This past weekend I created a tribe and was invited into four others; something was in the water! One particular tribe was formed by someone seeking multiple shares of his content, and thus he formed a tribe of 100 “power sharers.”
A handful of my peers are in the group; the other 95 I have not had the privilege of meeting. That’s almost a good thing…you want to be in tribes with people you’ve not yet met so you can read new material, share new content and build on your community.
I accepted the invitation on Sunday; by Monday evening I was exhausted having visited my Triberr stream more than four times that day to stay abreast of the posts that were everywhere from people I didn’t know (and thus could not gauge the quality of their writing).
I began to panic and truly wonder whether I should back out of the tribe and not engage. I thought I’d give it a week to see what happens and tough it out. It’s been a few days, but the volume of content/posts in my Triberr stream is absolutely overwhelming.
Adam Toporek gave me a tip that you can hide people from the stream; I didn’t know that. If there is someone littering the stream with poor-quality content, I’m going to need to check into that little tool.
What’s making me most nervous is my consciousness about being a good influencer. I don’t want to forward schlock; I’m trying to read before I forward; however, it’s impossible for me to read more than the title and the intro. (There’s a tip to pay special attention to your blog title and the introduction.)
There are definitely peeps writing excellent content in this bunch of 100 bloggers, and there is content I have no interest in. The breadth of content is amazing and having it all in one place is kind of exciting.
I’m getting a glimpse of some cool monetization from the mommy blogger and real estate sales person. I’m seeing ideas for content curation, and reviews by tech geeks, as well as many, many authors trying a go with blogging and book reviews.
What this “experiment” is doing for me is the following:
1. Immediate introduction to a variety of bloggers I don’t know.
2. Testing whether my peers in this tribe truly are power sharers. I’ve shared more of others’ content than they have shared of mine.
3. Getting a Twitter bump; more followers coming on board as a result.
4. Enabling me the opportunity to write this piece more neutrally (which is the right thing to do).
5. Showing me how Triberr should ultimately be used as a best practice.
6. Making me appreciate the tribes I’m in and the ones I’ve created of like-topic bloggers within my peer group and vertical.
7. Giving me a new appreciation for what Dino Dogan and Dan Cristo have built in this channel. We were there in its pre-infancy, and now look at it — astonishing growth and universe of bloggers all in one place.
Triberr comes and Triberr goes…bloggers should NOT underestimate its power to build influence, community, and brand. Trust me, I’m a case study.
I’m in the same boat, getting invited to a few of these power tribes. I have a few bloggers with whom I’m close, and I would share their content without reading it, because I know it’s always good, even if I disagree. But I still usually read their content. The others? I’ll pick and choose what I want to read, based on the title, and then decide whether or not to share it. But the hide feature is something I need to check into…
@KenMueller I’m not sure I could handle being in a power tribe. If I did belong to one, I think I would have to avail myself of the hide or mute function.
@KenMueller Secret. The hide feature is saving my stream…! Try it; now I can really hone in on the content I need to share with my peer group who also expect a type of content from me. (Not necessarily Halloween family dinners…). Thanks for coming over, Ken!
For some reason I also ended up in this group. And I started paying attention to what people are talking. I’ve seen some spammy bloggers from before, and immediately used the Mute button.
Another cool feature was the filter. These buttons are tiny, but they are really useful and keep me on top of my Tribe, thus allowing me to coordinate the efforts and give priority to the growth of my tribe.
I agree that some people are mindlessly sharing the content, but the fact that you Tweeted me, and I don’t find your content worthy enough, doesn’t obligate me to share your content. I will be greatful to you, you might pop up more on my radar, but that’s it.
Thanks to everyone who shared, and who didn’t. Makes a whole lot of difference. Keep up Tribing!
@Bojan011 Promise, Bojan, I had a nice comment all wrapped up this morning for you, and then Chrome crashed…just like what @Sean McGinnis said…and we’re having issues with Triberr, too.
So, first…thanks for stopping in! I saw a neat feature that let me see posts from each respective tribe, which was really helpful. How can some of these bloggers post like 4 times daily? That’s crazy!
I think that entire tribe is a great exercise for us all; I never would’ve met some really cool peeps if I had not accepted the invite to join and test it. Thanks for coming over today!
My second go-around with Triberr has been much better than the first. That is all. 🙂
It’s tempting to “block” some members of a tribe if the content of their blogs seem inappropriate/of little or no interest/poor/etc. However, I’ve discovered that there’s a “gem” in almost everyone’s blog now and then. Thus, I’m not inclined to block even one. Thus, I’ve had to learn to “scan” headlines. If someone is selling something, I usually pass them by quickly (unless of course it’s something really useful to me). So, you’re correct “headlines” are really important. Unfortunately, some people seem to forget that these headlines will become the content of the Tweets and either make them too long or dull and uninteresting. I prefer to ask questions that will be answered by my blog content. If the headline catches my interest, I’m on to the posting itself and usually make a judgement to approve or not in the first sentence or two. So, you’re right again on that score.
All in all, a very good post. I’ll have to keep any eye on you
@JackDurish You’re so right about the gems in the bloggers; I’m relying on the headlines and some of them are whacked! I was wondering about adding a hashtag to a headline; I had not seen that before. Some people use one-word headlines and that’s interesting.
I’m a PR practitioner, so headlines are CRITICAL to the success of a post!
I have already seen your good material in that tribe! I’m gonna come say hi when I can get a moment to jump into Triberr today! Thanks for coming over, Jack!
