So, I'm reading a book by Nate Silver called The Signal and the Noise. <- not an affiliate link.

In it, Nate confirmed something I've suspected for a long time. Numbers lie.

As of 2007, middle-class Americans had more than 65 percent of their wealth tied up in their homes. Otherwise they had been getting poorer- they had been using their household equity as ATMs. Non-household wealth -meaning the sum total of things like savings, stocks, pensions, cash, and equity in small business- declined by 14 percent for the median family between 2001 and 2007.

~Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise

Reprinted without permission because I'm a rebel like that

2007 wasn't that long ago. I remember it well. I remember how experts, with charts and figures that were hard to refute, made us all feel like we are all mini Donald Trumps.

It's clear to most of us that experts were dead wrong. Our wealth was built on sand. The numbers they used to convince us that the market will bear, were cooked.

It's useful to remember that this happens all the time. From the Tulip bubble of 1600s, to the 1929 stock market crash, to 2008 housing market crash and global recession.

Experts use numbers to tell their story, and those numbers are hard to refute. But that doesn't make them true.

A healthy distrust of authority is prudence. <-Tweet it if you agree.

I'm willing to make a bet. There's an expert somewhere right now, showing off his charts and figures to convince someone that things are not the way they are. And those numbers are hard to refute, but that doesn't make them true.

Numbers lie. Look deeper.

Initially, Triberr was built to enable bloggers who use Twitter to group up with one another and share each other’s content across their respective Twitter audiences. But imagine for a second, if Triberr enabled bloggers to connect their email lists and enable cross-promotion that way. It wouldn’t have worked. Why? Email lists are closely guarded, highly sensitive, and fiercely protected. In all my years of blogging, I have never even considered sharing my email list with someone else. Twitter, on the other hand, is a different story.

Trust and Intimacy 

Twitter is a low trust network. This is not a knock against Twitter, far from it. It’s what enabled Twitter to proliferate in the first place. The social contract we “sign” when we use Twitter is simple. I trust that if I follow you, you will share something of some small value with me. That’s it. That’s where it ends. Therefore, we can say that Twitter's trust model is unidirectional. Just because I trust you, it doesn’t mean you trust me, so you may -or may not- follow me back. Those that do, often do it out of reciprocity, rather than trust. Let's contrast Twitter's trust model to Facebook's trust model. Facebook uses a bidirectional trust model. I can ask you to be my friend all day long, but it’s not going to happen until you accept my friend request. Only then, we can see each other’s wall, photos, etc. Thus, Facebook requires a deeper trust between two people. Would I share other blogger’s posts on Facebook? You bet. But I am way more selective than I am on Twitter. And there are several reasons for this. I share more –lots more- on Twitter due to the fleeting nature of the twitter stream. Facebook wall moves lot slower, so naturally I share less. Otherwise my friends would disown me. We can safely assume that sharing that happens on Facebook will be different from sharing that happens on Twitter. So creating a tribe where the mutually agreed upon terms are to share via Facebook will result in a completely different tribe make up when compared to your Twitter tribe. Your Facebook tribe will probably be smaller, and the trust (or maybe we should call it intimacy, instead of trust?) between the members of the tribe will be lot deeper when compared to a typical Twitter based tribe. This logic can be extended to other destination networks as well. While LinkedIn’s trust model is identical to Facebook (bidirectional), the culture of LinkedIn is lot more clear. Most people use it as a shrine to their professional achievements. There is no room for cat pictures on LinkedIn. And providing industry-specific, serious content, is the norm. With that in mind, our tribal strategy comes into focus. LinkedIn is typically used to keep up with your professional connections, so building a LinkedIn tribe on Triberr will result in a tribe that is industry-specific. Trust between tribemates becomes even more important, and the quality of content, relevance, and professional delivery (no F bombs, for example) becomes supreme.

