (so, wouldn’t this latest release be 3, rather than 2.0?). Even though I’ve been in business online since 2000, I still learned a lot from Jeremy over the two “courses”, as well as from the unbelievable amount of additional resources Jeremy provided for each session.

As I mentioned in my guide to affiliate marketing, Jeremy offers an extensive knowledge base in the Black Ink Project that covers the gamut of online business. If you’re just getting started in affiliate marketing, struggling with making a living online, or even an experienced online entreprenuer, everyone can benfit from this course. It’s worth checking out.

New Premium Theme - Ultimate Blogging Theme with Discount Code

Tim_Jones — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:07:23 +0000

I’ve been thinking of “upgrading” my blog theme for some time and I finally decided to go with a premium (vs. custom) theme from Ultimate Blogging Theme. I saw the theme advertised in a few different blogs, last week and I really liked the look of the theme. I think it looks professional and custom without the professional/custom price tag. One of my biggest hurdles with making the final decision to buy the theme was how difficult it might be to customize. With Zac Johnson’s post on the theme - he discussed how easy it was to modify, my fears were alleviated and I went for it!

While the theme was not quite as easy to customize as I’d hoped, it wasn’t hard, either. Also, Carl, the “Kidblogger” (the theme’s designer) provides a very in-depth video tutorial, showing you how to maximize the use of the site and he was very responsive to my (MANY) other questions/concerns. I’m still ironing out all the details (like what to put in all the “boxes” at the top and bottom of the page - I’m open to suggestions), but I really like the theme, so far. It offers lots of advertising options, without looking “salesy” and “spammy.” It offers lots of ability to customize, not just within the “Theme Options” section of the theme, but I was able to alter the CSS to my liking without any difficulty — and let’s be clear, I am no CSS coder, by any means. I also like that I can put a “Featured Post” at the top to highlight a certain story, review, or contest for any given time-period.

Carl offers a couple different options for purchasing the theme:

You can purchase the single blog license for $67 that includes the following:

3 color schemes of Ultimate Blogging Theme (Spit fire red, Quirky pink and Earth green)
6 months FREE updates
17 minute video tutorials for theme installation
20 minute video tutorials for on-page SEO & Conversion tips and tricks
Attribution link must be kept intact

or, you can get the BIG package for $97 that allows you to put the theme on unlimited blogs, you get all six color schemes (Spit Fire red, Quirky Pink, Earth Green, Chillin Blue, Charming Blue, and Vogue Red), and you can customize or remove the attribution link at the bottom of the page.

If you’re at all interested in this theme, Carl did provide me with a single discount code for the theme, so you would have to be the first to order it, but you would get $20 off the prices above for whichever package you ordered. You just have to enter the code REALTIM to get your $20 off. This makes it a great deal for a great theme!

Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Tim_Jones — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:55:24 +0000

With our Market Leverage blog contest going on this month, I thought it would be a good idea to provide some semblance of a guide to affiliate marketing.

Wikipedia describes affiliate marketing as:

Affiliate marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts.

Basically, once you have an affiliate relationship with a business, either directly or through an affiliate network (such as Market Leverage - a company that creates a “network” of businesses, as a one-stop shop for affiliate publishers to find businesses/services/products to promote), you promote their products and services through a variety of methods, including pay-per-click advertising (PPC), content generation on blogs or landing pages, search engine optimization (SEO), article submissions, and so on.

Additionally, the internet and affiliate marketing community provides tons of valuable resources for free. You can learn more about affiliate marketing by visiting the following sites and reading through past posts, keeping up with new posts, and exploring the sites for guides, free e-books, paid e-books, videos, and more.

Affiliate Tip Blog by Shawn Collins: Shawn offers a video guide for new entrants to affiliate marketing that gives you great information about how to get started in affiliate marketing.
Zac Johnson: Zac never ceases to amaze me with the quality, free information he provides at his blog. Especially helpful for this month’s contest would be Zac’s free landing page and reviews page for promoting various Market Leverage offers. These give your campaign’s a jump-start. Zac also has a great starter guide for PPC (pay-per-click) marketing.
Rosalind Gardner: Rosalind is widely considered one of the best with regard to learning about affiliate marketing. You can learn a ton from her website, NetProfitsToday and most affiliate marketers have studied either her Super Affiliate Handbook or How To Make A Fortune Promoting Other People’s Stuff Online or both. As she notes on her site, she has over 1,000 blog posts, over 200 articles, and 7,300 forum entries to advance your knowledge!
Jeremy Palmer: Jeremy has produced two great online courses about affiliate marketing called the Black Ink Project. In the Black Ink Project, Jeremy takes you all the way through getting started as an affiliate marketer from developing a business plan to having a fully-functional affiliate marketing business in place. Additionally, you can download his free e-book about affiliate marketing on his site, Quit Your Day Job.

These people know, understand, and teach these concepts much better than me. There are many others out there providing great information about affiliate marketing and how to get started, however I get the most from the ones mentioned. Get over and check out their sites, absorb the information, and most importantly, take action on what you learn!

RedHatBlueHat Podcast Episode 18: Final Analysis

Tim_Jones — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:26:14 +0000

I know these show notes are a bit late, but I thought it would be fitting that the notes were posted on election day. The show featured the usual cast of Shawn Collins, Mike Allen, and myself, as well as a special guest, Jim Kukral.

This was definitely one of our best shows, yet. Jim did a great job keeping the show on topic, as well as bringing up other topics. The show ran the gammut from analyzing Barack’s infomercial, healthcare, taxes, economics, poverty, and on and on for an hour and twenty minutes.

This speaks to the reason that I feel this is a great show for election day. We ran through a good list of topics and while the Red Hats and Blue Hats seldom agreed, you get a good feel for both sides and what they stand for on the issues. A lot of fundamental beliefs were discussed. I look forward to the shows following the election and to having Jim as a guest, again. Here are some links from the show:

Make Big Money Online! Win a Free Flip Mino, $75, and More!

Tim_Jones — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:27:55 +0000

For November, Market Leverage is holding one of their, by now, well-known mega promotions for the network. Market Leverage is one of the most, if not the most, creative self-promoting companies in the affiliate marketing industry. In addition to their unique promotions like this one, Market Leverage leads the industry with fantastic support and great money-making offers (always helps ). I’m sure they are holding contests on other blogs, but I’m going to follow ML’s lead and make this one just a little bit better with some prizes of my own. So, enough with the fawning, let’s get to the prizes and how to win a new Flip Mino!

Prizes:

New! Flip Mino!
$75 American Express Gift Card
Market Leverage/Ogio Gym Bag
Market Leverage T-Shirt
Market Leverage USB Pens

How To Win:

1) Join Market Leverage Through This Blog:

Prize: Flip Mino (Top Earning Referred Affiliate for November)
Prize: $75 American Express Gift Card (Randomly Selected Referred Affiliate)

2) Blog About This Contest & Link To This Post:

Prize: Market Leverage/Ogio Gym Bag (Randomly Selected)
2 USB Pens (Randomly Selected)

3) Comment on This Post:

Prize: Market Leverage T-Shirt (Top Commenter for November)
Prize: USB Pen (Randomly Selected)

Why Should I Enter:

This is a no-brainer! Many people will ignore this entire post, not bother to enter, and miss out on some great prizes. Don’t be that person! Sign up with Market Leverage, start making some money online, and win free stuff! Blog about this contest, link to the post, and win free stuff! Add to the conversation on this blog, comment on posts, and win free stuff! I can’t make it any easier.

The contest runs from November 3rd through midnight (EST) on November 30th. All prizes will be announced and awarded after November 30th.