We’ve been hinting at it for awhile over on the Triberr bonfires, and finally we have opened the site and brought it to life. The members have spoken and what they wanted? Easy to understand, step by step guides to doing the things that can be done on Triberr. Ask, and you shall receive. Go ahead and hop on over to AllTriberr and check it out. Also be sure to comment and let us know what you think, what you’d like to see and any questions you have. There’s a place for all of that. Also, thanks so much to a few select people who supported this project from start to finish – Dan, Dino, Isabel and Christina, and those who will continue to help support it.

Just to keep this post food related, the night that I was getting ready to launch, my 13 year old daughter took over the kitchen and made dinner for everyone without asking for a single bit of help. Dinner for 7, made by a 13 year old includes a Spicy Cajun Alfredo Pasta, Garlic Roasted Green Beans with Sea Salt, a Fresh Salad and Garlic Bread. Yes, I am proud. Yes, I’m bragging. Hey, I don’t do it often.

Dinner with Triberr originally appeared on The Daily Dish Recipes on January 23, 2012.

Most people who know me at all, know I love to switch things up, re-decorate often and make things better and cleaner anytime I can. The food here at The Daily Dish needed some help. It needed to be bigger, bolder, beautiful. The blog design needed some help too. I was looking for simple, fresh but not so bold… the old design was really bold (as you can see by the old header pictured at the top)

This weekend The Daily Dish got a new blog re-design. I am still ironing out some smaller issues, mostly with uploading photos in the correct size, etc. so if you notice anything that seems wrong, or doesn’t fit right – leave me a comment here and let me know. I promise, right now I need constructive criticism and any found errors or issues, so please, please don’t feel bad about letting me know.

The only known issue I know about is the photo size, and the fact that I need to get more photos into the header slide show – working on that now.
P.S. The big slide show is on the main page. You can get to it by clicking on the smaller logo at the top of the page.

Thanks for always being loyal readers and great friends!

Life Size Food and Other Happenings originally appeared on The Daily Dish Recipes on January 15, 2012.

It was inevitable really. I get antsy after awhile and need a change. What am I talking about? Totally new blog design. What do you think?

I still need to update my button, but overall, I’m pretty happy with the design.

I wanted something that incorporated Fall colors, because Fall is my favorite time of year. I don’t know how well I accomplished that, but I got the feel I wanted so that’s good.

Plus, don’t you just think the header is adorable?

If you find anything that seems “off” or isn’t working correctly, let me know. I am still tweaking a few things but most of them are behind the scenes.

And now back to regularly scheduled food posts.

What Do You Think? originally appeared on The Daily Dish Recipes on September 18, 2011.

I know I’m a little crazy, I know I’m a little bit of a project juggler, but when I heard about the 31 Days of Change October 2011 Blog Challenge that my friend Micha @ Cookin’ Mimi was participating in, I knew I wanted to know more.  Once she explained it and sent me some links, I knew I wanted to participate.

The problem was, could I commit?

• I’m already in the Secret Recipe Club
• I’m already in the Crazy Cooking Challenge
• I’m already in a Triberr Challenge for October, November and December.

This whole challenge reminds me a little of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) which happens every November. Oh yeah, did I happen to mention I plan to participate in that too and that October is usually my planning month for NaNoWriMo. I’ll be blogging about all that here.

Ah, yes I’m a glutton for punishment. Oh well. I can do this!

So I’m supposed to come up with a topic I am passionate about and can blog about for 31 days. And I should make it something that I won’t get tired of and that comes across as a series. *blink, blink*

Ooooookay, I can do that. Right?

I spent the entire day yesterday brainstorming and thinking about things I am passionate about, trying to figure out what I wanted to blog about for 31 days. I could do 31 days of recipes, I could do 31 days of crafts, photography, scrapbooking… And then it hit me.

Why not do it all?

So this month, I will be doing 31 Days of Love Handmade.

What does that mean? I almost want to leave it open to interpretation because I’m afraid if I label it too much, I’ll be trapped in a topic I’m not sure I can do for 31 days. Doing a series of 31 blog posts on all things that would be interpreted by ‘love handmade’ is perfectly do-able.

I plan to share:

• Crafts
• Recipes
• DIY Projects
• Gifts
• Scrapbooking/Cards
• Photography
• & More…

Still unclear about what I’ll be blogging about for 31 days? Come back and visit me and you’ll see.

What I can promise, is that it will be entertaining and worth the visit.

Are you doing the 31 Days of Change?

31 Days of Change originally appeared on The Daily Dish Recipes on September 9, 2011.

Guest written by our friend Gladys Fuentes

I don’t know what I was thinking about going to www.DIRECT.TV last month to get my husband some more channels because now he spends all his time watching Travel Channel. I guess I don’t mind it too much because it’s at least somewhat educational but I do worry that he should be watching sports and not daydreaming about all the great vacations we can’t afford to take! He’s been talking about “Hidden Hawaii” and all the places in Europe he wants us to go but I don’t think we’re going to make it out there anytime soon! I love my husband but if I have to watch one more episode of that gross show, Man versus Food I think I’m going to die. I don’t like watching people stuffing themselves with food for money because I think it’s gluttonous and pretty nasty to watch as well! Whatever he likes he likes, I suppose, but I sure wish he would find something to watch that I might enjoy watching sometimes, too, you know?

What Was I Thinking? originally appeared on The Daily Dish Recipes on August 31, 2011.

Yes, I know I have done one of these before, and it might even look a little like the previous version, but it’s totally different. Re-written, updated and more comprehensive than ever. No I am not affiliated with Triberr. I’ve just learned a lot through trial and error and thought I’d pass it along to you. Updated: 8/25/2011 – I decide to re-post this tutorial and completely re-write it . I have been working on it over the past few weeks and I added much more and some photos that the previous version was lacking. Please, if you think of something I should add, or you have a question that isn’t answered here or on Triberr, don’t hesitate to contact me. Leave a comment below, or email me: nicole AT dailydishrecipes DOT com.

Do you know what Triberr is? Are you on Triberr? After spending lots of time in the Bonfire area of  Triberr answering questions, I noticed that several of the same questions keep coming up over and over again. I thought I would create a  Triberr Basics Tutorial that I can send people to, which answers their questions and/or tells them step by step directions how to do something. So here we go.

What is Triberr?

Let me start off by saying, Triberr is awesome. It really is. If you think it’s not, you don’t know how to use it correctly, and that’s what I’m going to try to show you.

It’s not going to work for you if you’re not on Twitter. So if you don’t have a Twitter account, you should get one. Honestly, you should get one not just because of  Triberr, but because it’s one of the best networking tools and places to meet other bloggers in your same niche. Of course, if you don’t care about that, that’s fine – however – you do need a Twitter account to use Triberr.

So What is Triberr? In a nutshell,  Triberr is another way to network with other bloggers. Only it’s unique and different in its approach. Once you join Triberr (more on joining later), whenever you publish a new post on your blog, everyone in your tribe will tweet it to their followers. And you do the same for everyone in your tribe. This all happens automatically, so there isn’t any extra work aside from setting up your account. If you feel like you need to know a more in depth explanation, you might try this link.

I don’t understand, I already tweet my posts. Why would I need Triberr?

Most people who have a blog are looking for more exposure. They might like more business contacts, they might wish to engage with new and different people or they might just want to reach a different audience than their current followers or even gain new followers. Whatever the reason, Triberr does all of those things. In the past 2 months since I have been on Triberr, I have  more than doubled my followers on Twitter with no extra work at all, found many new people to engage with (I like to talk to people) and the one single most beautiful thing is that I have made is new friends, some I have grown to care about as if I’ve known them my whole life. Triberr is amazing. It does however need to be used wisely.

But if all these people are tweeting my posts, doesn’t that mean that I will be tweeting all of theirs?

Let’s delve into that a little. First, yes – you will be tweeting all of your tribemates posts. That is the point of Triberr after all, more exposure for everyone. Can your feed look spammy? Absolutely. More of that in the next question – but here’s the deal – everything on Triberr is controlled by YOU. That’s the point a lot of people are missing. Those that get annoyed at people they are following because they are members of Triberr need to realize that the member you are following has complete control over how often they are sending posts through, and even what type of content that is sent through. There is nothing that requires them to stay in a tribe once they’ve joined it, and if they feel there is another tribe that is a better fit, or they’d like to start their own and screen people a little, that is all possible. But it’s up to them to do it. It’s all in the settings. More on that later.

People who use Triberr look spammy. They are just tweeting these posts all day long. Are they even reading them? How can I ensure that I keep MY Timeline from looking spammy?

Obviously I cannot speak for what every member of Triberr does. I can only speak for myself. For the past two weeks, I have been screening every single post that goes out. I read them first, I consider whether they would be appropriate for my audience on Twitter and then I make the decision whether or not to allow them to go through.

When you are a member of Triberr, you can set up how often you tweet your tribemates posts. I am in four VERY small close-knit tribes where members post at the most ONCE per day… I have my settings at tweeting every hour during the day, and then at night before I go to bed, I move it up to every 20 minutes and will often use the “tweet now” button to send any posts through that are time essential that are still waiting in the cue. I actually do the “tweet now” thing during the daytime several times too, if I notice a post that needs to be tweeted before it’s scheduled time. For instance, a post about an event that needs to be completed by midnight that night, an offer only good that day, etc.

In addition, you have the option of keeping members of your tribe on automatic or switching to manual.  If you switch to manual, all posts have to be approved by YOU before you send them out. You can check in at Triberr several times a day and approve posts to go out. The only problem that I see with using manual, is that you really do need to check in several times a day to ensure you don’t have a backlog of posts to approve. Don’t worry, when you do approve them – they don’t all go out at once. Some people set their settings to manual and then forget to come back and check. This is the quickest way to get removed from a tribe. Just sayin’.

In addition, you should also pay attention to what type of blogs/posts your other tribemates are writing and what kind of Tribes you are joining. For instance, I am in a food tribe, because I am a food blogger – it makes little sense for me to be in a tribe for weight loss when I am posting recipes that aren’t specifically for that group of people. As well as, they would have little place in my food tribe. That of course doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t work, but if you feel like your Stream is full of posts that don’t really apply to your readers, you should re-evaluate whether that tribe is a good fit for you. And you can always start your own Tribe on any topic you choose.

Okay, so I’m sold, I’d Like to Join – How do I become a member of Triberr?

Membership to  Triberr is by invite only.  There are two methods to get an invitation.

One of course, is that if you already know someone on Triberr, and you feel like their Tribe would be a good fit for you, you can ask them to send you an invite for their tribe. They can only send you an invite for a tribe that they are the chief of.  Your invite will show up via DM on twitter or via email. (more on this in the next question).

The second method, is to go to Triberr and request an invite from one of the tribes listed in the directory. This does not ensure you an invite, some tribes are already maxed out on numbers, or perhaps might not feel your blog is a fit for their tribe. Don’t get upset, simply try another tribe. When I joined, I requested to join three different tribes. I was actually SUPER excited to get an invite from the one I wanted most. About a week after I joined, one of the other tribes sent me an invite, but because I was already a member, and they didn’t have inbreeding unlocked yet, I could not join that one also.

Triberr has changed their front page and now you can go to each category and actually see the top members of the day and their most recent posts. You can also see what Tribe they are in. This allows selecting a tribe a bit easier. You can click on the name of the tribe and get a description of the tribe, info about requirements and see how many are currently in the tribe. You can also see the Tribe’s reach, which is the number of people that have the ability to see your post when you are a member of that tribe.

WARNING: Do not get caught up in a numbers game. At the beginning, I had a reach of over 400,000 people amongst the tribes I was in. I was terrified when I left those tribes that my stats would fall. Guess what? They rose. Because now I am in Tribes that match my niche, their followers are engaged – (it’s hard to be engaged with users when you have thousands of people you’re following) Originally, I was not getting near the number of hits I have gotten in the past couple of weeks after removing myself from those huge tribes. I will stress it again, use Triberr wisely – it’s not as much about the reach as you think, if you’re not in the right tribes. So while your reach may decrease by leaving a tribe that doesn’t fit, if you join up in another tribe that is more your niche, you’ll watch your stats rise. Did you know the majority of those new followers I have now, that I mentioned above were in the last 2-3 weeks. After I removed myself from 3 out of the 4 tribes I wound up leaving.

I Received an invite to Triberr, what do I do?

If you received a code via email or DM – your invite should read something like this:

I’d like to invite you to join my tribe (Made From Scratch) on http://triberr.com/ext/register.php. Invite Code: 0123ABC

The link will probably be different. Probably shortened.

Clicking on the link will take you to a page that looks like this:

I didn’t want to post my other tribemates photos, so normally there would be more members next to me on the page. You can click on each member and learn more about them – their twitter id, their number of followers and people they are following, their tweet count and their URL to their blog.

You will need to fill out the form completely and if your tribal code doesn’t automatically appear in the box(it should if you click on the link within your invite), just cut and paste it from the DM or the email into the box next to tribal code.

You will need to also input your Blog RSS Feed and there is a help button if you are not familiar with RSS or how to find it. Clicking on help will take you to a page on Triberr that will explain in depth all about RSS and how to find it. You need to make sure you set this up correctly, because otherwise your posts will not be imported into Triberr.  As a side note: I did notice that they have begun letting you know right away when the RSS feed isn’t correct, which should eliminate those problems.

Next, you need to accept the Terms.

The final check box on the form is “Keep me in the loop”. If you plan to check into Triberr often, you probably don’t need to keep that checked, but if you only plan to check in periodically, it will keep you updated on the happenings around Triberr.

If you have any trouble getting registered, make sure you are signed into your twitter account at the same time. Haven’t figured out why this matters, it just does. So it would be good if you just did it to save yourself a hassle later on.

O.k. I’m In. I’M Now a  Triberr member, what’s Next?

Sit back, write quality blog posts, and Triberr does all the rest of the work. Eventually in your twitter mentions, you will begin to notice other people, some you might not even know or connect to on Twitter, will begin tweeting your blog posts. At this point, what is happening, is that everyone they are connected to on Twitter is seeing that tweet, which is about YOUR blog post. Imagine if you are in a tribe that has 10 members, and each member tweets your blog post – that’s 9 people tweeting your blog posts beside yourself. And every single twitter user that is following that person will see your tweet. Lots more exposure. My stats jumped on day 1.

Let’s do a math lesson real quick, just to show you the numbers, since everyone is so into the numbers.

If you join a tribe of ten, there are nine people (besides you) that will be tweeting every blog post you write from that point. Let’s say that each of those tribe mates have at least 100 followers. (some have thousands, so I’m using a really low # here.)

Nine people, tweeting your blog post x 100 followers each – That’s 900 people that have the potential to see your post! Imagine the increase in traffic if you are writing quality, entertaining posts with catchy titles. Yep, it’s going to be good!

How do I navigate around on Triberr?

When you are on signed in to Triberr, at the top will be a menu bar. Here is an explanation of each choice starting from the far left.

Triberr logo – This will take you to the front page of Triberr and allow you to see which posts are popular, check in on other tribes and see what their members are posting and just let you have a general feel for what is happening across Triberr. It will look like this:

Tribes – This is where you will find the tribes you are in. When you click on it, a drop down menu will appear with the names of the tribes you are in. (It will look like the photo below) If you click on the tribe name, you will then enter the tribe. In a tribe that you are not the chief of, you can leave messages on the wall (tribal council), check out other members or change your account settings. In a tribe you have created you get the additional choices of seeing the applications for those that have applied to be in your tribe, check out any invitations you have sent or send an invitation or change the overall Tribal settings for your entire Tribe.

Bonfires – This is the Triberr forum where you can go to ask questions, get technical support, find new tribemates once you have unlocked inbreeding (more later), find people to guest post on your blog or just chat in general. It looks like this:

Search Bar – You can use this to find other members that are already on Triberr.

Home – This is where you’re going to find your Tribal Stream (the posts that are scheduled to go out that are from your tribemates), your Stream (your own personal posts) and any inbreeding invites you might have.

This is what your Tribal Stream will look like when you have posts running through it from your other tribemates.

This is what your own personal stream looks like:

The first column has three features – a replay button to replay your post again after it’s been tweeted, the pause button if you want to wait for it to go out later, and the button to stop your post from being tweeted entirely from you other tribemates.

Next column is karma – your other tribemates will give your posts karma – thumbs up and thumbs down.

Third column is a brand new feature to Triberr – it’s a Quality Score, which apparently measures the clicks you get from your other tribemates. This might be helpful in determining whether you have a good choice of titles, or perhaps even if you are in the correct tribe for you.

The larger fourth column shows the title of your post and when it was imported into Triberr.

The last column is a pie chart. You simply click on the pie chart – it’s nice to gauge how your posts are doing by individual tribe mates. I might get into that more later, but I don’t place a lot of value on it, though it is nice to see how many clicks you’ve gotten overall.

I like the tribe I’m in, but I would like to have my own tribe, how do I do that?

If you click on Tribes, you will then see a drop down box that shows the tribe that you joined, and a selection to add a new tribe. You will need 50 bones to create a tribe.

When you click on the ‘Add New Tribe’, you will then get a form that will come  up. It will say Begin Your Tribe. It will look like this:

In the first box, you need to enter the title of your tribe. Be sure and name it something catchy but that still tells others what its about so that people will be able to find you.

Next, select a category to put your blog under. You do have the option of adding your own category, but I am seeing a lot of duplicate categories created and it’s become a huge mess. I would try to find something that is already there unless your category is that different.

Next it will ask you to select your RSS feed you would like to use for this tribe. The reason it is asking this question, might be confusing to someone who only has one blog.  Triberr allows multiple RSS feeds to be entered into  Triberr but you can only assign ONE RSS feed per Tribe. This allows you to join different tribes for different blogs you might write.

Choose the RSS feed that you would like to use for this tribe. If you only have one RSS feed on the site, it will have already selected it.

Next select a twitter account. If you only have one, again this will already be selected.

The next side says Tribe Lore, the first box is for Tribe Description. This is the description you want others to see that tells them about what your tribe is.

Next box is Application Requirements. Use this if you want to specify “rules” for your tribe. For instance:

• You must have at least 500 twitter followers.
• You must post on your blog at least once per day
• You must have a blog that is primarily about Dogs.  (you might think if you name your tribe “All About Dogs” that only people who post about dogs will want to join. From my experience, this is simply NOT true.)

Next, add your tags that will help others locate your tribe and then pay your 50 bones and you have your own Tribe. Keep reading to figure out how to build your tribe.

What are Bones?

Bones are the Triberr currency. You start out with some free bones. You randomly earn bones by giving Karma (thumbs up and thumbs down) in different areas of the site. Currently it is in your main stream of your tribe mates posts and it has also been integrated into the Bonfire area. The last selection on the bar at the top is Bones. You can click on that to go purchase more bones. You need bones for several things on the site, so it is important to give out Karma if you want to earn them.

How Do I invite other users to my new Tribe?

The rule on Triberr is that you have to recruit 5 new non-Triberr members in order to unlock inbreeding. Once you have unlocked inbreeding, you can then invite other current Triberr members to join your Tribe. You also will not be able to join any other Tribes besides your initial tribe, until the Tribe you wish to join has inbreeding unlocked. It will cost 50 bones to join a new tribe.

If you are ready to invite non-Triberr members to your tribe, here are the directions:

Inside a tribe you run, your sidebar on the left will look like this:

Click on + Invite Friends and you will get a pop up box that looks like this:

This is for those that are not on Triberr, so fill it out and voila, they will receive an invite with a code that looks like yours did when you signed on. Remember that the person you are sending a DM invite to on Twitter, need to be following you or they will not receive the DM.

I have 5 new members in my tribe, and now I want to unlock inbreeding. How do I do that?

This video tells you exactly how to do it. Seriously. Watch it. I did – and I unlocked it and yep – I can invite anyone now. http://triberr.com/blog/how-to-do-inbreeding-on-triberr/

What is the Tribe Members tab for in my tribe?

This lets you see other members that are in your tribe.

I switched from automatic to manual, but I’m still having tweets send that I didn’t approve.

That is because before you switched to manual, tweets from your tribemates have already been scheduled. When you switch to manual, everything from that point forward will need to be approved. However, all tweets that were already scheduled will still go out.
If you are in a huge tribe(s) or if you have tribemates that post a lot during the day, you will have a greater chance of having many more posts already scheduled. But once those are sent out, you’re in the clear… you will then need to approve any new tweets/posts.

Under My Stream, when I click on the pie chart for one of my posts, why are some red and some green?

Green means they have been “Sent” and Red means they have “not sent” … yet.  There are instances where a red (not sent) could have some visits. Say for example if a tribemate clicked on the link to visit the site once or twice, but never sent it to their followers. Then you’d have a few visits, but it wouldn’t be officially “sent”.”  – Dan Cristo

On that note, Dan also fixed it so we can see exactly why a post didn’t go out. Possibilities are “waiting to be sent” – it is still on the schedule to go out for that user, “user declined” – that user declined your post for one reason or the other or “has been sent”.  This helps keep track of your data. I will say with my experience, even though a post is red, it does not necessarily indicate that it has not been sent – I’m just sayin’ – I actually was a bit obsessed with that for about a week, trying to figure out how it all worked – I discovered that sometimes it will say a post was not sent, but if you look in that person’s twitter feed, you will see your post. I don’t know why it does that, but it happens from time to time.

I am in a tribe and I am seeing everyone twice or others are telling me they see me twice, or I don’t see myself. What do I do?

Go to Tribe Members. At the  bottom of the tribe member list there is a button. Above the button it says “Re-add me to the members list?” and then the button says “Add Me In”. Click that and see if that doesn’t fix your problem. If anyone tells you they see you twice and you’ve already clicked it, have them click it on their end as well. This usually takes care of the problem.

Do you have more questions about Triberr? Leave them below and I will answer them as we go along.

You should also visit both Triberr School and the Triberr Blog.

Check out these articles from Dan & Dino as well:

• Why you shouldn’t be on Triberr
• New Interface with Video and Tutorial
• Why You Shouldn’t Be On Triberr

And for the record, I am not affiliated with Triberr in any way shape or form, except that I am a member of the website and I think that Dino is genius for coming up with the idea of Triberr and Dan is brilliant for making it come to life, and both of them for putting up with so much from the members.  I only created this Tutorial because the same questions keep getting asked over and over and I think many people are confused.  I also wanted a place to send my tribemates to help them out. So I’m just trying to help. Thanks for checking out this post.

A Comprehensive Guide To Using Triberr Wisely originally appeared on The Daily Dish Recipes on August 31, 2011.

This remains one of my top most popular posts on this site, but I would like to direct you to a place that is a better resource for Triberr information, tutorials and guides on how to use the site.
Just click on the graphic and it’ll take you straight there.

The Idiots Guide to Triberr Tutorial originally appeared on The Daily Dish Recipes on August 6, 2011.

I just discovered this fun blog hop from another new reader and I am loving it. I have already found more than a dozen super cool blogs I might not have ever discovered if I hadn’t have gone and checked out her blog! See… this blog hopping really works. Now, off to go continue checking out more blogs. I’m never going to get to sleep tonight. LOL

Follow on Friday – The Social Parade originally appeared on The Daily Dish Recipes on August 4, 2011.

As part of the SITS31DBBB Challenge, today’s assignment is that I have to create a list post. That’s kinda ironic since pretty much most of my posts on Daily Dish Recipes have a list in them. A list of ingredients.

I actually like list posts. They are simple to type up and easy for the reader to enjoy quickly.

I could post a recipe, and my list could be the ingredients, or the directions. I could post a list of my favorite things, I mean… why not… right?  However, in the spirit of the challenge, I’m going to do a real list post that does not include ingredients, a recipe or facts about me. *gasp* Can you believe it?

Post following in about an hour.

Day 2 – Daily Dish Recipes List Post originally appeared on The Daily Dish Recipes on June 2, 2011.

It’s Day 1 of the SITS31DBBB (31 Days to Build a Better Blog). I had some trouble deciding which blog I wanted to do this with, and while I did start it off on my other blog this morning, I made an executive decision this afternoon, to change it up and do it over on this blog. Plus, this poor blog gets neglected a lot.

So, my assignment today is that I have to write an elevator pitch about my blog. It has to be 140 characters or less. Well, that’s cool, I’m a Twitter Pro. LOL Right?

So this is the pitch I think I’m set on.

Busy mother of five picky eaters shows you how to save money on everything, eat better, and make delicious food your whole family will love.

So tell me, what do you think?

Day 1 – Daily Dish Recipes Elevator Pitch originally appeared on The Daily Dish Recipes on June 1, 2011.