I deleted my Triberr account the other day. I had been debating the deletion for several weeks, and I finally had had enough. I was tired of being in a tribe that seemed to be in a stalemate. I was tired of feeling guilty for not sharing posts on a regular basis. I was tired of feeling guilty for not reading my tribe mates’ posts.
Thus, I deleted my account. It has been freeing. It’s been nice not to have to check Triberr on an almost daily basis, and it’s been nice not to worry about missing somebody’s post.
I know that some people have had great success with Triberr, and I’m not arguing the value of it or the success people have had with it. It has value, just not for me at this point in time. Since it isn’t providing value, I’ve cut it. If I’ve learned anything from the past two years of being in business and failing in business, it’s that I have to cut the platforms and tools that don’t serve a purpose. If the platform or the tool doesn’t serve a purpose, it is a distraction. It impedes me from what I need to be doing.
What about you? Have you cut a tool or platform because it didn’t have or no longer served a purpose?
Hi Erin…I have mixed feelings about Triberr. My experience has been one of great support from SOME of my tribe members. I really love my Tribe leader ( @Beibert ) for his passion, enthusiasm and support and some of my Tribe mates ( CloseToHomeMD and medtopicwriter in particular) have been a delight to get to know and I truly love reading their posts. As far as “reach” goes…I’m not convinced that Triberr has done all that much to improve my “reach”. That said, my dental business is kind of a “niche” market in that I really need to “reach” my very local and specific geographic community and Triberr’s reach is too broad. But because I do love ( I can tie this into lorigosselin ‘s post 😉 ) Aaron, Alice and Samantha, I will continue with my Triberr account and look forward to reading and supporting their posts!
It is so wonderful that you are taking “inventory” of your life and figuring out in a thoughtful way, what works and what doesn’t work Erin! An uncluttered life is so much easier to move forward!
xoxo
Claudia
@SocialMediaDDS My experience has been somewhat similar. I formed some great relationships, including one with medtopicwriter (although I know her as Texascopywriter ) and Lisapatb . I think, though, that our markets were too dissimilar. I loved supporting Samantha and Lisa, but I often felt angst about sharing some of the posts since I’ve narrowed my focus. I’ll still support the two of them, but it won’t be via Triberr. 🙂
I must be in de-cluttering mode. I’m considering a similar move with Google+.
@Erin F. I wouldn’t scuttle the Google+ profile. I don’t do any sort of engaging on Google +, only dropping my latest post there when it goes live and it still drives approximately 20% of my traffic.
@jasonkonopinski Hmm. Maybe I’ll only delete the Google+ business page. Google has yet to make sharing to it intuitive. The page is very neglected. I’d be ashamed for anyone to find it.
Very interesting to hear this, Erin. I’ve been told several times that I should join Triberr and I’ve been reluctant. Partly because I’m spread too thin and am really in a situation where I need to do fewer things rather than more. But partly because of that guilt you just described. Thanks for sharing!…
@yuvizalkow I think some of it depends on your tribe. As I said in the comment below, I started to feel as though I was sabotaging the efforts of Write Right by diluting my message. I cherish the relationships that were formed, but most of those started outside Triberr. The guilt, though, was the primary motivation. I felt like a failed – to borrow a word from you – tribe mate.
I’m spread too thin these days, too, so I’m cutting the things that don’t work. Next potential item on the chopping block? Google+.
I wondered what happened to you Erin – I will have to follow you another way. I still like it for networking and reading other posts when time allows.
@lisabuben290 I never used it for networking, so I suppose I didn’t utilize the platform all that well. I struggle to read the posts I’m currently reading. I don’t have a lot of free time when I’m working a day job and trying to build Write Right. Because of that, Triberr never has become a go-to source for reading materials. If I have free time, I need to be reading books, not blogs.
We’re connected on Facebook via our pages. You can always subscribe to the blog or the e-letter, too. 😉
Are you a member of multiple tribes? I only was in the tribe with you and Samantha.
You know, I have a Triberr account and never really spent the time figuring it out. More than anything else, I couldn’t quite get over the ‘Ick’ factor of it as an automation tool.
@jasonkonopinski I didn’t like that, either, even though you have to approve any tweets manually these days. It still felt a little automated and more than a little bit perfunctory. It was becoming one of those check boxes awaiting its daily check mark.
