I joined Triberr in the early days in which you automagically shared the posts of everyone in your tribe. Two years later the automatic sharing has come and gone and a million different changes have taken place both within Triberr and the blogosphere.
These days your basic membership in a tribe no longer means that you automatically share every post your fellow tribesmen publish and that is ok. Things changed because as tribes grew we found that the membership didn’t always consist of people who had the same goals, thoughts and ideas as our own.
In concept that wasn’t and isn’t a bad thing but in execution it created some issues.
The more prolific bloggers flooded the feeds of their tribesmen with a million posts and sometimes those posts had nothing to do with the topics that the bloggers normally covered. Concern grew about whether this would have a negative impact upon the response rate to links that were tweeted and if it would dilute the brands of the bloggers.
Present Day Tribe Etiquette
And now in what feels like a thousand years later we arrive at our present situation where tribesmen don’t sign up for tribes with the knowledge they will tweet out every post. Sure in an ideal situation they will join tribes in which they are in sync with the other bloggers and feel comfortable/confident promoting the posts that go out.
But in reality I am not sure how often that happens.
People still get pay attention to who promotes their stuff and who doesn’t, they take notice of whether they think an equitable amount is being shared and they often respond/react based solely upon their understanding of what is fair and not necessarily upon whether the content is good.
For the moment let’s ignore the problem of promoting without reading and focus on two things that can kill your chances of getting your post shared.
These Are My “Rules”
Just to be clear, these are my rules of thumb for Triberr operations.
Press releases– I don’t just send out press releases. Sometimes I see them show up in my feed and I just shake my head. But there are press releases that make me want to bang my head against the wall.
Those are the ones that read something like “Joshua Wilner is the smartest man to ever walk the planet. He is a social media expert, Noble Prize winner and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. Sir Joshua Once shot an elephant while wearing his pajamas, but how he got into his pajamas he’ll never know.
Giveaways/Reviews– I don’t automatically ignore giveaways/reviews but am cautious about which ones I help to promote. If it looks interesting to me there is a good chance I’ll give it a whirl but I should add I am not a fan of blogs that never offer original content.
If you have a blog that is nothing but reviews and giveaways there is a good chance I will ignore it. Call me a snob but I prefer blogs that offer original content. It is not easy to produce this stuff on a regular basis and I am not a fan of of people who game the system for traffic.
That might not be reasonable, logical or rational to you but I am ok with that. These are my rules, you can make your own.
One More Thing
I don’t believe there is a single path to social media success. I think there are multiple ways to reach the promised land and that most of them are contingent upon how well you engage and interact with others.
You can come up with any number of examples, you can be Dorothy looking for a Scarecrow to help avoid the flying monkeys or be Frodo searching for a fellowship to get you through Middle Earth and into Mordor.
It doesn’t matter who you are but it does matter that you do it with others because engagement is the secret sauce.
And now as Mr. Gump would say, “that is all I have to about that.”
I share all posts that are relevant to what I write about. But, I read the posts about reviews/aff. marketing/ pr and giveaways 1-2 times before I share them.
Hi Josh, I feel the same way, I have my standards with what I’ll share on Triberr. My first consideration is whether my Twitter followers would enjoy reading the article. I share a lot of topics, I find many articles are favorited or re-tweeted when I share them from Triberr.
I agree with your categories. I also don’t want to share ads that masquerade as blog posts either. I’ve seen some low quality blog posts that seem to revolve around a single link to a sales page without any disclosure of a paid promotion. I won’t share those no matter how often that author shares my posts.
I do appreciate the engagement but I also want to keep my Twitter stream filled with quality content.
Hi Carolyn,
Those standards are critical. If you care about your blog and want to be taken seriously you have to draw a line in the sand and protect it. Quality content is good for everyone.
Hey Josh
I used to share a heck of a lot more on Triberr than I do now.
I’ve joined quite a few tribes of late and I find there are lots of people in them where I just can’t share any of their stuff.
When I joined them that wasn’t the case but I think the idea seems to be get as many people into a tribe as possible for follower reach.
That doesn’t work for me so I mute a load of people and it nicely leaves people around whose stuff I do want to share.
I don’t mind so much about reciprocation. If I like the post, I’ll share it. Simple!
Hi Josh
Don’t belong to a tribe, but you are so right about not tweeting or promoting “just because”. It begins to hold little value as to ones’ own creditability if you agree with everything only so as to not hurt someone else’s efforts, good or bad. That is like recommending a terrible restaurant, if the food is lousy and just because your cousin works there and he could sure use a tip, is no reason to send friends there.
I think one should always have a standard to follow and be proud of it, even if it ticks a few people off.
Mary
Hi Mary,
If we don’t adopt standards to follow and live by who are we and what makes up special.
I’m definitely very choosy about the posts I share. I used to share 100% of my Triberr feed, now it’s probably closer to 75%
My rules are:
1. No straight sales pitches – unless I would buy/endorse the product myself.
2. No posts that go against my own blog ideals, unless I can spin it in a way that creates conversation
3. No duplicates – when 15 bloggers run the same promo from the same sponsor all the same day – I don’t share them all.
Hi Jodi,
I like your rules. They make a lot of sense to me. It helps maintain your integrity to only share what you believe in.
Hi Joshua, and congratulations on your kill. I hope you got your pajamas back 🙂
The way I look at these things is that most people write for too big of an audience. I find that smaller the audience, the better the writing/content. I’ve written content for just one person. Those are some of my best posts.
Writing for your tribemates is a great way to approach content creation. If your tribemates love it, they’ll share it, and BOOM! You got traffic 🙂
Anyways….Didnt mean to ramble.
Thnx for writing about us, thank you for being a long time user, and I’ll see you around Bonfires 🙂
Dino
Founder of Triberr
Hi Dino,
Hyper targeted focusing definitely offers some advantages and if your tribemates loves your work they definitely will share it.
But I have noticed that some of the larger tribes are filled with people who just don’t read the posts they send. Maybe they don’t because they feel badly about not reciprocating or maybe they don’t care, doesn’t really matter because they just push things through.
The challenge that comes with this is that it dilutes their feeds and ultimately impacts how responsive people are to what they share so the great/bad stuff receives the same response.
Hey Dino, You’re absolutely right about too big of an audience. My widest audience is when I write about tech that is available worldwide to anyone for free but that doesn’t happen very often. I narrow my audience when I write about apps, particularly if they’re available on just one platform. But that’s okay, not all tech is universal.
My article that got the biggest traffic last year was one I wrote about an iPhone app that teaches sign language. I figured my audience would be tiny but I thought it could help some people and that’s all that matters. The article was shared broadly among the deaf community and others who thought the app was helpful.
Triberr is great.
I share most things in my tribe, but then I choose tribes that either are mostly within my niche or feature “comment agreements” in which members seek to encourage each other by commenting on each others’ sites.
Even so, you’re right: you do notice who does and doesn’t tend to share.
Hi Patrick. That’s the way to do it. Build and or join tribes of like minded individuals.
I love this post you only superficially touched upon. It’s been a topic I’ve been wanting to address, too.
The meat of it is that the sphere has changed yet again. What it boils down to is time. Back in the recession days, people had more time to read and share; now, not to much.
I am guilty of not being on Triberr for more than a week now. My shares of others’ works are down; the shares of my works are down. The comments are close to partly cloudy, and I need to work harder visiting others houses.
It’s tough work being actively engaged on the channels, and people have selected their mode of choice for shares and engagement. I’m still trying to hit them all and doing so poorly. My business needs me, and I’m struggling to do it all well. I’m failing. Something has to go, and the Triberr thing with all the tribes I’m in is a problem and a solution. Stupid of me to join so many tribes; yet, it’s the curiosity that keeps me. What am I missing? Is someone talking about something I should know about and bookmark?
Not sure where you’re getting the time, either; your plate is equally full. It’s a conundrum; I don’t have an answer. Wait, I have one answer…disappearing like some of my peers have done is NOT an option. No way. To survive in the comms business today, you have to have a presence online with identity and brand.
I find time in between the moment. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I don’t know how to explain it other than that. I just grab the minutes where I can.