I have a hunch that not as many people are going to be able to participate because I get the sense that not as many people are doing this. Doing what? Glad you asked. How are you using your blog to enhance your existing relationships with clients and prospects?I had the pleasure a number of months ago to speak with one of our local ActiveRain members at the REBarCamp held in Seattle at the Zillow offices. One of the questions I asked him was how he was using his massive library of content to reach out to his existing prospects? This was a 200,000 point plus member and he must have had 300-400 posts in his archive at the time. I assumed he must be leveraging all that content with his existing database or sphere. His answer? He wasn't. He was only thinking about his blog in terms of how it could help him find his next client or prospect. This was a little bit shocking to me (but obviously not shocking enough to do something about it then). It's come up a few times in the past week in conversations that I've had with other members as well. So I thought it was time we all put our heads together and we wrote about how each of us is using our blogs to reach out to existing prospects and clients. Think about it for a minute. How many of you have people out there who are in some stage of looking? How many of you out there have leads (prospects) that have landed on your website and come back to look for houses every now and then? How many of you have former clients out there that you don't do a very good job of communicating with? Do you think you could use some of the content you have written to enhance those relationships? I think you can and I think you should. From what I have seen, people are so focused on using their blog to attract that next prospect, they forget how powerful it is as a tool to enhance their existing relationships. The Challenge:Write a post detailing how you have used the content of your blog to reach out to an existing prospect or client.(The key word is 'detailing'....we want examples, a play by play of how you utilize your library of content). This is going to be tough for some of you because you are not doing this. I don't think I'm going to audit you if you were to come up with an idea and write about that idea. That would be just fine. For those of you that don't have any idea.......you won't get the reward.....but your reward will be much larger. You will learn how to use your content to enhance relationships with your existing prospects and clients. The Reward:5000 points for every blog post that details how to use your blog to enhance relationships with existing prospects and clients. (limit one 5000 point reward per person). I am going to judge the posts. If I think you threw something together in an effort to get 5000 points, I may only give you 500. However, there will be no first, second and third. Every post is eligible to get 5000 points. What would be some examples? Did you complile a bunch of your posts together into a relocation packet? Do you send that relocation packet to every lead that registers on your webiste? If so, share with us what you put in the package. Share with us how you determine when is the right time to send that to them. Did they appreciate it? Do you use your blog posts in a monthly newsletter that you send to your past clients? What kinds of posts are you including? If you have someone you are working with ask you a question, do you use that opportunity to highlight their question in your blog and then send them the link instead of sending them an email response? Do you post the link on their facebook wall instead of emailing it so that their friends can see as well? I don't know how you are using your past posts to enhance your relationships......and I'm not alone. We want answers!! Leave a link to your post in the comment section of this blog. I would ask that you have them in by Friday of next week, October 30th at 11:59pm Central time. (If you never got your points for the last series challenge, please do not bring it up in the comments here. You may never get them. There were quite a few people who couldn't follow the rules and it became a disaster to try to get all the points awarded. Please email me personally and I will get them awarded for you) Do you care what I'm doing and thinking? (I can not for the life of me imagine why) If you do, you can find me on some of these places........but remember, if you are offended by anything you see or hear, I didn't force you to follow me!!:
I don't generally write about anything other than ActiveRain. Every once in a while I'll write about my kid, but for the most part I try to keep my personal views and opinions to myself. I don't want them reflecting on my company (I have pretty strong views and in my personal life I have no issues sharing them if someone asks.........ok, sometimes I'll just butt in and share them even when I wasn't asked). Have you guys seen this? A Wells Fargo executive in charge of Foreclosed Commerical properties decided to take full advantage of a home that had been foreclosed on in Malibu. The $12,000,000 home was forfeited by a family that was swindled in the Bernard Madoff Scam. You can read the entire story here, here, here or here and probably 1000 other places......I won't rehash it for you. My post is a plea to John G. Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo to do something about it. Dear John, You must move swiftly. This is not going to bode well for your company if you don't. You have the ability to let the public know that even the appearance of impropriety will not be tolerated within your company. Most stories of foreclosure are heartbreaking enough on their own, let alone knowing the folks who forfeited their home lost it in the Madoff Ponzi scheme.......but really??? One of your Senior VP's was using the place as a Vacation home and throwing parties there like she's the Great Gatsby?? I'll bet she wasn't the only person from the bank at those parties. What do you think? I'll bet there were more than a few people that knew about this. If you find out that was the culture in her division of your bank, what are you going to do about it? This is not acceptable. I'm not a shareholder in your company, I'm just a concerned member of the real estate community. If I was a shareholder though I would be demanding to know the reprecussions. And I'd want to know them quick, because this story is going to reach MILLIONS of people in the next 24 hours. You are a Minnesota native, from the midwest, the heart of America. How do you think the folks back in Minnesota would feel about this? Let's just pretend this happened in their community. Not a $12,000,000 beach house, but a magnificent $860,000 place in the Highland area of St Paul. And the Senior VP of their local branch was throwing parties and carrying on in the house as if he deserved to. How do you think that would sit with them? Do you read the news? Do you keep your ears and eyes open to places like Facebook, Twitter, ActiveRain (you really should be here keeping the pulse of the people). In case you haven't heard, banks are getting a pretty bad rap right now. Yep, your reputations as a whole are kind of soiled. Here is a great chance to rise above the other banks slopping around in the mud and do something that shows your bank is different. Or, you can hide behind statements like 'we plan to conduct a thorough investigation'. Buddy, the investigation was done by the Associated Press. I would suggest your investigators call theirs and you compare notes. The damage to the reputation of your company is being done RIGHT NOW. Where did I see this? Facebook. Do you know how many millions of people are reading this and hearing about this right now? Be decisive and swift, it's your only chance to make this a positive. 'Wells Fargo is not like these other institutions. We do not take advantage of our customers and if we have rogue employees doing such, they will be punished to the full extent of the law. This employee has been suspended until the completion of the investigation'. That is what you should be saying. John, I don't think you guys in the ivory tower understand how fast information is moving down here on the street. You don't even have a handle on how your own employees are using social media. I'd extend an invitation to help, but I've already done that. I hope you are able to set an example of how to deal with something of this nature within your organization because lots of people are looking at you to see what you're going to do. What will you do?
Do you care what I'm doing and thinking? (I can not for the life of me imagine why) If you do, you can find me on some of these places........but remember, if you are offended by anything you see or hear, I didn't force you to follow me!!:
Please leave the rest of your links here for the 'Series' challenge. All points will be awarded at the conclusion of the challenge. Please try to follow the directions I put forward in the original post. If you do it how I asked, it makes it MUCH easier for us to award the points. If you can't follow directions, don't be surprised if you don't get any points (I'm just sayin.......because they were not that complicated) Do you care what I'm doing and thinking? (I can not for the life of me imagine why) If you do, you can find me on some of these places........but remember, if you are offended by anything you see or hear, I didn't force you to follow me!!:
Really, anyone could participate in these challenges, and we have many non real estate agents who have jumped on board and written about neighborhoods or local businesses in their market. I can certainly see, however, that these challenges are more specific to our real estate agent members. So this time we are going to let our non real estate agent members get involved. We have quite a variety of profile types on ActiveRain: Loan Officers, Home Stagers, Inspectors, Appraisers and many others. So after putting my head together with Steve and Janet and quite a few other people who have expressed an interest in participating in these challenges, I think we have come up with something so everyone else can get in on the points smogasbord. The Challenge:Over the next 14 days, I will be giving 1000 points per post for posts in a series designed to educate your local consumers about some component of your business. SAY WHAT!?!?? That seems a little ambigious doesn't it? Yes, yes it does! The problem is obvious......what theme or topic could I come up with that covers such a wide variety of businesses? So my theme is to write a series that highlights SOMETHING, ANYTHING. I don't care what you write about, but the series must have a theme and you must stay consistent with that theme. Here are a few examples: Home Stagers: If I was a home stager, one of the components I would want present in my blog would be a series dedicated to 'before and after' staging jobs of specific rooms. My seven part series (or if I only had time for five, my five part series) would consist of
I wouldn't just throw up some before and after pictures either. I would do a great job of explaining why the before pictures were an undesirable presentation of a particular room. Then in the after photos I would explain what we did to make the room a presentable room. I would create a series of blog posts that I would be PROUD to send to a potential client or referral partner showcasing my staging abilities. Inspectors: If I was a Home Inspector, I would do a series of common issues that I come across when doing inspections in my market. The posts would have pictures of what to look for or what I see. There are a few inspectors that do this on a regular basis and their posts are outstanding information dedicated to their particular markets. Loan Officers: If I was a loan officer I would do a series about the available loan products that I offer. I would even ask permission of some of my former clients who have used these products to allow me to use them (or their scenario) in the post in order to exemplify how this product was a good fit for their family. My seven part (or four parts if you don't have the time to do all seven) series might look something like this....
