Building your audience with Triberr

Let’s talk Triberr.

For those of you who don’t know about Tribber, let me briefly explain.  Triberr is a social media site for bloggers of any kind.  It’s especially great for writers.  Once you join you will choose what “tribes” you’d like to belong to.  By doing a quick search you can find a tribe for just about anything.  Each tribe has a chief.  And the chief is the one who allows you into his/her tribe if he/she is so inclined.  Some tribes have certain “followers” limits– meaning on Twitter, not your blog.  If you don’t meet that number requirement you will receive a polite, “Check back with us when you reach x-number of followers.”  Don’t get discouraged.  Most don’t have a limit.

When choosing your tribes you want to look for the ones that have the longest reach.  Some tribes have a combined audience of 500K people.  Where as others may only reach 50K.  You would think, the wider the net the better the tribe.  Not always true. Sure, joining a tribe with a big following is great.  But don’t simply discount a tribe for their numbers.  Some tribes have lower numbers but are better sharers.  All tribes have to start somewhere.  Keep in mind, the larger tribes fill up quickly.  It’s better to get in on the ground level and keep a firm footing. Then when the audience grows to a half-million people you are already a member.

When I first heard about the concept of Triberr I thought, “This is ridiculous. You want me to do what? A tribe??? What’s next? You want me to wear a headdress and chant around a fire?”  But then I realized its power.  Triberr was invented for bloggers who want to cast the widest possible net.  People who want to grow their blogs to huge numbers.  Therefore, everything on Triberr is about sharing your tribe-mates’ posts.  If you don’t share you’ll be kicked out of the tribe.  And rightfully so.

Nothing is more aggravating than doing your due diligence and then realizing that others aren’t sharing your posts in return.  Here’s a little trick I learned…  By hovering over a profile picture you can see how many of your posts, as well as your tribe-mates’ posts, someone has shared that week.  In return it will point out the people who aren’t sharing at all.  However, it takes a lot more time to check out what everyone has or has not shared that week.  Therefore, I just share all the posts and hope my tribe-mates do the same.  I like to think the best about people.  What I’ve found is, if you share the others will share too.  Quid pro quo.

Sounds simple enough, right?

But– isn’t there always a but?– Triberr IS time-consuming.  Like all of social media it’s a time suck.  My advice:  jump on Triberr, do what you have to do and get the hell out of there.  If you follow my advice you’ll be happier for it.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to surf the net and read every blog that falls into my stream.  I just don’t.  And let me tell you, there are some great blogs on Triberr.  It’s an easy place to spend hours, if not days.

Let’s back up a minute here.

For writers, getting our work out there for the world to see is the most important thing we can do.  Spending weeks, months, even years (for some) on that book will not do you any good if you don’t get it out into the world.  This is why, I assume, self-publishing has become so popular.  There are a lot of great writers who don’t want to take the time to send out query letters, deal with rejection, wait for Mr. or Ms. Agent to read their manuscript– only to have their dreams crushed with the lines… “As you know, this business is very subjective.  For that reason, I am going to pass.”  Or they’ve tried to go traditional and are now discouraged by the system.  I am sure there are other reasons too, but these are the ones I’m focusing on today.

Can you blame them?  I can’t.  They want their hard work recognized.  They want to receive payment for their time and creativity.  They want readers and five-star reviews. All that good stuff.  I get it.  I really do.  For me, I’m not ready to surrender and upload my books to Amazon.  Before you jump all over me, I am not saying that self-published writers have given up.  Please, save your comments for something I actually have said.  What I am saying is that the self-published writer doesn’t want to wait, or is sick of waiting.  Let’s face it, going traditional is a waiting game.

What we dream of hearing…

There is no such thing as an overnight success, no matter what you’ve heard.  When you see a new author with their debut novel, most times that novel is not the first one they’ve penned.  Many readers don’t realize this.  Most traditionally published authors with debut novels have spent years working on their craft, written one, two, three, five other novels that haven’t seen the light of day.  They are far from “new”.  Look at some of the greats.  Stephen King wrote a few novels before someone took a chance on him.  He actually threw Carrie in the trash!  It was his wife who took it out and urged him to keep trying.  Agatha Christie waited four years to get published.  No one sat at their computer for a couple of weeks, sent their manuscript to one agent, and boom– instant success. It just doesn’t happen.

However, your dream IS within your grasp.  So don’t give up.

Back to my point.

Whether you are self-published or going traditional you need to have a following.  You need to start building your audience now.  There is no such thing as too early.  “If you build it they will come” worked great for a baseball diamond in “Field of Dreams”, but it isn’t realistic to believe that writing a great book is enough.  It isn’t.  Your number one priority as a writer is to build your readership.  Triberr is a great way to start to drive traffic to your site.  Which in turn will help you build that readership.

Sold yet?  Take my advice or leave it, it’s up to you.  I’m only trying to help other writers.  I wish someone had told me this when I was first starting out.  I could have saved myself years.  That’s my only objective today, to help.

For those of you going traditional:  don’t forget that #PitMad starts tomorrow.  If you need a refresher about what #PitMad is all about go here.  Good luck to all of you!  I hope you get so many requests you don’t know what to do with them all.

Oh, and a Secret Agent contest is going on right now here.  You only have until 6 p.m. EST to get your first 250 words in.  Word to the wise:  follow the guidelines to the letter or your entry will be disqualified.  Good luck!

If you have any questions leave me a comment below.  If Triberr or any other social media has helped you, share the knowledge.  We all want the same thing.  To be successful and have our books enjoyed by many.