Before I get into a discussion of whether you may or may not be “retweet-worthy”, I should mention that you can follow me and all of my adventures as a work at home mom of a toddler (trust me, ‘adventures’ is an understatement when they’re that age!) by heading over to http://www.twitter.com/JenKnox.

There, now that you’re following me, you might find that I occasionally post a “Twitter Best Practice” because I truly want to be able to create a community from my Twitter followers and those that I also follow. The problem is that I see many “tweeters” making a pretty basic mistake that can cost them the opportunity for a successful “retweet”. More on that later….

If you’re somewhat new to Twitter, each time you tweet a message, it can be “retweeted” or copied and forwarded by anyone to THEIR followers, thus increasing the reach and forwardability of your message. Consider that virtually anyone can hit that “retweet” button in their Twitter stream client and you can see that your messages could be forwarded over, and over, and over again. It’s really a powerful part of Twitter that shouldn’t be ignored.

Now, obviously, if you’re like me you tweet about daily life and fun stuff that maybe isn’t going to necessarily gain you a retweet and additional followers. That’s fine, and not every tweet has to be written with retweeting in mind.

However, there are definitely times when you are going to want people to retweet, and sometimes blatantly ASKING for the retweet (RT for short) isn’t going to be appropriate. So here are some tips to increase your “retweet-ability” and get your messages seen by more people and hopefully, gain you some new followers:

1. Offer a solution.

Does your tweet solve a problem or point someone toward a resource? Is it a topic that’s hot among the discussions in your Twitter stream? Proactively finding the solution to something that people are talking about is a great tweet that is highly likely to be retweeted.

2. Break the news.

Do you follow the news, sports or celebrity gossip? Why not tweet the occasional breaking news headline and pass on the news? News items, particularly emergency news and celebrity items are highly retweeted.

3. Leave ROOM for the retweet (my personal BEST practice, and the BIGGEST mistake I see people making).

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read a really superior tweet and have been anxious to RT it to my followers, only to find that once my RT and my username are added at the front, that half of the real “meat” of the tweet ends up cut off due to Twitter’s 140 character limit.

The BEST thing you can do, especially for tweets that you really think have the potential to be RT’d is to calculate how much room you need to leave in your tweet to allow for the RT, the retweeter’s username and maybe even a short comment.

The first step is to either automatically shorten your URL’s using your Twitter client (like Tweetdeck) or manually do so with a service like TinyUrl.com or Bit.Ly. That will cut the bulk dramatically.

Next, take into consideration the space required for a RT and a username. Twitter’s maximum character length for a username is 15 characters. With a RT and a space on each end, you should reserve 19 characters of your 140 for the RT part of the retweet so that RT’ers don’t have to shorten or edit your tweet.

Don’t leave it up to the RT’er to shorten or edit your tweet! If you have a very specific message you need conveyed, or one in which one word missing will change the meaning, better to have your tweet be short and descriptive than rambling and nonsensical once-edited.

You may also want to leave a few characters so that the RT’er can leave a comment in the RT to either clarify or endorse your tweet. For tweets that I REALLY want RT’ed I try to reserve about 15-20 characters so that there’s plenty of space to make a short comment.

140 characters – 19 characters for RT space – 20 characters for comment = 101 characters (and spaces) for a good , RT’able tweet!

In general, remember that your tweets to your actual followers are the most important ones. Crafting every single tweet with the idea that it will be RT’ed will drive you crazy! Schomooze a bit, make friends, make a joke and be yourself. The good RT’s and the ones with the further reach will be the ones people relate to the most, and the only way you’ll really know which ones will have that reach is to know your followers and create relationships with them.

Isn’t that what Twitter is all about?

I’ve received some emails from people asking where the heck I’ve been?! No tweets, no posts…it was like I fell off the face of the Earth according to some of you!

First off, I’m happy to see that if I indeed did fall off the face of the Earth, there would be some loyal followers/readers who would come look for me! Thank you!

But, the reason I was gone is not a happy one. A dear friend of mine has been on her deathbed. She was devastatingly struck by a terrible virus and has been in and out of a coma for two and a half weeks. We’re not sure she’ll make it…she most likely will need to have drastic surgery that will wipe out all memories and make her a shell of her former self.

Now, before you send me comments praying for my friend’s recovery, I should probably tell you who she is…here’s a picture:

 We met in January 2008, shortly after her older sister, Toshiba passed on.

We’ve had some good times, but on Sunday, February 21, 2010 our relationship changed.