(ok, ok.....three years ago I could have rattled off a ton more options and I know they are out there today......if you're a loan officer you know what they are)
What if I'm a real estate agent and I want to do a series? Go for it! Maybe you want to do a series on 'Getting Your Home Ready to Sell'. Or maybe you want to do one on 'The process of buying a home'. You could even use real life scenarios from a current client you are working with (with their permission of course). What if I want to do a series helping real estate professionals understand email marketing? GREAT!! If your business is helping real estate agents, by all means, write a series of posts that caters to your strengths and your audience. What if I want to do a series about nothing real estate related? I don't care.....but, I wouldn't advise it. The point is to get you conditioned to write blog posts that help your business. If you want to write a series about 'how to potty train your child', that's fine (and I will read every word as Kelan is currently leaning how to use the big boy potty.....but he's actually got the hang of it so I'll just be looking for tips on getting him to stop faking at bed time) but it's not really the point. Here are the rules:
If you are not sure if your series will qualify, you didn't read the post close enough. I don't really care what you write about. I just want it to be a series. Write about something you are passionate about. Write about something that is going to help your clients. Write about something that is going to help your peers. Write about anything......as long as the posts have the same theme, and the name of your series imparts that theme, you should be fine. Feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly if you are unsure about anything I have written here. I only bite when asked 'where are my points' (and only if it's the 20th time I have heard the question for that particular day) and I promise to help you if you ask for the help. (IMPORTANT: If you have not read Brad's post about writing to attract consumers and search engines, READ IT NOW!!! If you are not using the tips that Brad gives in this post you are only hurting yourself. I don't mean use them when you feel like it, or use them every now and then......USE THEM EVERY POST ALL THE TIME!!! They are that important. You should work this stuff into your series. Make sure to use geographic terms in your titles specific to your market! Do IT!! Don't ask questions!! Just do it!!! Don't be surprised, if I see you not using his advice, when I send you a message taking away points and reminding you. The loss of points pales in comparison to the loss of traffic and consumers if you aren't doing what Brad suggests in that post.) COMMENTS ARE CLOSED ON THIS POST. SEE MY BLOG FOR THE CONTINUATION POST TO LEAVE ADDITIONAL LINKS Do you care what I'm doing and thinking? (I can not for the life of me imagine why) If you do, you can find me on some of these places........but remember, if you are offended by anything you see or hear, I didn't force you to follow me!!:
What you haven't heard about this????? This is the place we moved after the last post got very slow in loading. We have a ton of new people joining this challenge as well so I won't be surprised if we end up needing a third blog post so everything loads in a timely fashion. Please enter your links below for the Local Business Challenge. The other post has had comments closed I will not award ANY of the points until the completion of the challenge. If you email me asking where your points are I will reset you to '0'.........hahaaha! (Sorry it probably wouldn't be that funny if I actually did that but....I just get a lot of email and try my hardest to respond to it all......and a contest like this tends to put my inbox on overload) Do you care what I'm doing and thinking? (I can not for the life of me imagine why) If you do, you can find me on some of these places........but remember, if you are offended by anything you see or hear, I didn't force you to follow me!!:
A few weeks ago, we launched the Ambassador program on ActiveRain. One goal of the program was to work with our most passionate members to welcome, and educate all new ActiveRain members. We hoped that once educated, a high percentage of these new members would choose to upgrade their account to the Rainmaker level. Happily, this is exactly what happened: a very high percentage of new members contacted by our Ambassadors chose to upgrade! However, even with our Ambassadors' help, we were unable to reach all corners of the Rain and properly educate and welcome the sheer amount of new members joining every day. We found ourselves still short of finding a way to educate and train all of our new members. Going back to the whiteboard for new ideas, our big epiphany came when we realized that our best loan officers build their businesses by creating solid relationships with successful real estate agents, and this program would provide a perfect opportunity for loan officers to take the first step in building those relationships with new members of ActiveRain. Compensation would be valued not only monetarily, but in the depth and success of the relationships established through this opportunity. Here's the facts:
If you are interested in additional details, and you are a loan officer, you may contact Doug Ching with ActiveRain, who is spearheading this effort. You may also leave your question here, and Doug or I will answer it for you as quickly as we are able. As always, we truly appreciate the support and commitment our members have given to this community, and with the combined efforts of our Ambassadors, Confirmed Loan Officers, and Members alike, ActiveRain will continue to change lives in the Real Estate Industry. Aside and finally, the Ambassador program is still very much front and center for us, and the Confirmed Loan Officers Program does not affect our current Ambassador program. We believe the main strengths of the Ambassador Program is on a grassroots level, fueled by Ambassadors doing what they've been doing all along: giving presentations in their local areas and adding value to the network through increased member rank Do you care what I'm doing and thinking? (I can not for the life of me imagine why) If you do, you can find me on some of these places........but remember, if you are offended by anything you see or hear, I didn't force you to follow me!!:
Last week and early this week we have engaged in a crash course on our hyper local markets. We got hundreds and hundreds of great posts submitted by members from Alaska to Florida, Maine to California (oh yeah and Hawaii too). These posts covered every corner of the country and shined a light on hundreds of great neighborhoods and communities. Many of the members participating were able to see their posts skyrocket to the top of Google search results for their market. I couldn't be any more pleased with the response or with the successes that were reported. Ready for the next challenge? (I know the first one isn't quite over, but hear me out)
The same thing is prevalent today in mom and pop shops all across the country. It's true in your towns and cities. We have small business owners with little understanding of how to expose their businesses on the internet. Many probably think that there is no room in their budget to have an online presence. Many others are no doubt cutting corners in other parts of their business to come up with the monthly fees they are being charged to have a listing on some online directory, as if that constitutes a presence. And, unless the person reading this blog post (yeah, I'm talking to you) is a networking superstar (don't worry, we can learn this stuff) many of these small business owners have no idea they have a patron who is capable of exposing their business to the almighty Google giant. Who is that patron? DUH!! It's you. You don't think the only thing ActiveRain is capable of ranking well for is neighborhoods and communities do you? Over the next two weeks, I am going to challenge you to write about local businesses in your area. These are businesses that, like you, know how to treat their clients. These are businesses that you rave about to your friends and family. These are businesses that you would send your next client toward in an instant, because you know they would walk out the door satisfied. These are businesses that you yourself frequent and for whose service you would personally vouch, because you've been there and you've tried that.
