One follower then introduced me to Aaron from 8PM Warriors (a group of late night-working entrepreneurs) who then introduced me to Triberr -- which is today's topic.
What is Triberr?
Triberr hails itself as a reach multiplier for Twitter users. It offers "tribes" of like-minded accounts a way to expand their readership and/or following through the reciprocal nature of tweeting one anothers' blog posts.
The 8PM Warrior tribe (at the time of publication) was a group of 16 people with an end reach over 500,000 different Twitter users.
When you sign-up, you input your blog RSS and Twitter account information. Now, anytime you publish a post, it's automatically broadcast through your tribe network's respective Twitter accounts.
I tweeted back and forth with Triberr's founder about the process, and his justification for the automation is that it frees you up to spend more time engaging than time spent RTing your friends' posts.
First, it doesn't take me long to retweet anything (just a click), but more importantly, I sometimes disagree with my friends and colleagues, so why would I voluntarily give them access to blast their message through my Twitter feed?
But still, it's easy to understand the appeal of a service that takes your blog and blasts it to thousands of new readers.
What I like about Triberr
It's impossible to constructively critique a service like Triberr without trying it. So for a couple weeks, that's what I did -- as a part of the 8PM Warriors tribe, as well as my own small business tribe (on a much smaller scale).
And at the end of my post, I'll tell you how I'm moving forward, following my trial period.
But first, here's what I learned to like about Triberr:
- New engagement opportunities: I had some great back-and-forth exchanges and blog post comments arising from links from the Triberr network. We debated some topics, we laughed about others -- simply put, it made my brain work. And I appreciate that feeling. Too many times we're coasting along and get caught phoning it in. New opportunities with new faces are a welcome change.
- Exposure to new faces: I'm pretty stingy about following new people. Not because I have a holier-than-thou mentality, but because updates from 200 people is a lot to consume. So most of my "should I follow" decision is based on who interacts with me and what they have to say. If we align and they provide challenging interactions, I'm in. If it gets repetitive or far too off-topic (I'm mainly on Twitter for business, rather than social reasons), I'm quick to unfollow. But because Triberr brought together a group of people with similar drive, I was pleased to meet new people with business passion like myself.
- Synergies with like-minded people: A lot of the people in the 8PM Warriors tribe work their arses off, and like me, they're no stranger to late nights. In reading their tweets and blog posts, I found a familiarity with similar challenges, but different approaches -- a great learning experience. But even with all that, that doesn't mean they're people who's tweets I'd send through to my own network of followers. Which leads us into what I don't like about Triberr.
What I don't like about Triberr
All that said, I came away with one broad stereotype of the typical Triberr user -- they're concerned with follower counts and Klout scores -- "please retweet," "give me credit," and other statistics-based requests were a regular part of the dialogue. Here's a few other things I didn't like:- It's misleading: Triberr is the digital equivalent of "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine." And that automatically removes its authenticity. You're allowing blind tweeting with the agreement that when you have a post of your own, it'll be tweeted by the tribe. The only caveat here is if you really know the members in your tribe -- at that point, you may already be retweeting their blog posts and updates anyway. But if you can't pick out fellow tribe members from a lineup, it's something very different.
- It's dangerous to your brand: When I first joined Triberr, I asked Mark Schaefer for his thoughts on the service. His one recommendation was to turn my feed from auto (where all my tribe's blog posts were automatically fed through my Twitter account without my knowledge) to manual. And that was priceless feedback. Because I need to fiercely protect my personal brand -- however big or small it may be. So it was my responsibility to log-on and see what posts I might have been tweeting. I approved the post about work/life balance, and denied the post about somebody's favorite cooking spices. And that's something I'd recommend to anybody using Triberr, otherwise, you may get caught tweeting something that you don't agree with. And that sends the wrong message to your followers. And unfortunately, by that time it may be too late. Like for my friend Joe Sorge, a restaurant owner, who joined my tribe with an auto account, only for my blog post on why I don't tip to come through and be tweeted by him (without him knowing). As a restauranteur, that's not necessarily something he would be caught advocating.
- The interface is clunky: Removing the ethics of social media completely, the Triberr UI is clunky and unreliable. For the first-time user, it'll take awhile to understand where certain features are, how to use them, and how the service works. And even when you do understand it, it's simply not intuitive.
Why I quit Triberr
Now that I've tried Triberr for myself, I'm no longer using the service.
I'm thankful for the connections it brought me during my trial period, but I'd much rather focus on the quality of relationships I'm building than see my blog analytics spike. Those numbers aren't that important to me.
I understand why the service exists and I don't judge those who use it, but the last thing we need is a bunch of Twitter robots blindly tweeting each other's content.
What do you think?
Have you had an experiences with Triberr yourself? Let's hear about it. If not, does it sound like something you'd pursue, and if not, tell me why. _________________________________________________________________
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