Making it as simple as possible, but no simpler.

"Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
Albert Einstein (I think)

That's not easy to do. 

Yesterday, Candice Galek signed up for a trial on myTweetPack.com. For the record, I think of Candice like a second daughter. Candice is a couple of years older than my first daughter, Katrina, so it's like a Time-Warp thing.

We also initially planned to name Katrina, "Candice." A helluva coincidence.

There have been many "Proud Poppa" moments lately from both my daughters.

Anyway, Candice messaged me on LinkedIn.

Candice: Okay, my account is live.  I need your expert help to optimize my account, Paul!
@bikinigeek, a.k.a. Candice Galek

You are not alone, Candice. myTweetPack.com is not complicated, but it isn't fully automatic either.

Driving a car is complicated too, but we do that without thinking. 

Still, when someone as social media savvy as Candice is having a time of it, I think some rethinking is in order.

The Scheduling System is the true power behind myTweetPack.com and it's not that complicated. Nobody ever asks about it. 

The GRRowth System?  That one's not so easy to maneuver around. It also asks you to bend your head around concepts that weren't even possible until now.

Yes, some rethinking was in order.

Then, I got a call from Lynda Spiegel. For a New Yorker, Lynda is very laid back. For any place else, she's intense. 

Lynda wanted a To Do List. 

I try to give intense ladies what they want.

myTweetPack.com was written by Power Users for Power Users

Not everyone wants to use it to its full potential.

Not everyone wants to climb the learning curve, no matter how shallow it is.

Others want to, but can't spare the time.

I get all that.

So I changed a few things. I added some simplified processes without removing the powerful versions. 

I streamlined the dashboard. 

I added Quick Links to the post popular pages to improve navigation.

And, I added Lynda's To-Do List.

Then I went a step further and added a Shortcuts page.

This post will deal with how to get up and running ASAP on myTweetPack.com. It will start after you've registered for the free trial, and after you get your confirmation that we've activated your account. 

That confirmation comes to your email account. Candice's went to the spam folder. You may want to check that

Step 1: First Login

Use the account and password you joined with. A successful log-in will open the Profile Page. From there, you can link/unlink to other controlled accounts who are also members. 

You can change your password.

You can also see what time zone you have set. Change it if you need/want to to make sure your tweets tweet on your time, not ours (EST). 

Your Super-Pack is the default topic group for retweeting. You can change it here too.

Now we get to your Pack. Call them your friends. These are people you would like to support with retweets. It doesn't matter if they are in the same topic group or not. If they are system members, their tweets will be available for you to retweet. 

On first login, it will be empty. Click on "Add/Remove from Your Pack." 

The system will list other members who are in the same Super-Pack (topic group). Check off any you want to add. You can also add twitter handles directly. Don't include the @ symbol.

When you're happy with it, hit "Sort Pack Alphabetically" then "Write my Changes." 

Now you have a Pack.

Hit "Go to my Dashboard"

New Dashboard Tour

Your Dashboard will look something like this. At this point, you won't have anything stored, no follows scheduled, nada, but you get the gist.

Notice that my screen name is in a drop down box. myTweetPack is multi-account capable. One log in can handle as many accounts as you want. Well, technically, we're limited to 500.

I don't think that will be an issue. 

To work from another account, select it from the dropdown and hit Switch User. Easy.

Linked accounts must also be members. We can even link them at sign-up for you.

The next line tells you when your last scheduled retweet and follow will happen. Keep an eye on those dates. Add more retweets or follows as needed.

Your "follow me on Twitter link" is next. It's a text version on a link to open a special window where anyone can follow you. It doesn't just send them to Twitter. Use it in emails, posts, your grocery list, . . . wherever you want.

The Quick Links bar sends you to the most commonly used pages. The last two items on the bar are for the new EZ To Do List and EZ Shortcuts.

EZ To Do List

The To Do list lays out what I think you need to do every days or so, once a week, or as needed. It also offers links to go do those things. I managed Lynda's account for two weeks. It took me about 5 minutes a day. I didn't have this bar to work with.

EZ Shortcuts

This is a list of . . .well . . .shortcuts. There are some simplified processes like storing and scheduling a tweet in one go  or scheduling a week's worth of follows with a single click. 

There are also How-Tos and Why-Tos with appropriate links.

The New Wolf checklist here is the place to start. It will walk you through setting up your initial preferences for retweeting, following and unfollowing.

For people who need to set up a bunch of posts, the One-and-Done method will save time. I just stored and tweeted Susan Rooks' "Fireside Chats: Perception," twenty-eight times. 

It took less than 10 seconds.

As people ask for more shortcuts, we'll add them. After all, this whole app was built on what people asked for.

Have I made it as simple as possible but no simpler? Probably not. We'll see. We'll adjust as we go.
I sure as hell ain't Einstein

A Call for more input

This app was built right here by over 650 bees' input. I may be getting greedy, but I'd like just a little more input.

I'd like to figure out a way to bulk upload posts etc into myTweetPack.com. It's easy enough to do with tweets. Just download your Twitter data. It will include a CSV of all your tweets since day one. That's probably more than you want to bring over. Erase the lines you don't want and send the rest to us.

I think Buffer allows a download as well, but I don't really know. I don't use Buffer (obviously). I don't really know if it's possible and in what format it would be if it was.

I asked for my LinkedIn data. I can't remember if my posts are listed there. We'll see.

If anyone can help, please reach out.

Photo Credit: International Wolf Center - Don Gossett