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing I approved two postings today that contained hashtags and Triberr truncated them. All text following the # was deleted in the Tweet that Triberr composed
@JackDurish Interesting. I don’t follow headlines with hashtags at all. Wonder what people are trying to do. Meanwhile, I’m seeing your incredible headlines on Cuba and am saving for reading later b/c I’m still scrambling!
As a new member of the same tribe I’m trying not to become frustrated by people who post multiple times in a single day, but aren’t fulfilling their “triberr” obligation to share in return. I’ve already seen ones I’ve shared a handful of times already who haven’t shared my single post since I joined that tribe.
I haven’t learned to use the mute button yet. 🙂
One of the problems I’ve had with Triberr is that my “Shares” of others posts didn’t always compute. I think it’s working now, but I’m not sure. One person has shared more of my posts than I’ve written, so I know the numbers are skewed. So for that reason I’m not going to get too excited this first week. And I’ve personally found blogs to read that I’m enjoying.
Opps…since I write under three names, the person above isn’t a member of that tribe. Brut Brit is.
@JudiThoman The mute button! SAVIOR! I am only using it not because I don’t want to share recipes and Halloween costumes but because my market is social media, marketing, PR, tech and business…wouldn’t be prudent to share those topics, although I’m reading titles and introductions. It’s a great experiment; I’m hoping peeps will fall away and make it more manageable, too.
Preach is sister; I went from a reach of about 250k to 20 mil almost overnight.
What did that mean? My Triberr stream mimics my tweet stream; they sho is a lot of people in there. There are ways to limit your streams, but for now I’m letting it flow and checking it 2-3 times a day.
Mainly because my tweet stream is already clogged with too much ‘stuff’ I pick and choose and only send out about 10% of what is coming through.
Realistically, I think very few pluck tweets out of my stream to read them anyway.
The initial results have been I’ve picked up about 200 new twitter followers (don’t know if Triberr was responsible for any or all) and my traffic is up about 25% at my site these last two weeks. Only time will tell if my site is sticky enough to keep them around.
I’m still able to identify my main peeps however and make sure they are taken care of.
@bdorman264 You’re right…my tweet traffic has gotten a boost, but have not seen the shares my way v. the shares I’m sending out. I see new peeps and my reach is ginormous, but what does that actually mean? I need to check Clicky, too…I’m going to give it a week (Sunday) but, it’s stressing me out that all those posts are sitting there for me to read.
Absolutely all of what you say is true. I can’t do more than the tribes I have now. It would overload my brain.
@susansilver I think it takes someone crazy like me to stick around; call it curiosity or dumminess, but I want to know what people are writing about. I’m going to use some of those blog examples to write about monetization, too. I was duly impressed…something I need to learn about more.
I left that tribe after 3 days. Didn’t know about the Mute function.
Am I the only one where Triberr is not holding my login credentials? I have to “log in” every time I visit. Driving me a bit crazy.
@Sean McGinnis I am having an issue with it too. Sometimes when I try to shift from tribe to tribe I get booted. It is a bit of a pain.
@thejoshuawilner @Sean McGinnis Let’s give Dino and Dan credit, though. We were all there in the beginning and look at its exponential growth. I’m certain the server they need is astonishing huge. Seeing what I have seen with this power sharing tribe, I cannot imagine the numbers of people diving in and out of that platform all day and all night.
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @Sean McGinnis I give them lots of credit. I first met Sean when we were in Anubis together.
Anyway, they’ll get it sorted out. I like posts like this because this is part of how we sort it out and figure out how to use it more effectively.
@thejoshuawilner @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing Oh, believe me, I’m not calling them out by any means. Just wondering whether it was an issue with me or with the platform. I’m very excited for what they have built and hope they continue to grow. Awesome dudes. Awesome service.
@thejoshuawilner @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing Plus – my issues are not just limited to Triberr, I continue to have a metric shit ton of issues with Livefyre too. I couldn’t comment in Chrome on this thread for example, and needed to come here in Firefox. Gah. Always something. #FirstWorldProblems
@Sean McGinnis @thejoshuawilner Wow?! Me, too, this morning with Chrome! I wasn’t able to continue commenting so had to reboot. Sheesh, Sean, are you in my office?
@Sean McGinnis @thejoshuawilner Actually I was dragging Josh through the mud!! Hah.
@Sean McGinnis @thejoshuawilner @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing That’s weird. Chrome is the only thing that works for me. This internet tech world is crazy.
@rdopping @Sean McGinnis @thejoshuawilner So bizarre that all over the country we’re having issues with our browsers and log ins. I want to know if there isn’t a secret worm burrowing through our networks?
@Sean McGinnis I am having to log in each time too, and then it takes forever to load. Dino Dogan where are you? Your social media peeps are having issues with Triberr log in, Bro!
@Sean McGinnis I can’t even log in right now because of some weird SQL error, but I was having the same problem.
Per my earlier comment, maybe I’m too mutinous to be part of a power tribe. Maybe I’ll form a tribe for all the pirates and scallywags. Want in? 😀
@Erin F. Argh! I’m definitely in!
@Erin F. @Sean McGinnis Hah. I think Dino gave me a Pirate Tribe to form from the get go…if you want that name, have at it, Erin! Pirates and Tribes? LOL
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @Sean McGinnis I think I might call the tribe “Merry Mutineers.” Because I’m a dork like that.
@Erin F. @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @Sean McGinnis In! 😀
@Erin F. @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @Sean McGinnis I am definitely in….
@jasonkonopinski @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @Sean McGinnis Yay!
@rdopping @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @Sean McGinnis You better be. You’re one of the main reasons I’m going to form a tribe (crew?). 😉
@Sean McGinnis I’ve been having the same issue as well Sean. (Firefox for Mac) FYI @dino_dogan
I am in the monster tribe too and am testing it out to see how it goes. There are some hinky things going on. It doesn’t seem to be sharing all of the posts I approve.