How Schedulability Affects Sharing

Ya, I'm pretty sure I made up that word. Schedulability :-) But anyways... Because of the way people consume content on social networks will be specific to that social network, the frequency with which you post to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. should be different as well. Posting on Twitter 50 times per day is perfectly acceptable as long as the tweets are properly spaced out. However, posting 50 times on Facebook or LinkedIn would probably get you banned. Triberr will stagger your activity and post to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in whatever interval you specify. However, with some networks the sharing is 100% manual. Posts sent to these destination networks (SU, G+, Pinterest, etc.) can NOT be cued, staggered, and scheduled via Triberr. Taking this into consideration, building a Pinterest tribe (for example) requires the following mutually agreed upon terms.

• Each post must contain an image, otherwise, there’s nothing to pin.
• Pinterest can’t be scheduled, so a deeper level of commitment is needed to sit there and pin each post.

Also, while Pinterest usage allows us to pin 50 things in a row, and no one would care because no one sits there and looks at our Pinterest “stream” (there is no such thing), doing that on G+ would be unacceptable. So, creating a G+ tribe would require an agreement amongst the tribe members to log in several times per day to their Tribal Stream and post 1, maybe 2 post to G+ each time they log in.

Peculiar Porcupine

As you can see, each destination network has its own peculiarities, which need to be understood and handled appropriately. The Chief's job is to consider these peculiarities and build a team that can work well together. We at Triberr plan on making these strategies more obvious and built into the tribe creation and management process, but nothing can replace little bit of education. And I hope this post helped a little.

Final Word

Is yours. Related Posts:

• Tribe Building Strategy for Multi Author Blogs
• Time Management Platform for Bloggers
• Tumblr Functionality for Wordpress Bloggers

There are two things you need to do as the Founder of a multi author blog in order to take full advantage of Triberr.

1. Build a blog-wide tribe, and
2. Instruct your writers to build their own tribal network.

Let's cover both.

Build a Blog-Wide Tribe

It's a simple 3 step process.

I will use my favorite new multi author blog as an example in order to keep things concrete, but the same steps will apply to any multi author blog.

The Man FAQ (TMF) is a relatively new blog with seasoned writers who are well respected in their niche. They came together under the same blog because they love the subject of…well..manliness. And I'm all about that.

TMF was founded by John Swartz, and as the leader of TMF, the onus of responsibility for getting all his writers on board is on him. As it will be on you if you're in charge of your own multi author blog.

The First Step

So, first things first, John would start by creating the TMF tribe on Triberr. For a step-by-step, see How To Create a Tribe on Triberr.

Second Step

Then, John would invite his co-authors to Triberr. Once they're in the system, John would locate them and invite them into his TMF tribe. For a step-by-step, see How do I invite someone to my tribe?

Third Step

Everyone would use their own author-specific RSS feed.

This is probably THE MOST important piece. In order for each author to be correctly identified, each author would add their own feed. See How do I add my blog to Triberr?

This is very easy for John and his team. For one, they are using a great WordPress theme which already gives them individual author feeds without any extra effort, and since they are all tech savvy, it will be a piece of cake to find it.

So, for example, when Jen Upshaw Swartz goes to add her author-specific feed to her Triberr profile, she can make her way to Staff Directory link (as pictured below)

Click on her name, which will take her to the author page. Note the URL boxed in red.

All Jen has to do at this point is add /feed to the end of that URL to get her own author-specific RSS feed.

Jen would then use that as her blog feed in Triberr.

The Net Effect

The net effect of all this is two fold.

1. Posts would be correctly identified inside the Tribal Stream, and
2. When posts are shared, the correct author would get the social mention (credit)

Let's elaborate a little bit on those two points.

Correctly Identifying a Post

Mike Allton, of the Social Media Hat, is one of my absolute favorite bloggers. Mike hasn't done the above steps, so when he publishes a new post it looks like this in my tribal stream

And 9 times out of 10, this is perfect. Except when he has a guest author.

I went to check to see who wrote this post, and sure enough, it was a guest author.

This means that every time I share a post that has the incorrect author, I lie a little to my audience. They follow a link expecting Mike Allton, and they get someone else.

This reflects poorly on me, and it reflects poorly on Mike. And I don't think the guest author is getting much benefit.

Consequently, I tend to delete posts with a misidentified author, as do most people.

Social Mentions

Social mentions are the new authorship credit.

In the above scenario, Mike benefits from these incorrect social mentions, but the guest author doesn't. And since Mike is getting the content, I think it's only fair to give the actual author of the post the mention.

Unfortunately, Mike didn't invent the usurpation of social mentions. All blogs do this.

When you write for HuffPo, you don't get the social mentions, HuffPo does. Here's an amazing post by a good friend who DOES NOT get the mention, instead the mention is usurped by the blog.

If you ask me, the author should always come first. The platform comes second. And Triberr is built with this philosophy in mind.

It's these kinds of practices however, that have enabled blogs like HuffPo to build their brand and sell it for insane amounts of money without giving the authors who have built the brand anything in return. But I digress.

The point is, social mentions are the new authorship credit, and it should always go to the person who wrote the content.

Build Your Own Tribes

Getting back to our The Man FAQ example, once TMF tribe is in place and TMF authors have joined the tribe with their own author-specific feed, it's time for all authors to build their own tribal networks.

Building your own distribution network is easy, especially if you write awesome content, and are willing to share other people's amazing content. Locate your tribe from here.

I'm working on a comprehensive text for various tribe building strategies, but in the meantime, consider a local tribe strategy.

I hope that covers the steps as well as the philosophy behind how Triberr works. But if I missed something, or if you need help locating your feed (author-specific or otherwise), leave a comment below and I'l help you find it.

Do you want people to leave a comment on your post? Of course you do, here's why.

When a potential client -or even your mom- comes to your blog, they are unable to tell how much traffic you get. Instead, they infer how "well" you're doing by two things:

1. Social shares
2. Number of comments

Triberr get's you plenty of shares, but it's up to you to get comments. Here's how.

Link to video.

This video is Part 6, of my 7 part interview with Mike Brooks of the Nuclear Chowder fame.

All 7 parts can be found here.

Did you know that the very first blog post was published way earlier than previously thought?

And did you know that all major blogs have something in common?

How about the fact that we are about to enter an unprecedented shift in the way blogs are monetized that will change EVERYTHING?

These and other nuggets are presented here for your edutainment.

Enjoy.

1. The First Blog

The very first blog post was published  40,800 years ago in El Castillo, Spain. And it was an infographic.

We get so hung up on the details. Like, which platform is best? Is it WordPress? Blogspot? Something else?

And we get hung up on the best format to communicate in. Should I publish my knowledge as text, audio, video, infographic? Which one is best?

We often forget that the only thing that matters is the expression.

Humans have this impulse to communicate, and our voice will do everything it can to find a pair of ears willing to listen. Everything else is secondary.

And when someone tells you that the Infographics are the latest craze, you tell them it's been done before in El Castillo, Spain. 

2. Everything is Blogging

A book is just a really long blog post.

As far as I'm concerned, every form of expression is Blogging. I would exclude direct person-to-person communication, but every other form of expression is just that. A form of expression. These days, we just call it blogging.

I think this is a great way to approach blogging.

Many businesses have no idea how to blog. They are paralyzed with fear to even start, and for a good reason. They are being asked to enter a brand new arena. The publishing arena.

Imagine a Carpenter from 50 years ago starting his own magazine. It would require a whole different skill-set, wouldn't it?

However, I think approaching a company blog as if you're about to publish an old timey magazine is a really good way to think about blogging.

Pick your favorite mag and model your company blog after it. And if you still need help, contact me.

3. Blogging will Save the World

Now that everyone can broadcast their voice, all we have to do is give the individual author the distribution power of large media sites, and this will equalize the world.

Blogging will save the world.

I know it sounds like a tall order, but once upon a time, having access to knowledge was reserved only for the privileged. And then the printing press changed all that.

The next big change will liberate individual authors from dehumanizing distribution channels (Google, Amazon, iTunes, HuffPo, old publishing houses) and give each and every author the control over their own distribution.

Why not? The Creatives already own the publishing, and payment processing. The only thing left is the distribution.

Watch the video for a more in depth explanation.

 Link to video

4. The Next Big Problem

When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1436, he solved the biggest problem facing humanity since the first blog post in El Castillo, Spain, some 40,000 years earlier.

The problem Gutenberg solved? Access to knowledge was only available to the privileged. Mainly the clergy and the rich. Gutenberg changed all that. He made knowledge (books) easily duplicated and portable.

However, as Gutenberg solved one problem, he revealed another. Between 1436 and 1999, publishing your knowledge was available only to those who could afford to buy a newspaper, magazine, TV, or radio. In other words. the privileged.

And then, in 1999, this 563 year old problem was solved by a blogging platform that enabled anyone to publish their knowledge. Blogger.com. Other platforms followed soon.

And just like Gutenberg, who solved one problem only to reveal another, so did Blogger.com solve one problem, only to reveal another.

Now that everyone can publish their knowledge, Attention has become available only to the privileged. And Attention = money.

The time is right for the next big problem to be solved. The time is right for Attention to become available to everyone.

Democratizing Attention is the next big problem, and Triberr is solving it. But, here's the thing. Whether Triberr succeeds or not, is not important.

Whats important is that this problem gets solved. And if Triberr paves the way for those that do, then it has done its job.

5. Timing is King

Content is king my ass.

Look at those sites. All of them have 2 things in common. Their content blows monkey balls, and they are all top 100 sites. What gives?

All of the sites in the above image were born in the early to mid 2000s. That's it. Thats the secret of their success. Not content. Not utility. Not branding. Not clever marketing.

It was timing and timing alone that made them successful.

And if more convincing is what you need, then enjoy this video.

 Link to video

6. Traffic is a Cost Center

You own a bakery? Great. Tell you what. I'll send 1000 people to your store tomorrow.

Oh no…they won't buy anything. They'll just dirty up the store, create a mob, probably break a thing or two, but hey! You'll be able to say you had 1000 people in your store. BLAH!

I think the whole "my traffic is bigger than yours" is pure nonsense.

Traffic is a cost center. It's only useful because it brings Attention to you and your content. But if that's the case, then why is everyone talking about traffic?

I think people who wear suits and sit in boredrooms would feel silly talking about seeking Attention. So traffic become a proxy for what they really want. Which is Attention.

Point is, traffic is useless. Attention is the name of the game.

I love to use Oprah as an example of this.

She syndicated her content across 100s of TV stations world wide. Those TV stations got traffic, but Oprah got Attention.

Oprah, the content creator, only cares about Attention. She could care less about traffic.

Be like Oprah.

7. Ads are Murder

In hundreds of years, as technology evolved, the monetization strategy for content DID NOT CHANGE!

It blows my mind.

• Google is making money the same way newspapers and magazines made money 100s of years ago. Ads.
• Facebook is making money the same way newspapers and magazines made money 100s of years ago. Ads.
• Twitter is making money the same way newspapers and magazines made money 100s of years ago. Ads.

Has everyone gone insane?

How can technology evolve so much, and yet our thinking about monetizing content remains the same?

8. Attention is the New Currency

Ever wonder what Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton types make? They make Attention.

Attention is their product, and they make a living making Attention. You can see how this translates directly into the online world.

Big sites are able to make a living with ads because we pay Attention to these big sites. I'm talking about Facebook, Google, Twitter, HuffPo, and the like. All of these are nothing more than Attention sucking, ad feeding machines.

The greatest trick the Devil even pulled is to lull us into a false sense of choice.

These big sites have found a way to gently suck us into their world so they can do what TV, Radio, Newspapers and magazines have been doing for 100s of years. Feed us ads. #lame

We can fight them in 2 ways:

1. By installing ad blockers in our browsers (or blocking all ads across all browsers), and,
2. By being more discerning what we pay Attention to.

I practice what I preach.

I had coffee with a friend 3 days ago. You might know him, he is the amazing Kenn Bell of The Dog Files, the maker of Hero Dogs of 9/11. Anyway…

He was getting really frustrated with me because he kept referencing all these news items about which I knew absolutely nothing. I don't watch the news.

I pay no Attention to the news because I know how the news works.

• If it bleeds it leads.
• There's always an angle.
• The "investigative" reporter will bust up a crooked mom and pop operation, but they will leave big corps alone. Why? Mom and pop shops don't buy ads on TV.

Their job is to suck up our Attention, and my Attention is better spent elsewhere.

I will NOT pay them my Attention.

Attention is currency. And I am grateful you chose to spend yours here.

9. Influence is the New Money

The fragmentation of mass media into billions of small channels has destroyed the ad industry, and paved the way for humans to do what humans naturally do. Talk to each other.

Today, a Blogger with little bit a technical know-how, and a lot of credibility which can only come from direct, high-touch interaction with an audience, can influence actions of those who trust him to lead them.

You can be that Blogger.

Watch the video for a quick explanation of different types of influencers and to see which one will dominate the marketplace over the next few years.

 Link to video

10. Tribe is the Way

Does influence marketing work? Does a bear shit in the woods?

Brands have been hiring celebrities as their spokesperson for a long time. Celebrity endorsements are a huge business. The problem?

There are several issues in hiring a celebrity to represent your brand:

1. Not all celebrities have a powerful online presence
2. Brand to celebrity mismatch (lack of relevance, or natural affinity)
3. Access to celebrity
4. Celebrities are cost-prohibitive for most companies

I could go on.

Bloggers, on the other hand, ARE the celebrities online. On a smaller scale, sure, but celebrities none the less.

Just watch Dan Cristo explain it.

Since bloggers have an intense, but smaller sphere of influence, this creates another set of problems for brands.

For example, hiring one blogger, or even 5, is simply not enough to move the needle for a company like Nike.

However, being able to hire 100s of bloggers under the same endorsement deal, and have those Bloggers move the needle collaboratively, as a tribe, is very interesting to a company like Nike.

At last, Bloggers will have a way of making a living that's not affiliate marketing, or other nonsense that leaves me feeling like a need a shower.

This is the vision for the blogging future I see in my mind, and it's closer than you might think.

It took less than an hour for the dogs of karma to bite back.

NBCNews wrote an article about the TurboTax's #EPICFAIL of automating tweets while some of their services were down.

The article was far from favorable, and yet, there it was, a giant ad inserted by the NBC's automated ad system recommending TurboTax.

Sometimes karma works slowly, and sometimes it snaps right back and bites you right on the face. How does that humble pie taste, NBC?

Let me play you a song to make it feel better, curtesy of TurboTax.

Link to video.

 

I learned this from the always insightful Tom Webster about two years ago when he did a keynote at BlogWorld.

Spam comments are a pain in the ass, they are made of evil, evil stuffs, and they suck monkey balls. But, if you bring them out in the open, they can be quite funny.

Tom read bunch of spammy spam spam comments during his keynote, and since we could all relate to this scourge, we all had a hearty laugh about it.

So today, I decided to post one of these spammy spam spam comments on my Facebook wall and wouldn't you know it. Since many can relate to it, it started a bit of a storm of comments of the un-spammy variety.

No need to read through them all, I'm just including the image as an illustration. 

So, what can we learn from this?

I dunno…maybe that shared experiences bring people together and can be quite hilarious?

Maybe there's a way to turn bad things into good things?

Maybe we can find inspiration for a blog post in almost anything?

Maybe a good way to drive interest into your blog post is to start a conversation about it on Facebook first, then post a link to it so that everyone who already committed to the topic, has vested interest -in some small way- to come to your blog and check it out?

Maybe there is something even more profound about this that escapes me, but you might be able to figure out.

In any case, if you would like to leave a spammy comment of your own, the floor is yours.