Recommended by Kat – Tools to help with your Special Needs Blogging  & Twitter adventure

This week: Cafe Jam Party – Sharing Strawberry Jam with you

Now, I’ll preface this by saying I followed (stalked *coughs*) the folks over at the Strawberry Jam app for weeks as I fell in love with this tool, and I’ve talked about it frequently to friends across the web. The first question most folks ask me is “How do I use it?”

Always a good friend, I like to answer questions when possible *grin* so this post is for you!

What Strawberry Jam Can help you do:

Strawberry Jam takes your Twitter stream or a search term and literally squeezes it into jam – by removing all the replies and mentions, all the crazy spam posts (don’t they drive you crazy?). So you can see ALL the posts of a given period (You can specify at the top of the screen how far back you want the little bee to fetch posts) or you can see the MOST POPULAR ones – the ones that others are retweeting.

What is the bane of a blogger, any blogger’s, existence?

Finding new post ideas? Well, yes, but how about finding out not only what’s popular but how many folks have shared it? What about being able to find new blogs to follow (!)? What if, like me, you love passing along great posts but sometimes forget them?

On Twitter, how hard to do you work to create tweets that plug OTHER people’s work, not your own?

I’ll give you a hint, this is the key to great social interaction so if you aren’t doing it already shame on you! And if you are – here’s a neat way to make it a fun and easy thing to cross off your to-do list.

Another screen shot (I love these things!)

A Quick List of Features:

• Integrate with Buffer (Article to come next week! This is a POWERFUL tool!)
• Set up any kind of search term or #hashtag to find relevant Tweets that have been posted. (My first were “Special Needs” and then the hashtag #SpecialNeeds; now I include search terms for Epilepsy and Apraxia, Autism and more)
• Have preview on or off–learning about about each listed item (to move faster through the list)
• See popular posts or all posts for a given period of time, from the last 8 hours to the last 24 hours.
• Retweet with the default retweet, tied directly into Twitter
• RT and add a bit of text like “Love this” Or “Great Post!”
• You can see everyone who has shared a tweet and RT from whoever you want. (neat way to make connections, RT from someone you don’t already know!)

Interested in Joining the Jam Party today?

For the next 24 hours, everyone who reads the post gets in on a special Invite Event, as I have invites for Cafe pals. How do you get in on it? Visit the Kat’s Cafe Facebook Page, where the code will be posted a bit later this afternoon.

But, you say, you want to thank me for sharing some awesomeness? As always, you can do a lot to help:

• Comment! I love reading them (they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!)
• Go check out the Kat’s Cafe Facebook Page to weigh in on the invite code
• Go check out the Strawberry Jam app: http;//strawberryj.am
• Go “Like” Strawberry Jam on Facebook and show them some love: https://www.facebook.com/strawberryapp
• Tweet, Share, email, and otherwise spread the word so EVERYONE can get in on the Invite fun!

This push for a Jam Party is because of a very neat response Strawberry Jam gave me because I’m a bit addicted to using their service. I’d love all the Cafe fans to go a little nuts, try out a new Special needs blogging and twitter tool, and share what you think in the comments below.

Oh, and bonus if you want to post a fun tweet for me:

Jamming at @Kats_Cafe with @Strawberryapp & I’m waiting for a sticky invite. Join the fun! http://katscafe.org

I completely understand that Strawberry Jam is great for lots of different folks, not just special needs bloggers and tweeps, but that’s what I blog about–how have you used this tool?