The volume of posts that go through it make it challenging to try to keep up in any sort of fashion. I am sure some people are going to be convinced they’re being ignored. It is most certainly not what I am doing, but it is what it is.
Thus far I have noticed an uptick in my posts being shared but I haven’t picked up on more comments, readers or pageviews.
@thejoshuawilner You’re right; good test. I think we’re all saying the same thing, too. I wonder what others in other verticals think? Are they as in tune to the social media aspect as we are? I’m hoping some of them stop in and share!
I’m in the same tribe as well. I am new to Triberr and still learning the “rules” and ethics. I too have become overwhelmed with how many posts there are a day to go through. To this point I have just been scanning the titles and make a quick decision based on that, but I wonder if I am missing out on some “gems” or maybe sharing things I normally wouldn’t.What exactly is the etiquette? Am I expected to share everything that someone in my tribe posts or is it perfectly acceptable to by choosy?
@GaffeDaddy You HAVE to be choosy! There’s no other way…first, if you put out content (shares) that have nothing to do with your chosen profession/content you’re writing about, then that diffuses your influence. If you’re a generalists and you enjoy sharing family topics, food, books, music, games, then by all means, you’re in a good place with that tribe. There are many, many new bloggers writing on these topics in that power tribe.
It will take a bit of time to weed out those who YOU regard as better writers, but Triberr is exactly te place to be. So glad you jumped on board with it! Thanks for coming by today, too!
Hey Jayme,
This is an awesome post! At first when I started out with Triberr I had some problems but Dino was extremely receptive in helping. The only concern I had about the thought of a “power tribe” is that it seems to create more work. I can understand the idea of wanting to find like minded bloggers it just seems kind of forced (like flipping through a bunch of books that are in a random order) when one is invited to a tribe. For me, it seems more about status than alignment. Also, understand I’m not knocking triberr. I think it’s incredible and I use it everyday!
Okay, no more blabber! Do you think the overwhelming nature of a power tribe outweighs the benefits of creating a greater community? I see you’re doing an experiment (until Sunday?) and I’m excited to hear about your discoveries!
@GeoffReiner Let me think on this question…”the overwhelming nature (yes it is) outweighs the benefits?”
Being in a power tribe is a first for practically all of us; I’m sure the creator is having a blast seeing what’s happening. The fact is, there is nowhere I would’ve been introduced to new bloggers in social media, marketing, tech and business had I not joined that thing.
Then, I got to see new topics and how bloggers are addressing monetization (I’ll be writing on that perhaps next week).
As for creating community, I’d say about 8-10 new folks have stopped in to this post to comment from that power tribe; that is an amazing metric to me. What’s more, I had a chance to chat in my house with people instead of wondering whether their post had a good enough headline to push out.
Triberr, how we’re used to using it, always creates community in our own vertical markets; there’s absolutely nothing better to further your influence. Thanks for sharing, Geoff.
I’ve encountered a similar thing. I haven’t been able to gauge for much quality yet, but I’m finding some quite informative material. I think I’m feeling the Twitter bump, but I’m not sure about much new blog traffic. And I’ve definitely been getting overwhelmed with content to scrutinize.
Good post.
Lee
@ArleeBird Hi, Lee! I have yet to check my analytics; not a big data girl and don’t care awfully much, either (am I remiss?). Thanks for sharing your insights about that tribe…I’m so glad I’m not the only one struggling to make heads and tails about it! Time will tell, right?
I’m in the same tribe and I wasn’t sure what to think of it at first. I was already feeling overwhelmed with the amount of posts that I had from my existing tribes. I’ve learned to be more selective with what I approve. At first I thought that I had to approve every post to stay in a tribe. Now that I realize that I don’t have to I have been approving only what interests my followers. Even with that my twitter account is posting from triberr around the clock!
All said, I’m glad to be in the tribe! I’ve found some blogs that I really like and had never heard of before. It’s a great way to meet new bloggers. I’ve also seen the number of shares go up so I know that it’s working.
Also, like others have said I’ve been getting logged of triberr pretty much every time that I blink. I hope that’s not a new feature. I liked it much better when it kept me logged in all the time. It won’t keep me from using triberr though.
@StacyC Hi, Stacy! I think this has been a wonderful experience. As stated with a few other folks, I never could have found all of you bloggers manually. No time to go searching. Back in the day, I wrote a post or alluded to it in the post that Triberr makes me lazy…you can probably see why. In fact, it’s automating my publishing and pushing forward. A good thing, but it takes awhile to grasp the true benefit.
I asked Dino Dogan to come over; I knew they were having scale issues. As all of us are having trouble with logging in, Dino confirmed their servers are getting crashed with all the new momentum from TribeUp! Go, Triberr! See you in the tribe, Stacy!
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing I’ve found that triberr has actually made me less lazy! 🙂 I’ve gotten away from blogging because I’m so busy getting my first novel published. But as I go through my triberr stream I find myself clicking on posts and commenting. I more active now than I have been in a long time! 🙂 It’s great to meet other bloggers such as yourself!
@StacyC In the very beginning everything was manual; Triberr was the first “automation” tool I used, and I had misgivings; we all did. BUT, now, I cannot live without tribes to push my content — it makes me much more efficient — well, until I can get my arms around the power sharing tribe thingy!
Congrats on your first novel…would love to hear more about your journey and perhaps you’d consider a guest post on that topic with a PR/marketing/sales bent to it?