She became distant, slow and unresponsive to the slightest question. She occasionally even had the audacity to hang up on me and freeze when asked to perform the most simple of tasks.

At first, I thought this was the common cold…something that some maintenance, fluids and rest would resolve. Soon, I learned though…she was gravely ill with a mystery illness.

Ok…enough hyperbole. My computer, one of the loves of my life, is sick….horribly sick. This post, is meant to let you know that I’m still alive but also to warn you of some REALLY BAD STUFF floating around out there ready to infect even the most buttoned-up computers.

PLEASE, take my advice and take a few minutes to put into practice some of the stuff I have had to do these past couple of weeks. It could save your personal data, your precious memories, your business and even your identity!!

The next few posts are going to dole out some pretty specific information and tips. Please come back for the series. I mean it. I’ve had the worst 2.5 weeks of my entire computing life (and that’s a long life, BTW, I used to program in BASIC! so please heed these warnings.

I’ll have a list of symptoms I experienced, what others tried to do to help, and why even the best efforts of some of the top malware and spyware experts ultimately wasn’t enough. I’ll also post some tips and resources on how you can diagnose your own computer issues and how to head off some trouble before it gets really bad.

I’ll also be posting a follow-up to something I wrote about the backup service, Carbonite. If you are using Carbonite for your automatic backups, you’ll want to stay tuned and learn what I learned.

Seriously, it was almost a disaster!

So sit tight and get ready for a weekend of computer security education and tips. This is a great time to get on the ball and prevent what I have gone through.

If you’re like me, you probably found yourself a week or two away from Christmas wondering how you were going to manage all of the errands, shopping, greeting cards and most of all….paying for it all. While my husband and I had a plan for paying for everything, we found ourselves wishing we had set more aside during the rest of the year.

Now is a great time to set up a holiday savings account for NEXT year so that when the holiday season arrives, you’ll have a healthy chunk of cash waiting for you, ready to be spent.

My husband and I did that this year, but we neglected to include some additional expenses that we will add for next year. We opted not to do a holiday card this year, mostly because I was sick for two weeks and would have never completed them on time, but also because the expense was just one we didn’t feel we wanted to bear this year. We didn’t factor in the $35 visit to Santa, nor the fact that there would be a holiday storm that would cut our shopping short and force us to purchase some more expensive gifts than we had planned.

This year, as for the coming year, we will be using the automatic deduction/deposit feature of our ING Direct account. Inside our main account with ING, we have set up several sub-accounts for different savings goals. One of these sub-accounts is appropriately named, “Christmas” and we have a set amount transferred from our regular checking account into that sub-account every week. The great thing is that we can adjust that amount anytime we like, so for these next two months after Christmas we will probably transfer a modest amount and then ramp up to a slightly higer amount starting in late Winter.

Because these transfers are automatic and rather invisible to us, we never really miss the money and it’s fun to check in every couple of months and see how much we have accumulated. We also plan to take a portion of our tax refund and make a lump-sum deposit to help boost it. We can also transfer “windfall” money into that account as well…rebates and refunds, birthday and holiday money, or any other bonus money that comes to us throughout the year.

Our goal for 2010: To have every penny of holiday money set aside in that account waiting for us by Thanksgiving. Using this year’s budget, and allowing for the visit to Santa, holiday card expenses and a 10% slush fund, we now know how much per week we will need to deposit and how much we will likely subtract from our tax refund to make it the balance it needs to be in November. Added bonus….the interest we will earn all year long on the deposited money.

We are using our ING Direct account, and have found it to be the easiest way to save. While the account is attached to our regular checking and savings accounts, there is a 2 to 3 day delay from when you request a transfer back down to those accounts. While some people might find this inconvenient, we actually like it because it encourages us to keep the money in the account and not transfer it back down to our regular household accounts on a whim.

Best of all…as you know…. I like things to be automatic and easy!!

If you don’t currently have an ING Direct savings account, or their paperless (i.e. no checks) checking account called Electric Orange, did you know you can actually get paid to open these accounts? Seriously! What a great way to start your holiday savings for NEXT year! As an ING Direct customer, I can send exclusive invitations to new members allowing you to receive a bonus for opening either the ING Direct savings account, Electric Orange checking account, or both! Doesn’t getting $25 for free sound like a nice way to jumpstart your holiday savings?

If you would like to receive an ING Direct referral invitation, please follow these steps:

1. Stop by my “Support” section here on AutomaticMoms.com. Click here to go there now.

2. Open a “new ticket” and select the department, “ING Direct Referral Request”.

3. Include your email address where you would like the invite sent and I will process the invitation and ING will send it to that address.