Like @SocialMediaDDS, I ‘ve enjoyed “some” of the connections I’ve made on Triberr, but it doesn’t seem to have really increased my reach significantly either. I love @Biebert (our tribe leader) and @SocialMediaDDS, @lisapatb, Erin (of course), @ClosetoHomeMD, and several others (really too many to name), but as far as usefulness for reading material and reach — not so much.
I’m still going to use Triberr, though, because of the great content provided to me from the people i do interact and engage with often. That said, I’d read their blogs anyway, but Triberr does remind me of their new offerings and I certainly would want to miss that or get caught up in all of my work and forget to read their stuff. It’s essential to my inspiration and energy.
@texascopywriter I can see how Triberr might help if I were a member of a large tribe, but I use Twitter to do most of that via lists. I guess I’ve decided I don’t need two tools doing the exact same job, especially when I like one of those tools better.
Hi Erin,
I’ve backed up a bit on Google+ (except for some sharing and the Hangouts) because it seemed too unrelated to me – somehow I had a lot of people posting time-wasting videos and stuff. At the same time, I started spending more time on Facebook. It’s hard to keep up with all of it. I used to have great success with Triberr until they moved to manual. I find on Triberr, as everywhere else in the blogosphere, people come and go and when you have someone “gone” and yet they are still taking up a space, it’s not great. I used to be a part of a couple of active tribes but many of those bloggers stopped blogging. So I like it and I’d add a blogger in a similar category, one whose posts I’d tweet out anyway. I think it gives us all more exposure. But if you feel you have to read them all, it can become cumbersome. I just put them in my Reader and do my best!
Sorry you asked?
Lori
@Lori I’m never sorry I asked. Okay, sometimes I am, but I’m not in this case. I want to facilitate conversations here. 🙂
Maybe your sense of Google+ is akin to my sense of it and Triberr. They somehow are disconnected from my everyday habits and routines. I like them in theory – I was really excited about the concept of hangouts when I first learned of it – but I haven’t found them to be quite as good in practice. Perhaps it’s a user error?
Triberr is like any other tool. It is usefulness lies in the hands of the user. That is going to vary from person to person. At times it has been a mixed bag for me but overall it has been wonderful.
That is because I attribute it as the source of introduction to quite a few people and I am quite grateful for that.
@TheJackB I can’t argue with that point. Triberr’s usefulness does lie in the hands of the user. Perhaps if I’d sought to bring in new members to the tribe, the experience would have been better, and I’d be singing the network’s praises. Realistically, I didn’t and don’t have time to do that, so it’s not a good tool for me at this time. I am grateful for the two dedicated tribe members I did get to meet, but we always have corresponded outside Triberr. I guess I didn’t follow the tribe rules – if there were any – very well.
Okay, back to work on my top-secret project for e-letter subscribers only.
Yup! I quit triberr – I felt it compromised my brand. The wrong people sharing for me and me sharing for them based on a connection; the triberr tribe.
Instead I choose to screen what I share and give it a bit more of that human touch that we all crave more than ever online.
Oh, I quit Livefyre a while ago too … I keep it as simple as possible these days!
@Ameenafalchetto How do you mean you quit Livefyre? I don’t remember you using it on your blog. For me, Livefyre still serves a purpose, but I’ve tried to make it simpler to use by incorporating the guest commenting option.
Your reason for quitting Triberr feels similar to mine.
I agree. I read how it was a great self promotion so I rushed to it. First off it is a technical nightmare. The screen doesn’t even look right. Then I searched through tribes. I’m a conservative writer. Nothing wrong with the Tom Robbins types but that isn’t me and no point in me looking or being in that type of tribe. I couldn’t find a like minded group. Then I looked at a few comments of a few tribes. A lot of it was dribble. And one whiner about how not everyone was posting and sending—well when I looked at a lot of the nauseating litany I wouldn’t have sent many comments to my followers either.
Also twitter seems to be catching on to it as a spam from what I read. I have no idea if my sources were credible but I’m not going to be directed I must send everyone’s tweet to my followers and view it every day—I get a lot of my comments spread through retweeting—and will continue to do so.
So I was on Triberr for a day and cancelled it the next. That’s my nickel’s worth.
Charles Hurst Author I actually rejoined Triberr a few months ago with the thought it might be a means to create a community, but it didn’t work that way. I haven’t been back in about two weeks and am afraid of the slew of posts I’d have to delete. I may just let it go again. All it seems to do is create a sense of being heard, but a sense isn’t the same thing as being heard.
With one of my other projects, my collaborator and I haven’t used Triberr at all. We’ve still built a solid following without the amplification, but that might be because we both have strong networks of people.