Geek Week: The Curse of Triberr and Klout Death by Stats

If your business or brand thrives online, there's a huge chance that it not only live and breath by numbers and statistics a.k.a SEO to power up its' success, but you most likely rely on good ole' simple social networks to make your brand go viral. Unfortunately, social media tools are as imperfect as the world we live in. Yes, this tools, they can be a real tool at times. If reality sucks, so do they. You either love 'em or in the case of Triberr and Klout these days, you just hate 'em.

In this competitive industry where numbers play a crucial role, anything that remotely look promising enough to get your word and brand go viral, bet. on. it, swarms of eager users will be all over it. Triberr and Klout oozed with this most-sought-after nectar and true enough, there was a sudden avalanche of over-zealous users hoping to cash in on the viralness of these two promising sites. But that was then...

Those once die-hard users are now the ones either cursing them or worst dumping them and leaving them for dead. Yes, dead. Unhappy users? dead business. You get the idea.

"They might as well be if they could not deliver the same peak performances that initially lured users to bite on their bait and only to fry them with frustrations and annoyance at the end." 

Triberr's hook was a simple, no-brainer automated tweeting and retweeting of posts in real-time, as it happens, when it happens approach by each member in a group called "Tribe". What made it so appealing is that Triberr DOES ALL THE WORK for you. And the more members you have, the bigger possibility of getting yourself added exposure since your posts are being tweeted in each members scope of reach. Exponentially promising right? Yes. But that was then.

"I have a tribe that I just filled, 7 out of 7 when the big change came. I was just starting to enjoy the ride but it was cut short. So drastically short, my tribe is now officially dead. Dead because since the apocalyptic change, there was not a single activity done by any of my members in my tribe. Not that we're lazy nor we don't know time management, the thing is, we signed up with Triberr to help us manage our time and do the things we don't have time for. Those glory days are gone."

What went wrong with Triberr?
Well, according to Dino Dogan, co-founder of Triberr, "disabling auto-mode was an easy, quick and safe way of complying with Twitter’s TOS. It was either that or get shut down." But there's a promise of bringing it back. Unfortunately there was no timeline established. In the meantime, I can see a massive decline in tribe activity which I hope does not result to mass tribe demise across the board.

Klout on the other hand created disgruntled users when they recently implemented a supposedly more accurate algorithm for data collections. Klout has already baffled their users from day 1 about their algorithms but this new change has baffled them even more. Scores plummeted down to what most users found unacceptable. There was discrepancies and unexplained reasons as how one are scored. It is so confusing and annoying that a lot of users I know have deleted their accounts just like what Kelly of Centsible Life and Nichole of Nichole Smith did, and went as far away as they can from the CURSE of Klout and it's unattainable perks!

"I use to have a score of 60. I was ecstatic. All my data looked wonderful until I stopped tweeting for a week! It was enslaving,  to say the least, to maintain such a score. If you don't tweet, your score go down. Very convenient. But infatuation just don't last long. I stopped nurturing this overly demanding-for-tweet platform. Then to add insult to injury, their new algorithm butchered my score even further down the chart. It was like a slap across the face! And the perks? Nevermind." 

In retrospect, Triberr and Klout are essentially useful and endearing when they do work. Most of us in this industry, unfortunately, are ruled and measured by numbers. Our statistics counts. A.LOT. No matter how disgusting it is to think that we are measured by a certain set of numbers, it is likewise, undeniable that this same numbers are what dictates our success or failure on certain terms. Changes that affects this boundaries almost certainly results in revolting reactions from affected individuals. No one likes change especially when it's not favorable. And unless both networks find a way to redeem themselves from this sometimes unforgiving society, they might as well pick up another trade to sell. Otherwise, the death of their sites are not far in the future. And that is the standard of influence!

Are you still with Triberr and Klout? Good luck!