The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Triberr

Two Things That Are Still Killing Twitter

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Death of Film

Editor’s Note: I first ran this post a few years ago because I didn’t like some of the changes I saw in Twitter. IMO Twitter is a bigger mess now than it was then. Some people still blame Triberr for this and point their fingers at me because it is one of the tools I use.

You can call me an apologist if you want but I am still a fan and find that it is a very effective tool. The worth and value of a tool is usually based upon the skill of the person using it.  For example you could give me Tiger Woods’ golf clubs and ask him to use two of my old rusty clubs and chances are he would beat me every time.

What I try to do with Twitter is find more moments where I can be online and active. The benefit is that my stream isn’t filled with automated tweets. In reality I don’t have the same amount of time as I used to, especially when it seems fewer people are actually tweeting live so I have to work harder to make it work.

Anyway, I think many of my thoughts/ideas from when I first ran this post are still pertinent. Take a look at the post below and let me know if you agree.

I used a nifty service called When Did You Join Twitter to figure out that I signed up on December 30, 2008.

After four years I have seen a number of changes in how I use it as well as how others do. Not all of them are good.

I Hate AutoDms

I don’t have any scientific data to share with you about what sort of impact the AutoDm has and can only tell you that once upon a time I was guilty of using them too.

It seemed like an easy way to acknowledge new followers and to start building a relationship with them but I found them to rarely give me the warm fuzzy feeling that makes me feel like anything but a number.

The AutoDm doesn’t show me that you have taken the time to read my profile or tweets so I haven’t any clue whether you find me interesting or if I am just another number you use to build your following.

I have built real friendships with people I met online and know that there are real people on the other side of the keyboard but those relationships started because of the personal touch.

Twitter is Like a Cocktail Party Or Barbecue

Twitter is like a barbecue or cocktail party. It is a place to meet people and talk. The AutoDm reminds me of the sleazy man/woman who approaches you at a party with only one thing in mind and it is never with your best interests in mind.

It is an immediate turnoff.

I don’t have a problem with Internet marketers, brands or businesses trying to sell things online. All I ask is that you at least pretend to care about more than what is in my wallet.

Problem Number Two- Broadcast Is Not Engagement

The second challenge and one that is probably far more serious is the proliferation of people/brands/businesses that are using Twitter as a broadcast channel and not for engagement.

Twitter is noisy and cluttered because it is filled with Tweets promoting posts, reviews, sales and all sorts of other crap. It wasn’t always like this and I am well aware that I am part of the problem.

That is because Triberr is one of the biggest sources of traffic for my blog and the primary traffic driver for promoting posts through Triberr is Twitter.

If I want people to pump out my posts to their followers I need to reciprocate so it means that I can send out a large number of tweets in a short time.

A Solution

My solution is two fold:

  1. I try to make a point to engage as frequently as possible on Twitter so that my stream is not all links.
  2. I try to make sure the content I share is relevant, interesting and useful to my followers.

It is not a perfect solution but at the moment it does the best job of meeting my needs without completely alienating the community I am working to build.

What About You?

What about you? Do you use Twitter? Do you like it? Do you agree/disagree with me?

Triberr And The Challenge Of The Twitter Thank You

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Tunnel

Twenty-three years ago I spent the summer working in Canada. About six weeks into it a couple of people at the camp I worked at told me I was really rude because I didn’t say hi to everyone I passed on the street.

It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would have a problem with my behavior, especially since I was acting any differently than I would have back home in Los Angeles.

I shrugged my shoulders at them and said if they acted that way in L.A. people would think they were tourists and or weird. Cultural differences.

Twitter Etiquette

I have been on Twitter for five or six years now and I have seen a few changes there. Watched more people join, seen the impact of brands, businesses and Triberr to an extent.

Seen how it has evolved from a place where it was easy to have to conversations to more of a broadcast channel. Now you have to work a bit harder to engage with others and that brings me to my Triberr dilemma.

Been a part of Triberr for about two years and still am grateful for all the introductions and connections that it helped facilitate for me. It has been a wonderful tool and it has made me look very hard at blogging and social media.

Triberr has also made me think about Twitter etiquette in different terms than I once did. That is because many of my fellow tribesmen tweet out thank yous to myself and others who have helped to share their blogs.

I don’t do much of that.

Why?

I am torn because I want to thank those who share my posts but I also don’t want my streams to consist solely of links and thank yous to those who shared my posts and sometimes that is how it looks to me.