4. Click on the link in the email from ING and setup your new account! You will get a $25 account bonus when you follow the ING instructions.

Hopefully, this tip will get you well on your way to an easier, less stressful Holiday 2010!

Any work at home mom knows that getting work done with kids underfoot is no easy task. Here’s your chance to share your BEST tip on how to keep the kids busy (and happy!) so that you can work with fewer interruptions!

Post your BEST tip to help other moms get ready for the upcoming Winter Break when the kids will be home and ready to rumble!

Be sure to include your URL and a short description of what it is you do from home with kids hanging all over you! Makes the tips more interesting!

Just wanted to welcome my new visitors from AFC, AFullCup.com!

I occasionally post some deal and coupon posts, but what you’ll primarily find here are tips for getting organized (and we know how important that is when couponing), reviews for products and services that help automate tasks around the house and in your business, and other cool tips and tricks that I learn about to make life a little more organized!

For my visitors who may not be familiar with AFullCup, it’s a site that…well, for a couponer like me….it’s heaven! Seriously, I can’t even explain all that is there for couponers and bargain shoppers. It’s Nirvana. I’m not kidding, if you are at all interested in saving money in brick and mortar stores (grocery stores, Target, drugstores, etc) you simply have to click the link to see what’s it all about. You could spend DAYS there learning about how to “work the deals”.

Thanks for visiting, my friends from AFullCup.com! I’m glad you dropped by!

My regular readers know that I have been a loyal Dreamhost customer since 2000 and have trusted them with all of my webhosting needs. That isn’t news….but stay tuned because I have a HUGE bonus package available to the first five people who join me on the Dreamhost bandwagon and sign up for a hosting plan this week!

Here’s what you will receive from Dreamhost just for signing up for any hosting package:

1. One FREE domain name registration which is renewed for free each year you are a Dreamhost customer!

2. Unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth! (Well, “unlimited” is a relative term….leave a comment if you would like for me to explain why hosts offer “unlimited” anything and I’ll be glad to oblige!

And from me, you will receive:

**A special promotional code that will give you $150 off a 5-year prepaid hosting plan or $200.00 off a 10-year hosting plan!

Five-year plans are currently priced at only $417.00 (minus your $150 discount that would be just $267 for five full years of hosting!) 

Ten-year plans are currently priced at only $714.00 (minus your $200 discount that would be just $514 for ten full years of hosting! That’s an average of less than $52 per YEAR!)

I have only five of these special promotional codes, and once they are gone…well, they’re gone so if you are interested in taking advantage of the 5-year discount or 10-year discount contact me immediately!

To receive one of these special codes, email me at info and then the @ sign and then automaticmoms.com and put, “Dreamhost Special Code Request” in the subject heading.

Please also include a brief description of your website(s) and what you plan to do with your super-cheap hosting!

Hurry! These codes will go super fast!

I get very frustrated when I hear time management “experts” talk about how to plan out projects using long-term schedules. The reason for my frustration is that my life doesn’t unfold long-term…I literally am making decisions about what to get accomplished all day in chunks of time.

Kids, phone calls, family, business….all of these factors present me and most work at home moms with an unending supply of interruptions. So rather than try to fit myself into a schedule, I let the schedule create itself around me.

Here’s an example: This morning my son woke up at 6:25am which is nearly an hour earlier than normal. A few minutes of working with him to get back to sleep revealed that he was indeed up for the day. Now, two hours later, he’s already showing signs of being tired and cranky. I know that I literally have a window of 10 minutes to write this post because that’s how long his attention span is at his age and I need to grab these moments when I can. So I wrote in my notebook (I use a spiral bound notebook to keep track of to-do lists, resources and notes) the following:

8:27-8:37 am : Write a post for AutomaticMoms.com or finish a draft post.

What comes after that on my schedule? Nothing! Rather than worry about what I might be able to do later today, my agenda consists of just what I can get done in the next ten minutes. It sharpens my focus and narrows my thoughts down to only what I need to think of to get these ten minutes completed.

Of course I have other lists of things that need to be accomplished eventually, but as far as scheduling, ten minutes is as far out as I go. It reduces stress because I’m never “behind” more than ten minutes. I don’t have a list of things lined up ready for me to stress about.

Ten minutes…..that’s all it takes to get a project done sometimes, and sometimes that’s all you should focus on anyway!

p.s. At exactly 8:37am, my post was done and ready to be proofread….ten minutes down today, ten HOURS to go!