I’ve recently joined the ‘power shares’ tribe and enjoyed reading your post above. I’m blogging in a pretty specific niche (travel nursing) and don’t want to overwhelm my followers with unrelated content. Unfortunately, there are not many nurse bloggers out there that are involved in any ‘communities’. I’m going through the posts on triberr every day attempting to share as much as I can and I truly appreciate the shares from others.
@TheGypsyNurse I have seen your posts!!! I’m so impressed you had the creativity and inspiration to share your travails! I encourage you to start your own tribe and find others who blog in health care — could be a doctor’s office, home health, or a technician or someone else covering the sector. With your topic being so unique, you do want to engage with a peer group that can benefit you. Thanks for coming over today! I appreciate it!
Hi Jayme!!!!! 🙂
As they say, mo money, mo problems. And the same goes for both situations that seam to permeate your post and the comments section.
The idea is to allow people to connect with as little restriction as possible and enable them to self-police and self-restrain. If and when that proves to be impossible, we may take deeper system measures. Like the Mute button available in your stream.
Since the very beginning, I would tell people, choose your tribemates wisely, and that still holds 🙂
As for the issues @Sean McGinnis brings up, ever since the TribeUpNYC our membership exploded and we’ve been struggling with scalability issues since. Great problem to have 🙂
See ya around Bonfires 🙂
@dino_dogan @Sean McGinnis CONGRATULATIONS! I thought it had to be something like that especially since everyone here was saying the same thing. Thanks for coming over; we still need to speak about TribeUp! Working on that for you!
Your post is like a breath of fresh air to me. I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed lately too. (I believe I’ve been invited to the same tribes that you have.) I’m trying to be as fair as possible and share from people that I don’t know as well as those who I’ve become familiar with. It does take a lot of time to read/scan before I tweet but I am sticking to mainly tweeting information that is (at least loosely) related to my niche.
Does anyone know if there’s a way to not show posts from someone (for a few days or a week) once you’ve marked one as shared. We have some prolific posters in our tribes and I think that would be a great feature. It wouldn’t cut down on the amount of sharing I do but it would make it easier for me to share for a greater number of people.
@keepupweb One of the things I’ve started doing manually, and we will automate as much of this as possible, is banning people who are adding to the noise by using scoop.it feeds.
They pollute the stream, abuse their tribemate’s trust, and give a really bad experience to those who actually land on their scoop.it based blog (since visitors have to click on yet another link to get to the actual article).
We’re building Triberr to be a platform for authority bloggers who create original content. Typical frequency for posting for such bloggers is once per day which shouldnt create overwhelming amount of posts.
So…we’ve created the Mute button which removes low quality peeps from your stream, but Im thinking we need Snitch button as well, so users can report bad behavior.
Thoughts?
@dino_dogan @keepupweb Hello All…I have to take issue with banning those of us who use the aggregator Scoop.it. I for one DO use scoop.it to aggregate my original pieces. I am a Featured Contributor for Yahoo! Voices with a weekly music beat and I use Scoop.it to promote my original content which I excerpt to my WP and Blogspot blogs. I understand Triberr is your baby and I respect that but restricting those of us who use aggregators to promote our original work seems quite harsh.
I am a member of quite a few tribes, including the Power Sharer’s Tribe. I have noticed that there is a LOT of guest post or excerpted content in several of the Tribes ESPECIALLY the Social Media posters. Will you filter through that as well?
To deliberately discriminate against one type of ‘poster’ is just mean and short sighted. Can you really tell me that there are 1,000 plus Social Media Writers who are not using un-original content? I doubt it.
I apologize for getting off topic because I read the article and agree that since I joined the Power Sharers Tribe, my tribal stream takes me several hours to make it through because I DO read most of the actual posts…I also share with my followers AND re-blog some of the more insightful pieces with full attribution.
Success is a great thing to complain about…many of us with businesses or projects can only hope to have an overabundance of attention and market share. Dino you all have done a great thing with Triberr and it IS making a difference…please don’t stifle those climbing the ladder using your baby as a resource.
@jdobypr @dino_dogan @keepupweb I am going to leave the topic of Scoop.it to y’all…in fact, it was my first introduction to it just recently…I see Dino’s point as it dilutes his mission/product. I also see your point in that it negates what you’re trying to do, too.
Success never comes easy, right? I’m swamped; not complaining; just saying…that means I’m successful if I work smart. A power sharing tribe may not be smart work for me; I need to find out and the jury is still out! Thanks for being here!
@jdobypr @keepupweb Think about it from your tribemates perspective. Also, think about it from reader’s perspective.
Anything BUT a link going directly to content is spam. Plus we had some folks with curation plugins cleverly using Triberr to send traffic to their page and then to other people’s content. #Shady.
We have to think about the overall culture of Triberr. We are building our legacy here, and I dont want my legacy to be one of bringing traffic to scoop.it and similar nonsense.
Real bloggers. Real blogs. Let’s make THAT Triberr’s mantra 🙂
@dino_dogan @jdobypr @keepupweb Now THAT is something I can get behind. good for you @dino_dogan for taking that stand.
@dino_dogan @jdobypr @keepupweb Anyone who launches a business as you and Dan have done, gets to add rules. BUT, here’s what you’ve also done:
1. ALWAYS accessible to your community/users
2. ALWAYS listening to new ideas and ways to improve
3. ALWAYS innovating
The Scoop.it thing (I don’t have a ton of experience there) veers off Triberr’s goals, according to what Dino said. On the flip side, can folks using Scoop.it create a WP site and curate there and that becomes a blog with some of your perspective added?
Just askin’!