Of course, you are going to want to follow Brad's advice on these posts as well. We can rank well in the search engines if we make a decision to do it!! You can make that decision by studying Brad's post and incorporating the stuff he talks about into your blog posts. Or, you can make a half-ass effort and wallow in mediocrity, unfortunately I will probably still give you the 1000 points, but 1000 points won't pay your bills. Quality relationships with local business owners will go a lot farther in doing that (paying your bills that is) (Folks, I am not kidding. That post I just linked to.....here, I'll do it again, is probably one of the top five posts you will ever read on this network. If you haven't taken the time to read it and digest it, and you are still blogging....you just DO NOT get it. If you don't do what Brad is telling you to do then you are just blogging for fun, not for business) A few Caveats for receiving 1000 points per post:
For some reason I don't expect the level of turnout that we had in the first challenge. My guess is that it is easier to see direct tie in for writing about local neighborhoods and sub-divisions. I sure hope that just as many, if not more people take advantage of this though. Using your blog as a tool to get involved in the local community is the stuff that can take your blogging efforts to a whole new level. Your blog can become what it was meant to be, a complete guide to living in your town and a way to reach out and be proactive marketing your business and yourself. Ready, Set, GO!!! (Well get ready to go anyhow. This one is going to take some planning. Who is first on your hit list? The butcher? The baker? The......do they still have candlestick makers? Of course they do!! In fact, I saw a great one at the Puyallup fair last year. Too bad when I JUST Googled 'Puyallup Fair, Candles' I had a tough time finding the business I was thinking about. If I had written about them they would be right there. Since I haven't I spent about 4 minutes browsing through this and that and then I finally gave up......but man, those were cools candles! I could seriously go on and on for hours........haha........) EDITED: This post is closed for comments. You can leave your links here for the rest of the challengeDo you care what I'm doing and thinking? (I can not for the life of me imagine why) If you do, you can find me on some of these places........but remember, if you are offended by anything you see or hear, I didn't force you to follow me!!:
Things were getting a little slow, weren't they? Put your links here for the rest of the Hyper Local Blog Post Challenge Comments have been closed as this contest ended on July 29th at 11:59pm Central Time We are in the process of awarding points for all the links that have been left on this post. Do you care what I'm doing and thinking? (I can not for the life of me imagine why) If you do, you can find me on some of these places........but remember, if you are offended by anything you see or hear, I didn't force you to follow me!!:
......Write a blog post using Brad's suggestions for a neighborhood in your city. We ran a real estate brokerage prior to starting ActiveRain. This is where Matt Heaton and Jon Washburn, ActiveRain Co-Founders, sharpened their search engine optimization (SEO) skills. One of the things that we found was that the more specific a person was when they searched online, the closer they were to actually making a purchase. Say what? We generated lots of leads. At some points we were generating over 100 per day in the state of Washington. Our site ranked well for lots of general city level searches. Searches like:
But we also ranked very well for more long tail searches, especially neighborhood level searches. Searches like:
Semiahmoo, English Cove and Bankers Corner are all neighborhoods within their respective city. Now back to one of the things we found. The more specific a person's search, the closer they were to actually making a purchase. Depending on what study you want to look at, the average internet consumer starts researching real estate online about 8 months prior to buying their home. People that landed on our site, who eventually bought a home with a Brio agent, that used a neighborhood term in the search, took an average of 121 days to buy a home. That's four months, half the time of the average person searching for real estate. So what? So start writing more blogs targeted to the neighborhoods in your market. These are the blog posts that allow you to reach the top of the search engines. The competition for these hyper-local terms is much less crowded.