In part it is because I have more than 100 people in my tribes, could be closer to 150 or so really and that could create a ton of thank you tweets.

And while I am a fan of showing gratitude for those who help us if we don’t work to mix the streams up with useful content and conversation people just tune it out because it becomes noise.

I don’t want to be viewed as noise and or someone who adds to clutter and that is part of why I tend to issue fewer thank yous.

Weekends

I have also begun to scale back much of my social media activity on weekends. It is time I take for myself and for doing things in person and not online.

Doesn’t mean that you won’t find me online or that I won’t blog/tweet but I tend to do less of it. I can guarantee that at some point I will adjust how I do things because that is part of the joy of social media.

It evolves and what I do today may very well not be what I do tomorrow.

In August of 2013 I have Google Plus Comments and Livefyre enabled. The dual commenting system is a test that may lead to my scrapping one or both.

All part of the fun of social media and the dynamic environment it lives in.

The Goal

The goal or more accurately goals are still the same as they have always been. I blog because it is fun and because I love to write.

I use social media because I enjoy meeting new people, because it has led to friendships and financial rewards and because one day I will publish some works that I want others to read and it makes sense to build a platform.

Every month I try to look at what I have done to see if I can find a way to do it better. Some chunks of time are better than others, that is how it goes.

What about you?

The Trials and Tribulations of Triberr

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Look Into My Eyes, Deep Into My Eyes..
Look Into My Eyes, Deep Into My Eyes..

Some of the fine people that frequent this joint have asked me to provide them with information about blogging and Triberr. Since I have written about both I thought it might be useful to provide a collection of post for your perusal.

The 21 links below is not inclusive of all of the posts I have written on these topics but it is enough to give you a pretty good start on things and not wreck the ebook that hasn’t come out yet.

Is Triberr Divisive?

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Your blog is awful.
You need to share more/less…

In March of 2011 I wrote a post about a new tool I was using to build my blog called Triberr.  In the early days we shared all of the posts our fellow tribesmen produced automagically and debated about whether this was a good or bad thing.

That was because there were  concerns about what would happen to our credibility if we shared content that was of poor quality or didn’t fit into what our readers wanted to see from us.

Those were legitimate discussions that I was grateful to be a part of because they made me focus on why I was blogging and what I hoped to accomplish.

Most of you will never get famous, earn real money or get a job from blogging. I attribute that to the Fouker Study of August 30, 2011 which discovered that most bloggers quit after 90 days because they find it is work. That same study also demonstrated that very few bloggers have passion, persistence and perseverance tied to their names.

They get caught up worrying about trivial things and ignore the big picture. They don’t spend time building communities. They don’t spend time developing friendships and rarely ask for help. But they do a damn fine job of of whining about crap that doesn’t matter.

Writers write. They do it because they love it and because they can’t imagine a world or a time in which they can’t manipulate words to tell the stories that reside in their heads. They spend minimal time worrying about readers because their head feels like it is about to explode-not because it is filled with air but because it is filled with stories.

They write every damn day and go a little crazy because every time they read their words they see a way that they could have said it better.
An Open Letter To Triberr Members– August 2011

When I look back I ask myself if I have learned anything from this my experience and what if anything has changed.

The answer is that nothing has changed and everything has.

The evolution of  Triberr has changed so that the average member doesn’t receive the “automagical” sharing of their posts that we once did and consequently people spend more time looking at reciprocity.

In simple terms that means that they don’t want to share your posts unless you are sharing theirs. In concept it sounds simple but in practice it reminds me of my children screaming “play fair.”

What Is The Goal?

This is not how I want to spend my time. I don’t want to get involved in the petty and ticky tack discussions about who did what to whom and why.

The answer to the question in the subhead is what is critical to me. The most important question to me is bigger than whether my posts are being shared equally but whether my involvement in Triberr helps me meet my objective.

When you sift through everything I have written about Triberr you will find one recurring theme, people. You won’t find 87 Triberr Tricks You Never Tried Twice but you will find my gratitude about how Triberr has helped me meet some terrific people.

I am grateful because People power social media.

I am a writer and I love to write. I will blog with or without readers but people make it better.

Action Requires Activity and Not Intent

Action requires activity and not intent. You can’t just say you want to do XYZ and expect it to happen unless you actively pursue doing the things that will help you meet your goals.

The answer to the question in the headline is that Triberr can be divisve. It can irritate and aggravate you but you need to determine if what you are irritated about is significant.

So yeah, some of my fellow tribesmen have been getting away with not carrying their share of the load but the overall experience outweighs that so I am not going to let the petty part wreck the rest.

People power social media and if you take time to build relationships good things will come from that.

How Some People Are Using Triberr To Kill Blogging

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Don’t make the monkey mad.

 

Some my fellow tribesmen are using Triberr to kill blogging and it is not because your content is horrible, even though some of it truly is.

Stop using hashtags in your headlines.

What makes you think that sending out headlines populated by hashtags is a good idea, because it is not.

This is me shouting INCONCEIVABLE!

Those headlines look like hell and read worse.. It is alphabet soup and simply horrid. If you are going to pump out gibberish you might as well have fun.

Why not try one of these:

  • Flying Butt Monkeys Attack Squirrels
  • Spicy Food Hairy Nuts
  • #^$@^$^Y#%%^^
  • 123 Uses for Viagra and Female Alligators
  • Your Words Make Flames Shoot Out of My Derrierre

I’ll lay odds that one of those five will be as effective as sending out “Toms, Drums and Mud #music, #drums.”

It is time to return to regular headlines and to stop the madness. Don’t make the monkey mad because believe me you wouldn’t like to fight with the mad monkey. You’ll lose.

And if by some chance you defeat the monkey in single combat you’ll feel badly that you beat up a monkey and even worse because the crazy people in PETA will sue you on behalf of the monkey.

What will your children say about this. How will you explain that you lost your house because you went bankrupt trying to prove you had the legal right to defend yourself against the mad monkey.

Besides the monkey has friends. You don’t want to face the monkey’s friends.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Change your ways or risk the wrath of the mean monkey and the scary clown.

P.S. If I share your post I am probably going to strip the hashtags out anyway because they really do look like hell.

There Is A Rhythm To Writing

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Movember is coming and I am going to participate in it again. The idea behind it is to grow a moustache to help raise awareness for mens’ health issues like prostate and testicular cancer.

I know, it is a beard and not a ‘stache in the photo above. What can I say, I am a wild man who makes his own rules and looks ridiculous with a ‘stache.

There Is a Rhythm to Writing

There is a rhythm to writing but it is not one that I have to search for often. It is a combination of talent, ability and hours of practice.  When the words are flowing fast and furious from my fingertips there is a feeling of fulfillment.

It is the knowledge that this is what I am supposed to be doing. These words you read, the stories I tell and the experiences we share are all a part of it.

It is what is supposed to happen.

The moments when I am happiest are often tied into this. It feels a lot like the high I get from exercising. My adrenaline flows and I know that I am feeding my heart, soothing my soul and singing a song that others can feel.

You Can Force It

Some people suggest you shouldn’t force yourself to write. They say if you are not feeling it to walk away and ignore it. They are wrong. They are crippling you. They are hurting you because they are teaching you to stop finding ways to work through the hard spots.

I suppose if you aren’t a professional writer it doesn’t have the same impact, but it still bothers me. It bothers me because it is like you telling your boss you can’t work because you aren’t feeling it.

That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in sick, vacation or personal days because I do. I also believe that sometimes writing is a grind and you need to suck it up and do it.

When my children say they don’t feel like doing their homework I smile and give encourage them to keep going.

This isn’t a problem. It is a challenge and you overcome challenges by taking them on and not by running away.

Find Your Rhythm

You need to find your rhythm and your happy place. If you look at the picture above you can see I don’t have a dancer’s body. I am built like a big block.

My inclination is to go through, tear apart, dismantle and or destroy. That is not always the smart way, but it is my way and it works for me.

Still, I have made a point to learn other methods of making it happen and so should you.

We’re still talking about rhythm. We’re still talking about finding a way to make the words flow from finger to keyboard to screen.

It is a dance and you have to learn to lead.

Pictures, Music, Mood

Pictures are worth a thousand words. If you are among the 17 long time readers you know it took a long time for me to begin to become consistent about including pictures in my posts.

I changed my approach because I noticed that when I included a visual element in my posts readers hung out longer. I also noticed that sometimes they helped inspire me and or motivate me.

Music has always been a part of the post structure. Sometimes the songs are designed to try and set a mood for you and sometimes it is just setting the tempo and tone for me to write by.

I might have trouble finding rhythm with my feet but it is not a problem for my fingers and it shouldn’t be for you either.

All you need to do is take the time to do a little dance and find your own rhythm.