@dino_dogan @keepupweb @rdopping The most important thing I can say is that I appreciate having an aggregation platform such as Triberr and hey it belongs to you and you get to set the rules. I am active duty Army and I get it. I volunteered for Triberr the same way I volunteered for the military and I accept your rules. I like what I am learning from other bloggers because I DO read just about everything I share and I would not have access to this wealth of knowledge if it were not for Triberr.
I will say that I am disappointed to perhaps be classified as not a “real blogger” with a “real blog” because my content comes from my Yahoo! or Hype Magazine articles. I HAVE to submit there first because otherwise it is considered plagiarized material while I have always felt it ok to use excerpts in my wp blog. Most people only read the top 20% of an article anyway which is why the headline and description or 1st paragraph are so important.
This is what scoop.it keys on which fits the “Golden Triangle” data for reader habits on the internet.
ah what the heck, your ball, your court, your rules…I still wanna play so I will abide by them.
@jdobypr @dino_dogan @keepupweb @rdopping Would you like to share more in a guest post on Scoop.It and how you’re curating, writing, repurposing/publishing? I find this fascinating. Please consider it! Thanks for coming back to lend more thought!
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @dino_dogan @keepupweb @rdopping Yes I would be more than happy to do a guest post for your consideration on the topic of Scoop.it. Thank you for the invitation, I can have it finished by Monday. My weekends are for my Yahoo! column and schoolwork — would that be acceptable?
@jdobypr @dino_dogan @keepupweb @rdopping sounds perfect ! Tu
@keepupweb I think you just refresh the stream and those posts should disappear? At least that’s what I do…Thanks for coming by and thanks for your compliment, too! Pleased to meet you!
I’m definitely a Power Sharer. (Also a member of the tribe) I tweet a little bit of everything, a lot of stuff outside my niche. Many of these tweets are retweeted and favored, so don’t underestimate the power of general sharing. If you have a lot of followers on Twitter, there is bound to be someone who will like any particular post. Not every tweet may be seen or link clicked on, but I can’t deny the traffic I get from Triberr. In fact, it’s almost all of my traffic. But then again, I am a member of 28 tribes and have to use Buffer and manual tweeting to get all of it out. My Twitter feed is extremely busy: hundreds of tweets a day. No one is complaining much, though.
But I also understand the idea of keeping true to your niche and not sharing stuff your followers would generally not like. Suggestion: have a second Twitter account for general stuff. I can testify to the fact that it’s worth the time if you have it. Spend an hour or so a day sharing and you will see a bump in traffic. I have.
@MasqCrew That’s an interesting suggestion, to have a second account for general sharing. Had never thought about it in that way, but I guess it would make a lot of sense. Hmmm, food for thought over the weekend…
@gonzogonzo @MasqCrew I am open, too, to all suggestions…interesting and that way my niche/specialty market wouldn’t wonder why I’m sharing general things.
@MasqCrew Woah…28 tribes? You are indeed a power sharer; that’s amazing. Would be interesting to see how you time manage all that? I am so overwhelmed trying to keep up with work, blogging and now sharing/tweeting/tribing! I’m going to need to watch how you do it!. Thanks for being here.
BTW, I shared this post three times: manually right now, through Buffer and through Triberr.
@MasqCrew Woah!!! Thank you so much!!! That’s a #RockHot!
Great post, Jayme. I also joined this “Power Sharers” tribe under a week ago and have been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of posts in my stream. The unfortunate part is that there is only a small fraction that relate to my topics on interests, which is what my followers (I assume) are also interested in. So I end up sharing only a fraction as well, yet have to filter through what seems like a gazillion posts.
Mind you, I find it worthwhile even if just to discover new peeps, as you mention. But as it’s few and far in between, not sure how long I will stick around this tribe. Time will tell… 😉
Cheers,
Frederic
@gonzogonzo Hi, Frederic! Thanks for confirming; I knew I had to write on this right away as the magnitude of the stream blew me away. You’re so right; time will tell! Thanks for being here!
@jayme I have tried triberr but I could not understand it and the truth be told I did not want to waste the time on another social network.
I am sure there is some value there, but I am plenty busy. I am trying to maintain my blog and that is a full time job.
@Ethical Behavior Boy @jayme That’s my problem, too!! I have a full load of client deliverables in my company, the blog and writing it (well, two blogs) and not sure how many tribes I’m in now. I want to be accountable to everyone and be a good tribemate! Thanks for stopping in!
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @jayme To me this comment system is much more active than anything I have run across yet.
@Ethical Behavior Boy @jayme Thanks for contributing to it, too! I had no idea this post would generate such interest…so cool.
Interesting and timely article Jayme (for a lot of people it seems). I too am a member of the Power sharer tribe, and was invited to a few others this weekend. I love Triberr and thought if a couple of tribes were good, how great would many tribes be – now I am completely overwhelmed! I have started going the same way as some of the others – sharing more selectively and mostly within my subject area. Like Ken, there are a few that I can share without reading. One concern for me is that my original tribes are quite small. I liked the idea of being part of the tribe and supporting each others work – it felt more personal and like I was really a part of a close group. The new, larger tribes that I am a part of don’t have that feel. I know Bill mentioned at one point that it is getting hard to reach out and thank people for sharing, or engage them in conversation – I’d hate to lose that aspect of Triberr. Not sure how to handle it yet, but definitely something I’m thinking about.
@Brent@Echelonseo.com You’re spot on, Brent. The smaller tribes do breed community and more content review, I think. I’m happy to have gone beyond my immediate circles, though; it’s just that we’re all in the same boat — overwhelmed with so much content. There are bloggers there posting about 3x/daily…with that frequency, you need to really look at whether they all should be shared or one. Takes more time.