Briorealty.com still ranks #1 for the search term: 'English Cove Redmond' (and English Cove Redmond real estate) and we ha ven't touched that website in four years. If an ActiveRain member had written a post about that neighborhood using Brad's suggestions I have no question they would rank #1. There are only 3640 competing results for this term. Now remember, way fewer people will do a specific search of this nature compared to 'Redmond Wa Real Estate' but don't you want them to find you when they do......since they are going to be closer to buying something? Here are some great examples of posts focused to a neighborhood level. Some of these posts actually focus to a specific sub division of homes within a city:
A few Caveats for receiving 1000 points The post must be written AFTER my post. Meaning you can't just dig up an old post. The post must be a minimum of 300 words. I'm not going to count but consumers want good information and you need to be able to explain the essence of the community.....it should be somewhere close to that length. You need to READ BRAD's POST. You need to study the post. You need to implement his suggestions. He gives some SUPER HELPFUL pointers that I would like you to adopt in your post. The purpose of this is not to get 1000 points. The purpose is to write a blog post that ranks well in the search engines and focuses on a specific neighborhood in your market. Use this exercise to incorporate the things Brad discusses and get busy dominating hyper local search results in your town. Since you read all the way to the end, a bonus........you can do one post a day for the next week. And I'll give you 1000 for each post. (that's 7000 points total) Don't half-ass it. This isn't for the points. This is for you to get better at writing neighborhood level posts that target consumers. Every time you write a post, I need you to come back and leave a link to the post. That way I can award your points. So in seven days this post should have TONS of links to quality neighborhood level posts. The link should be the title of your blog post linking back to the post. That way, if your title is no good, we can help you fix it. Of course, YOU ARE GOING TO READ BRAD'S POST so your titles will be great. It's late in the day today. You have until tomorrow night July 23rd at 11:59pm (CST) to get your first link up. Then every 24 hours after that you can put an other link up for the next six days. 7 days in total ending on July 29th. If you do one tonight, then don't do one tomorrow.....since the 22nd and the 23rd are counting as one day. Ready, Set, GO!!!! (EDITED: If you are not a real estate agent. Hang tight. I am working with a few people for a series of similar challenges specific to the other professionals on the site. I think I have a pretty good idea for Stagers and Mortgage people and even inspectors. Appraisers I'm a little stumped on what to do for you guys. Any ideas?) I HAVE TURNED OFF COMMENTS HERE. YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR LINKS ON THIS POST HERE Do you care what I'm doing and thinking? (I can not for the life of me imagine why) If you do, you can find me on some of these places........but remember, if you are offended by anything you see or hear, I didn't force you to follow me!!:
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Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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Alright folks, it's time again for me to 
I have run a series of 1000 point challenges for our members over the past few weeks. The first one was designed to get everyone writing about 'Hyper Local Neighborhoods and communities' in their market. The current one, set to end Wednesday August 12th is designed to get our members out meeting local business owners and giving them some internet exposure.
Maybe I don't want to write about products because they change like the wind.......fine, write about Getting approved for a home loan. That would be a great series. Take each step and break it down so that a consumer can really get the details. Add in pitfalls that often trip an application at that point in the process. Include personal experiences of how not preparing to have your rental history verified led to a delay in funding. I don't care what you write about....you are much more qualified than I to understand what your consumers are in search of and what kinds of information they are most lacking.
Local small businesses are the cornerstone of the American way of life (at least that's my opinion). I was raised in a small town, Ashford Washington (pop. 267 as of the 2000 census). My parents owned the only grocery store in town, Ashford Valley Grocery. My Grandpa went to breakfast every Saturday morning with a few of his buddies at a place called Flo's, the only diner in town. Since Ashford is on the route to get from Seattle to Mount Rainier, our town had no shortage of cars passing through on any given weekend. Flo had a couple of daughters that helped run the place, but I am pretty sure that if we had the internet back then, Flo wouldn't have had a clue how to allow someone to find her if they were searching for a 'place to eat in Ashford WA' on their iPhone as they neared the base of Mount Rainier.
The primary purpose of this challenge isn't really to be able to get your blog into the first position on Google for the businesses name (although my guess is a few of you will). The primary purpose isn't to get your blog post into the first position for keywords that are relevant to the businesses you chose to highlight (although in conjunction with geographic terms, I'm sure some of you will get your businesses to rank for key words). The primary purpose of this post is give you a great reason to walk in and speak with a fellow local business owner in your neighborhood, town or city. It gives you a chance to let them know what is working in your business and how you have chosen to differentiate yourself from the 10 other agents in town, the 100 other agents in town, or even the 1000 other agents in town.
