Triberr Part 5: The Boneyard and Other Tribe-y Hot Spots

Welcome to Techie Tuesday here at More Cowbell! This is the day each week when I unleash my inner geek and we talk about some groovy piece of technology or a technical point of writing.

This is the last Triberr post for a little while. I’m going to move on to other subjects and come back around to Triberr if the questions pile up.

Here’s the topics we’ve covered so far:

• Part 1 – My New Time-Saving Social Media BFF: Triberr
• Part 2 – How Do I Splash In The Triberr Kiddie Pool?
• Part 3 – Graduate to the “Big People Pool” (or How Do I Rock My Tribal Stream?)
• Part 4 – Lazing Around In the Royal Triberr Hot Tub

We’ve given away 12 spots in the More Cowbell Tribe as a result of the Triberr Comment Contest. I still have the Magic Hat of Triberr Love safe on a shelf in my closet and I’ll pick the last three names from the comments on this post.

Part 5 winners will be announced in this Thursday’s post. All of us in the More Cowbell tribe are looking at March 3rd for the webinar so mark your calendars, tribemates!

Note: Once we’ve done this one, I’ll look at whether there’s a need for more and we’ll figure out where/how to hold them.

Photo from Just-Ask-Kim.com

Today we’re going to cover the three topics I’ve heard the most angst about:

1. Bones
2. Triberr Support
3. Tweeting from Triberr

The Triberr “Boneyard”

In Part 4 of this series, we talked about Bones (the currency in Triberr) and how to get them. Here’s a quick summary:

• When you create a Triberr account, you are given 100 bones free and clear.
• You can earn bones by giving karma or helping other Triberr pals out.
• You can buy bones (for approx. $0.06 each).
• Getting new people into Triberr is free.
• Adding exisiting Triberr members (called inbreeding) costs 15 bones.
• Unlocking a tribe for inbreeding costs 90 bones.

I’m a cheapass very frugal and the idea of spending 15 bones (whether the person accepted my invite or not) was chapping my spirit of bone conservation. Adding to this was my perceived insult of having to pay 15 bones to accept an inbreeding Invite.

As with all things Triberr, I prayed to the Tribe-y Gods: Dan Cristo and Dino Dogan. Here was my rant prayer:

While you’re a captive audience, let’s talk bones.

I understand how you buy them (again, see Part 4) and most of the basics for using them. I don’t understand:

1. Why do I pay 15 bones to invite someone into my tribe and then THEY still have to pay 15 bones to join?
2. Why do the 15 bones to invite someone charge out immediately, even if that person NEVER joins my tribe?
3. Why must I pay 15 bones to invite someone the first time, then have to do it again when they lose the first invite and ask for a new one?

Are you seeing the theme here, Triberr Guys? There’s a ton of repetition for bones that provide no value to anyone. I don’t mind paying them, but I want to get the value.

[See? I told you. CHEAP ASS.]

Obviously, I’m not the first hormonal hag questioning customer these two have ever dealt with. They provided some extremely sound and logical answers to my questions.

Question #1:
In terms of bones… We charge both the member sending the invite, as well as the one joining because we want people to think a bit before they join a new tribe.

Let’s say that you invited me to a tribe and it cost you 15 bones to invite, and 0 bones for me to join. Of course I would join just to check it out, but I might leave the next day. Now you’re out 15 bones.

However, if I have to pay 15 bones to join, I won’t be popping in and out of tribes. I’ll do a little research upfront to see who the tribemates are. If I decline your invite, you get your 15 bones back.

We think that is a much better system. (I did too, once they explained it to me.)

Question #2
We ask members to pay the 15 bones up front so they can’t spam out hundreds of invites, then when the invites are all accepted, they don’t have enough bones to cover them. Remember, if an invite is declined, or if you revoke the invite, you get your bones returned.

Lightbulb moment! You mean if I don’t want to join a tribe or I can’t get in, I should DECLINE the invite?? And if someone lets their invite sit there growing mold, I can REVOKE it and get my bones back???

Shut the front door!

(I’ll confess I got a bit excited and went on a revoking-freaking-frenzy.)

Question #3
For the third question… I don’t get the “lost” invite. You should have a record of all the invites in your tribe invites page. If a member doesn’t “get” the first invite, you can revoke it and send it again. When you revoke the invite, you get your bones back.

(He’s right, of course. I was just hesitant to make life hard for you guys by revoking invites. Little did I know it’s easier to just revoke and re-issue.)

On to the Medic Tent, or the Triberr Support area…

Dan and Dino work their hineys off, keeping up with tribes, bonfires, blogging and the other day jobs they do. There are moderators for the bonfires, and they do get some moderate income when we buy bones, but most of the Triberr moolah at this point goes to saving us consumers lots of time.

Yes, there’s still some bugs in the program and they work to fix them. One of the things they’ve had to do as Triberr grows is farm out support. http://support.triberr.com is run by a third-party system and you need to set up a separate login to get into it.

There is a ton of info in the bonfires, but sometimes you’ve got to hunt around for it. As long as you’ve tried poking around yourself, these two tireless Triberrs or one of their moderators can usually point you in the right direction.

But make me the happiest trainer in the world and at least try  to fish (Google for help)  before you ask them to fix a problem for you.

Tweeting from Triberr

One of the reasons why I love Triberr is it saves me time. It does not get me out of my social media responsibilities!

What do I mean by that?

I mean that we are not bots who mindlessly send out links. We support our fellow tweeps by pushing their posts out as far and wide as we can, with kindness and forethought. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Google+, StumbledUpon or LinkedIn.

I’m not saying you must do all platforms for every post, but try to do a variety across the day  based on post content and who you want to expose your fellow bloggers to.

I’ve gotten some hits in the hundreds from StumbledUpon, as have K.B. Owen, Natalie Hartford and Myndi Shafer. One of my LinkedIn groups LOVED some of Julie Glover’s Amazing Words Wednesday posts.

Shake it up a little. Travel outside your circle a bit. And for Pete’s sake, use some hashtags!! (I talk about how to do this in Part 2. It only takes a few seconds extra.)

If you don’t know enough about a person’s post to use some applicable hashtags, hold back from tweeting it until you can take a peek. It’s the polite thing to do.

Have we covered all the topics of interest in Triberr? Is there anything else you want to ask? Do you have Triberr tips or tricks to share? Enquiring minds always  want to know these things here at More Cowbell!

Jenny