Thank you!
I don’t think we should ever feel bad about not sharing content that we don’t either agree with ourselves or think will be a good fit for our audience on Twitter. It should be quality shares rather than quantity of shares.
@Adi Gaskell Thanks, Adi. I am guilty; I really want to share everyone’s work and insights; I am a nurturer…so, I do feel badly when I nix a recipe for Halloween dinner, but I know for a fact that my audience would probably wonder what the heck? if I shared that! Thanks for coming over.
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @Adi Gaskell I have to agree with on this one. I definitely curate what I share. Sometimes I go off the rails and share lifestyle stuff. But that’s me, cuz I’m crazy!!!! Good post, Jayme!
@geoffliving @Adi Gaskell It’s kind of like having two blogs — one for the profession and one for whatever..
Triberr has helped me meet some new and interesting bloggers Jayme.
It’s great that my fledgling blog can also get a boost from fellow tribe members as their reach is much further than mine and I’m certainly grateful for that!
I think I would be overwhelmed if I were in tribes with loads of member! The mute button sounds pretty useful though.
@timbo1973 Hi, Tim! That’s how we met! However, it was in a smaller tribe, for sure! Thanks for being here; I promise I’m coming to visit soon!
Thank you, EVERYONE for being here! I am so appreciative of your visit. Have a lovely weekend. I hope I caught up on all the comments; thanks!
Good article Jayme (and thanks for the shout out). You and I are original small tribe people, and I think we have had the same experience. In the past two weeks, I went from being tribed with 20-30 people to a current count of 390 — some of whom post multiple times a day.
I am using three techniques to try to handle the incredible flow of tweets:
1. The Mute button. I am muting bloggers with not only low quality content but content I am unlikely to retweet. I have a specific niche, and my non-discussional tweets tend to stay pretty close to Custserv, sales, marketing business, etc. I, of course, deviate, but I’ve found it easy to eliminate mommy bloggers, technology review sites, etc. The downside is I might miss material that I find personally interesting. The reality is that I don’t have time anyway, so I just need to get it out of the way.
2. Learning whom I trust. I know if lauraclick writes something, the headline will be enough for me to tweet it without reading it first. Hopefully, as time goes on, I can learn new people that I feel confident sharing based solely on the headline.
3. Using a timer. I set it for 10 minutes in the morning, maybe another run later in the day depending on the schedule. I focus on the Triberr stream, and I get through what I get through. After that, on to other things. (PS. After many experiments, I found a great timer for Mac https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alinof-timer/id512464723?mt=12 )
I am new to this large tribe experience, so I don’t know if this will work long term, but it seems to be making it manageable for now. The biggest question I am wrestling with is do I continue to thank people for tweets of my stuff — does that just add to the clutter?
@Adam | Customer Experience lauraclick Adam. Great, great question re; thanking for RT’s. I find this a dilemma. I always appreciate when someone tweets my post and i want to acknowledge them but I also don’t want to contribute something that’s not useful and a thanks in twitter seems to just add to the digital clutter.
A bit stuck here. I don’t want to be that guy who doesn’t acknowledge when his content is shared. What to do?
@rdopping lauraclick Aside from the noise issue, I know thanking has a limit. I just was at @markwschaefer ‘s blog — one post showed 717 tweets. He’s not thanking everyone with numbers like that. Even breaking 100, which is not that crazy if you’re in a couple of large tribes, saying thank you is almost unmanageable — and to the original point, it’s a lot more noise!
@Adam | Customer Experience @rdopping lauraclick @markwschaefer Please see below…Adam! You’ve provided some inspiration with your comments.
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @Adam | Customer Experience @rdopping I’m definitely a thanker. It makes sense for me – especially for new folks who are sharing for the first time. But, you’re right, Adam. It becomes a bandwidth issue if you’re having to thank people 100+ times. I don’t have that issue just yet, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
I know that ginidietrich was sending DM thank you’s for awhile. I guess if you want to avoid the clutter issue, that might be one way to still acknowledge people without worrying about making your stream be full of thank you’s.
@lauraclick @Adam | Customer Experience @rdopping ginidietrich Thanks for coming over, Laura. Just queued up my post about this topic for morning…8 Reasons Why…hmm, now what was that title again?
@lauraclick @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @Adam | Customer Experience ginidietrich A thank you is huge to me and i have discovered with the new power tribe that is impossible. Even 30 tweets is too much. Thanking first timers, hmmm, there’s an interesting approach too.
@rdopping @lauraclick @Adam | Customer Experience ginidietrich Don’t know why 30 tweets is too much, Ralph? I just breezed through about 50 thank yous and it probably took 10 minutes or less?
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @lauraclick @Adam | Customer Experience ginidietrich I must be slow. I check out who RT’s me too and if I don’t know them I go to their house first. I need frequent flier miles or something.
@rdopping @Adam | Customer Experience lauraclick You guys… you just gave me the blog post for Monday…I will dive in more to the thanking issue, and I won’t give away the store here today, but what I will say is DO NOT AGREE!
Hah, maybe that piques a bit to have you come back Monday? I’ll tee you both up so you remember…noise? Interesting!
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @Adam | Customer Experience lauraclick troublemaker 😉 Can’t wait for Monday now.
@Adam | Customer Experience lauraclick You’ve got it all right, Adam. You’re the one, as said, who turned me on to the mute button. Thank goodness for the purpose of making the stream more manageable. Now I need to look and see if there is a way to unmute people?
I have to cull down to find the content in tiers and then I want to re-add others to the stream to get to know them and their content better. I think that’s a fair way to approach this and manage it. But, like everyone else…not sure! It’s hilarious to me that everyone is in the same boat; perhaps NOT the multi posters who may get short shrift. Thanks, Adam!
And, how can you even do any justice in 10 minutes? Woah…that’s fast!
@Adam | Customer Experience Great tips, here! Admittedly, I don’t use Triberr very well. The one and only tribe I’m in is the one with you and Jayme. Oy. I guess maybe I need to spread my wings with it a bit more?
Also, so kind of you to mention my work. I’m glad I’m in your circle of trusted peeps to tweet regularly. 🙂
And, oh how I love timers. That’s what I do too. I give myself a 20 minute chunk in the morning and then some time around lunch again. Otherwise, I’d easily spend hours reading and commenting all over the web!
@lauraclick @Adam | Customer Experience I think that’s why we don’t see Davina Brewer much any more @3hatscomm as she got so burned out commenting everywhere and realized she had no gain, but a really good brand! I miss her a ton, too.
@lauraclick The timer has really helped me manage social. It is so easy to get sucked in. The biggest downside of the large tribes is that it is just more content, and a lot of it is good. Like the hundreds of blogs in my RSS reader weren’t enough already! 🙂
@Adam | Customer Experience lauraclick OMG. Definitely going to use the timer, Adam! I’m not good at remembering to glance at my clock.
@jennwhinnem lauraclick Jenn, If you’re on Mac, that one I linked above is great.
Late. Big day yesterday. You know the workload when back from vacation is always twice what it should be, huh?
So, for me, being in this Power Tribe is interesting. I have seen a boost in traffic and I am now actively tracking the changes just to see what it does. I also got a few new visitors which is also very cool. Both are metrics which i feel important but the visitors and especially comments is the enticing thing for me.
Sharing. I will not share a post from a blogger I don’t know without reading it first. Some of the smaller tribes I am in I trust the bloggers so I will share without necessarily reading their content fully. I really don’t feel bad that I can’t share everyone’s content. Not everyone will share mine. That’s life. With the filters you can change what you see so that helps and the mute button is good but simply scanning a few times a day seems to work for me (instead of muting). So, filtering by tribe, scanning titles and reading a few blogs seems to be what works for me right now.
Thinking more strategically about tribes and their function may change my approach or my choices when it comes to participation. I just don’t want this to turn into a maintenance nightmare so I still have to think about what I want to get out of it. Like anything effort = results.
@rdopping Glad you’re back; jealous you went. I admire the fact you’re reading first and then sharing. With the volume in there, I can only trust a headline for now until I become familiar. Maybe that’s bad on me, but I think people are agreeing elsewhere that the headline and intro become ever more precious in the tell of the content. You’ve got some great points…agree!
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing Headline is HUGE to me. I won’t read the content if the headline does not interest me. It is what I look at when scanning the PT. The smaller tribes where I know the folks I am less likely to read. I am putting some trust that I know those mates. That’s the kinda guy that I am.
I see that this post has kept you busy. Good for you!
I got an invite to that tribe recently and I still haven’t joined in. I don’t know why. I still have trouble trying to catch up with the posts of people I currently am in tribes with. We did form a tribe recently – bloggers who have a personal blog and I feel three four tribes at the moment is all I can handle. Though Triberr is giving me the exposure, I personally want to be reading every post that I see in my tribal stream.
@Hajra be true to your school, Hajra ! You do what your comfort level allows and all works out. I like that you formed a general lifestyle tribe; this power tribe has many folks blogging on family issues. Big time crunch to sort through the stream ! Thx for coming.
82 comments and climbing. Triberr is a valuable network, that can be powerful when used appropriately. I’m also in the group, and have enjoyed seeing blogs such as yours Jayme that I was unaware of prior. The problem I see time to time is over-posting by users. That’s fine if you’re doing it on your own, but it doesn’t play well on a “sharing” type network such as Triberr. One post per day is proper protocol on Triberr. I see users posting 3-5 times a day and I say “Mercy.” This Power Share group seems to be littered with heavy posters, but overall the group has been refreshing.
@GeeklessTech I know, right? I just got back from errands, and 12 new comments and yours! Thank you. I’m positively ecstatic! Thanks so much; I have already noticed your content, too, and the multi-posting thing I have to agree with. Don’t like it. I almost think it devalues content for the community, but what would the @thejackb have to say about that? See you in the stream and in your house!
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @GeeklessTech @thejackb I can speak for Jack on this.
Both Jack and I have been known to post multiple times throughout the day and we have seen our traffic and engagement levels go up every time we do it.
I don’t tweet out every post I see in the stream and am not offended when people don’t tweet out every one of mine.
Quality is always important but there is no law that states that multiple posts per day mean that the quality of said posts have dropped. Furthermore if the chief and tribe haven’t established guidelines that state that tribesmen can’t post several times a day it becomes a free for all which isn’t always a bad thing.
The “reality” is that within a power tribe it becomes impossible to read and promote every post that comes through so we are always going to spend some time sifting through posts.
@thejoshuawilner @GeeklessTech @thejackb What it also boils down to is relevance and quality. If you post multiple times a day, is your content high-quality or is it low grade. Is it to push traffic only, or is it to say something relevant. Are you writing your novel via crowdsourcing and you need people to see the installments? Great; perfect reason.
I’m not sure I’d ever limit people the amount of times they can post via Triberr; not sure that’s even possible with RSS feeds?
That said, you’re right, bloggers who most many times daily cannot expect the peer group to share every post. Everyone has goals for their purpose and Jack’s are different than mine…makes total sense.
@GeeklessTech @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @thejoshuawilner Hi. Steven.
I love Triberr for the same reason; connection which allows easy centralized access to out other bloggers such as yourself. Over-sharing is a big challenge in the Power Tribe forum and I think Triberr was set up specifically to create connections between like-minded people and not purely as an amplifier.
My best success so far is this. I see your comments here on my friend Jayme’s blog and I visit your site. Based on that and your comments here I can now say that I am glad to make this connection. That’s how it works well for me.
I will likely mute someone who over-posts because I am left with the sense then that it is no longer about the engagement and more about building traffic. I am proud to be in the tribes that I am in primarily for the reason that the folks offer valuable content that is centered on learning and growth. This blog is a prime example of that.
@rdopping @GeeklessTech @thejoshuawilner We have already seen the success of this experiment one week later. We are already meeting new peeps and visiting their blogs; people obviously have come here (this has to be my highest commented post ever).
My 1 week surmise — there is extra management time absolutely, I can’t read all the posts I want to, yet, I’m honoring those who come here with a visit to their house (starting yesterday with those who have livefyre which is again an automation help for me).
Streams get stale; having this happen has proven that you need to step out and change it up. While this was an extreme change, it certainly has helped push me out of the boundary.
BTW, I linked to you here:
https://joshuawilner.com/2012/10/12/how-to-measure-the-impact-of-triberr-on-a-blog/
@thejoshuawilner If I could breathe, I might be able to drag my arse to your house. Thanks for the reminder and so sorry to be tardy…
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing See what happens when you get 100+ comments. 😉
@thejoshuawilner Yeah; it’s cool and is keeping me busy! And, guess what? I didn’t even go trolling for them!
Soulati, I need to go off topic for a minute, I was having problems with the Livefyre plugin, I still have an account so hopefully I can still join you on your blog.
@Ethical Behavior Boy I’m seeing you! I also used Livefyre on your blog today!
Nice post….. and yes, it can be overwhelming. I am an early adopter of triberr, back in the day when tribes of 10 where the norm. Now, after a couple of invites from mega-tribes, I suddenly have over 500 tribesmates and ‘reach’ over 5 million on twitter. Yes, time-consuming but anything worth doing, requires a little time and attention. Social-networking, similar to real-life networking, favors those who spend a little time getting involved. But I also prefer if people only share once a day….or less.
@BoKauffmann Hi, Bo; thanks for coming over! I just cleaned out my Triberr stream and went to each blog to determine content quality before I pushed it out. I’ve been working on blog comments, Triberr and commenting elsewhere for 90 minutes this morning. I am completely overwhelmed; sustainability of this time commitment? Time will tell. My reach nearly 6 million now? I have no idea what that even means. See you in the stream, and thanks!
Hi Jayme, I’m so glad we are finally in a tribe together! I took a while but I finally joined the power tribe you’re in. Over the weekend the traffic was manageable on my steam but who knows what the Monday morning posting rush hour will hold?
From what I’ve seen over the weekend, I will be using my mute button with this tribe, but that’s okay. Not everyone will be a fit, so long as I can find enough quality content to justify being in the tribe. A constant flow of tweets about quality comments will keep my Twitter followers very happy!
I don’t feel obligated to tweet out posts that aren’t a good fit for my followers, no matter whether people are tweeting out my posts. Similarly, if you’re not tweeting out my posts, that’s fine, I’ll still tweet out yours if you’re delivering relevant, quality content.
I look forward to sharing your posts on Triberr, Jayme!
@wonderoftech I am tickled! Hurray! Carolyn, are you kidding? Your content is so top-quality; hands down I will send it…no questions asked. Agree with the managing the stream thing. I’m heading over to Triberr right now to see if I can get a head start on Monday this evening!
See you in the morning! Just queued up my Monday post for early. Thanks for coming over!
@wonderoftech I think I’m in the same tribe – not 100% certain since I’ve joined a couple this week. Mute button!?!?! Where is that!?!?
@Ruth – MarketingWise @wonderoftech Hi, Ruth! Thanks for coming over. There is a tiny microphone icon next to each blogger on the right side, really small. When you click it you’ll get asked if you want to mute this person. Just say yes and you can manage content better.
Hello!
I’m one of your new tribe-mates and you put into words how I have been feeling for the past week or so! My other tribes were extremely manageable. I am going to take your advice. I am enjoying your posts, by the way. My audience is partly higher education (I am a college professor). Students and faculty benefit tremendously from real-world tips on social media. Many of us are not as updated on what happens in industry, and I’m very new in social media, myself, so thank you! Ellen Bremen @chattyprof
@chattyprof Hi, Ellen! So lovely you stopped in; thanks for that. So, I’m going to do a shameless plug here…everyone else close your eyes!
I do many social media presentations for classes — have my second gig at U of Tenn. E MBA program on social media and have spoken many, many times to DeVry campus. If you’d like me to do a workshop on the basics, am more than happy to help you…if that fits your curriculum, please send me an email and we can discuss further, too…jayme at soulati dot com.
This morning’s stream wasn’t too bad for a Monday; I did mute folks sharing about Halloween dinner today…now, I’m left with so much top-quality content!
Unrelated note: Jayme, would you be able to change how your tweet buttons format your tweets? The twitter tweet button always repeats the link, and both tweet buttons attribute your post to socialbrite. Just thinking, if you make it easier on visitors, maybe you’ll get even MORE tweets. Usually I give up on PITA buttons and don’t tweet, but I love you, so I always do. I feel silly asking but maybe it will help.
@jennwhinnem Thanks, Jenn. I will absolutely change it; annoys me, too, and has not been my priority…you know, the tech back end. Meanwhile, need something to do in the evenings?
YES I DO @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing