ActiveRain awards members points based on participation and their individual involvement within the network and community. While there is a much more complicated and technical explanation of how the point system works, this post is to provide you a general overview of how points are earned and distributed that to ALL ActiveRain members.
ActiveRain points are earned based on a members individual activities and efforts. Points are accumulated over the duration of the Calendar week which "Starts Monday morning at 12:00am Central Time, and Ends Sunday night at 11:59pm Central Time."
The following are some ways you can earn points and move up the "Featured Member" ladder in your Local Area.
200 Points for each Blog Post (Max 10 per Week) (50 Word Minimum Required)
25 Additional Points when Post is added to Channels with a Topic
400 Points for Featured Post on ActiveRain.com (Excludes Posts Featured in ActiveRain Groups)
25 Points For Each Comment (Max 10 Per Day) (Comments on Your Own Posts Excluded)
25 Points for Each Reblogged Post (Max 10 Per Week - These do not Include Your Own Posts)
ActiveRain Profile Points (Building Your AR Profile will Build points)
Received Comments on Blog Posts (No Blog Post to exceed 450 pts.)
100 Points - Logging In To ActiveRain Each Day (This applies 7 days a week)
250 Points When Someone Accepts Your AR Invitation (Must Sign Up under Members Invite Code)
10% of Total Points Earned By New Members Invited By You (IE: Invited Member Earns 1000 pts. - You Earn 100 Pts.)
ActiveRain and Member Approved Contests - Points Will Vary (These show up as Bonus Points in your Point Summary)
Staff Awarded Bonus Points - These are issued by the AR staff (Member Humanitarian, Paying It Forward, Helping Others etc.)
Weekly Point Scenario: The potential of points available per week, per member would be as follows: 1750 for max comments, 2000 for max Blog posts, 700 for logging in daily, 250 for adding to Channels/Topics, and 250 for max ReBlogged posts. The Weekly potential of points would be 4950 (this does not include featured posts, comments received, invitation and percentage points, contests, and staff awarded bonus points.)
Point Disclaimer:The Points System created by the ActiveRain Network was developed and implemented to motivate, inspire, and reward members for their participation and involvement within the community. These points are subject to change at the discretion of the ActiveRain Mgmt. Team, with or without cause, warning, or notice.
"RainMaker" Special - Signup Here and Get New Member Discount
It's been a long and hot summer. I am pleased with the production and the happy homeowners I have placed and moved. Although, I do remember one day's showings in particular though and now have to "giggle" just a bit.
With a shrug and a sigh and an "oh, well...I'll try again" attitude.
Lake Livingston is a huge MARKET area. My lake is 88.000 surface acres of water in 4 (four) counties. It's big. Like Texas....it's big. Huge that is. An average showing will log over 100 miles with no problem.
Even though I am a seasoned Realtor and have driven many a road here....I still get a bit lost at times. Maybe it's my lack of sense of direction or....the sheer magnitude of acreage I am traveling....hmmm..
I would like to think the latter.
PICTURE THIS...LOL. 103 DEGREE TEXAS DAY ON BLACK PAVEMENT
So, we're driving a back road to the lake and I missed the turn-off. My clients were following me with their children and we were on house number five already. So, to make it easier I did a u~ie in the middle of the deserted road. It looked easy enough but then..........
BAM
My little car dropped completely off the pavement into a ravine that I didn't see....
Client, "well, Deb, you seem to have chosen the one and only place on the road that had a drop-off." We immediately began to work on getting my car unstuck (if there is a word like that) and we all failed miserably.
We tried adding weight to the front for traction...nope.
We tried placing rocks and sticks and debris under the tires for traction...nope.
We tried neutral with everyone pushing...nope.
We tried readjusting the tire direction to gain traction...nope.
I was then calling my roadside service. I said, "could you hurry?" and they said, ..."NOPE."
As it turned out, all of the local tow trucks were assisting an accident. The closest truck that could come was 85 miles away. That's the one they sent.
FINALLY...TWO HOURS LATER.
Unfortunately I was teetering on total destruction AND BLOCKING THE ROAD FOR NORMAL TRAFFIC (which wasn't too much thank heavens) but the disgusting shaking of heads that were looking at me will forever be in my memory bank. Ish.
My lovely clients hung with me till the end. We saw one more house. I managed to get them to leave earnest money and an option check for this house before we parted ways and agreed to wrap it all up by fax.....................
KICKER...
I never heard from them again.
Nope. Not ever. I still have the checks to remind me How "NOT" to sell Real Estate~
You have your Active Rain blog climbing the SERPS, then you start your Active Blog, outside Active Rain blog and then maybe you then send your posts to Facebook or you have a wordpress blog. Some of you then will take your posts that you have written and copy and paste them into your website. You are doing great, then suddenly- you read some blog or some comment in the blogosphere that you are posting Duplicate content and you may get the Google slap, ending up in the dreaded Google sand box.
Some bloggers get so fearful that they may stop blogging on Active Rain. You will also hear people who don't like Active Rain using the duplicate content spin to attack Active Rain bloggers. Well, pay them no mind. Look the other way. Walk on by.
Duplicate content that gets the Google discipline is highly likely not going to be yours. Below you can find all of this information from Matt Cutts of Google- in his own words. So don't take my word for it. You can have it right from the horse's mouth. Matt Cutts talked about duplicate content at the latest SMX Seattle conference.
The kind of duplicate content that Google is concerned with is the spammers that go out and use software to duplicate thousands of sites and then try to manipulate the search engine spiders to pick up their sites in SERPS ( Search Engine Results Pages). This is what happened to Squidoo several years ago. I was very active on Squidoo and my lenses were climbing fast on SERPS when we all were at the mercy of some hackers that got into Squidoo and started spamming the search engines. Now Seth Godin is a pretty famous guy on the internet, the creator of Squidoo, yet even he could not stop the Google slap. There was one guy in South America that produced 1500 Squidoo lenses with some software that were all spam! Matt explains more of what Google looks at for spam in the video I posted below.
When you are writing on your Active Rain blog and then click on the post to your outside blog and then add the same post to your website or your wordpress blog- there is nothing wrong with that. You can even tell the search engines which blog is your 'authority' site. But that is beyond the scope of this post. Let's just say that you do post regularly as stated in the beginning of this paragraph. What Google algorithms will do is to choose one to two spots on the search result page for your content. They will just ignore the others.
So if you are following me; it does not hurt you to post duplicate content, you don't get punished for doing so and you get more chances of Google picking up one blog or another. It is like you have put out the same bait in different locations to attract the spiders to your bait. When the spiders arrive they may choose one bait over the other. Many people get the notion that they are being punished because Google only chooses one or two articles with the same content but that is not a punishment. It is just a matter of bringing back to the searcher the best possible variety of matches.
Matt also states that seldom is Google picking up article submissions to article marketers like Ezine articles because they know that is an article from your blog or website. It is still great to do article marketing for the link value.
The goal of Google is to get smarter and smarter. For instance if you change like 10% of the content in one post or just change your keywords around in another post of the same- Google is now smart enough to catch that little trick that many marketers used. Now they will look at that as duplicate content and count it still as one article.
Happy Blogging!
The next SEO TO THE TOP Webinar begins on January 13, 2010- get your space reserved today, limited spaces for the webinar. Start your new year off right with a great SEO boost to the top.
I
had a listing that had some neighbors that were nice neighbors, but
their yard
was somewhat of an eyesore. It really wasn't as much the
yard as it was the
house. It also needed some touch up and my seller was willing to help
out.
You
see, in today's world my seller and I figured the reason for not
painting the
house and doing the up keep on the yard was because of the lack of
money. But,
it turns out that they just didn't see a reason too.
This
is where we went from being helpful to (apparently) offensive.
My seller
offered to pay to have his yard professionally cleaned up, landscaped,
and to
have the side of the house that faced him painted at no cost to the
owners next
door. But, I guess they didn't see it as a way to help him sell his
house, but
rather as an insult to how they kept their yard and house.
Now,
we had an angry neighbor who wanted to do what ever they could to make
the yard
as ugly as possible. Kids toys everywhere, lawn equipment
left out, yard debris
piled next to the fence, but the one that really said it all was while
trying
to show the home having their kid come out and pee on the fence.
I think we have a
problem. I said and we need to figure out what to do about
it. We went and talked to the neighbor and explained it
wasn't the seller that
was upset with the yard, they had lived next door to each other for 5
years and
he thought he was a great neighbor, but the feedback was saying
otherwise.
They sat down, hammered
out
their differences, and the yard got cleaned up, the
house painted and my client got his home sold. This could
have gone on for
forever, it could have gone to court. But instead, two level headed
people sat
down and discussed what the real issue was and worked out a compromise
over a
mis-understanding.
What
do you do when you offend someone? Do you walk away and ignore the
situation,
or be upfront and say your sorry? Or do you work something
out so they can
understand your side of the story? Lucky my seller did the latter and
it worked
out great for him, but it certainly could have been a lot worse! What
would you
have done in this situation?
Todd Clark - Broker / Sales Coach
Palazzo Realty Group
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739
Tigard Oregon
Homes for Sale,
Tigard OR homes for sale, homes for sale in zip code, 97223,97224,
Tigard Oregon Realtor,
Tigard OR Realtor, Tigard Oregon MLS Search, Tigard OR MLS
Search, 1st time home buying expert, short sale expert, avoiding
foreclosure in Tigard, helping families home, LivingBeaverton,
Townhomes for sale, home for sale, house for sale, Bull Mountain North,
Bull Mountain South, King City, Mountainview,
Greenburg, Summer Lake Neighborhood, Summerfield
neighborhood, Tigard neighborhood, Walnut Grove Neighborhood. Tigard
Oregon Real Estate, Tigard OR real estate, Todd Clark,
(503)524-9494, WWW.LivingTigard.com, www.IFoundYourNewHome.com,
www.SavingyouFromForeclosure.com
Consider this...I have a ton of kids, the youngest is 4 years old, 5 , 14, 17, 20 and well the rest are older. I love kids of all ages. Kids are not the issue. The Realtor taking their kids to work is the issue at hand.
Would I consider taking my children to work? NO! Not to the office if there were going to be others there working and definitely not when showing homes to Clients.
Why? Simply put, it is not professional. I want to be presenting myself as professional in my work. Which means when I'm getting out of the car to show a home, I do not have to stop by the backseat and unlatch a child from their carseat and walk to the door with my clients while telling little Tommy the rules over and over.
Where is little Tommy standing when I'm unlocking the door? Am I paying attention to him or my client? Should I ask my Client to keep an eye on him while gaining entrance? What am I saying to my Client?
Yes, this is a beauty. Tommy sit down. Do not hang on the railing. Yes Mrs. Buyer, I previewed...Tommy are you sitting? This is a great home.
Ok, we're inside. Tommy's being a nice boy... a regular 4yo. Are you watching him or are you conversing with Mrs. Buyer? Are you giving them your full attention, scanning your MLS sheet to answer questions being posed, or are you able to look for those cracks in the basementor flaws of any kind, or are you just concentrating on making sure little Tommy is quiet and doesn't touch anything?
I would agree that if your child was 15, 16, 17+ and a Client could perceive your child is in-training to follow your footsteps for their career that it might be okay with prior permission from the Client. But, other than that, it is not okay to bring children to work.
What does Mr. & Mrs. Buyer feel like when they leave the appointment? You most likely, at several points throughout the tour were unavailable at the moment they had questions. They may or may not have asked because by the time you returned from retrieving Tommy from another room, they had moved on and didn't remember to ask, or they thought they might be putting you out by having to take your attention from your child, get your sheet where you could read it, etc. Did you really look the home over for them and provide the level of service you normally provide without child in tow?
Bottom line, if you have a child with you, they have to know by sheer circumstance that they are not going to be priority. Is that fair to them? Even if you ask them beforehand? They're kind of in a spot...
Well if I say no, then she'll be mad or...
And last, but certainly, not least? How did little Tommy feel having to be jerked around and forced(?) to be on his best behavior for the hour or two while on tour?
Hopefully, you'll take this into consideration. It is so incredibly not ok to take your kids to work. Not if you have any intentions of presenting yourself in a professional manner. The two do not mix.
Do you want to capitalize on the benefits of Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, but just don’t have the time? Then you have come to the right place.
We create, customize, update, and manage accounts for agents on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. We manually update each account throughout the day, 7 days a week. We update them with relative content such as industry news, your business information, your listings, your recent company news, interesting articles, videos, quotes, etc.
Don’t worry, we place updates in a classy way…usually about 3 to 5 times a day, at varying time intervals. Our updates are compliant with proper company standards, and designed to broaden your contact base and build more relationships.
If that's not enough, we also filter incoming messages, and send you direct leads only.
If you already have an account on any of these 3 networks, we simply create another account for you that acts as more of a business presence. The accounts we create and manage make sure you are consistently promoting yourself and your services, and will leave you free for all your regular business.
Note: If you want to place an update or message, simply enter your message and it will post to all 3 of your accounts! We strongly encourage our users to have a presence on their account as well. Social networking is about creating relationships. We believe it is important that you contribute content as well, but we know that you may not have the time to be as consistent as you would like. That's where we come in.
Your accounts will be more consistent, more effective,
and save you at least 3 hours a day, 7 days a week
(60 hours a month).
We also offer other Groundbreaking Tools including:
The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
More than 250 million active users
More than 120 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day
Average user has 120 friends on the site
More than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
More than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day
Twitter
Currently the fastest growing social network community
Increase of 1,928% percent from June 2008 to June 2009
1 million unique visitors in June 2008, increased to 21 million unique visitors in June 2009
My Space
More than 110 million active users
1 in 4 Americans have a MySpace account
2nd largest Social Network in North America
8 million images uploaded per day
Do you want to take advantage of Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, but just don’t have the time?
Do you already have accounts but don’t keep them updated with interesting content everyday?
Do you want to keep your real friends separate from your business contacts?
Well…welcome to eHomePost!
We create, customize, update, and manage accounts for real estate agents on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. If you already have accounts, we simply create another one for you, giving you more presence and more chance to substantially build your networks.
As the Community Manager, I want to "Welcome" you to ActiveRain,
ActiveRain is a place that supports you and the need to create a successful and rewarding Real Estate presence and Blogging portfolio. Just by being a member here, you'll have access to many real estate services, professional contacts, real estate opportunities, and best of all - the camaraderie of like-minded people. Now that you're a member, create your profile, tell others about yourself and why you joined. Invite affiliates and other Industry Professionals. See who else is already here and say hello to others.
Once you have the chance to explore ActiveRain, read some Blog posts, make a few comments, join a few groups etc, you'll quickly discover why so many of our members are here. This is a network and community like none other in the Real Estate Industry. As a FREE member, you'll be able to enjoy the networking, the sharing of valuable knowledge and experience, and be exposed to a variety of tools that our members are using to promote and grow their business.
There is Plenty of "Value" Here: There are 3 primary FREE benefits that you derive from your involvement here on ActiveRain:
1. Develop and Foster Potential Referral Partner relationships. For the most part, many of us refer 'out of area clients' in the blind. We don't always know the agent on the other end very well. Our members have cultivated some incredibly deep and meaningful friendships with other members they would not hesitate to entrust their valued clients.
2. Having access to the sheer wealth of information that is being shared every day. It's like taking a drink of water from a fire hydrant. All of our members have learned more valuable, practical ways, using expert information here on AR that has had a direct and positive impact on their business. In some cases, more-so than some of the continuing ed classes they have paid for and traveled around the world to attend.
3. You are afforded a safe, non-threatening, encouraging environment to get your Blogging feet wet, and to learn the basics of implementing social media and social networking into your Real Estate Business and Marketing Planfrom some of the "BEST" Professionals and Experts in the industry.
A "RainMaker" Invitation for New Members
When you are ready to take your Social Networking and Blogging experience to the next level as a "RainMaker Member", here's a "no risk", "no obligation" test drive so you can experience for yourself the "value" and "benefits" the Rainmaker membership offers. Sign up for the first month for $5.00. This will give you full access to all that ActiveRain has to offer.
Give us 30 days to show you how you can benefit from the tools here, and if you're not completely satisfied with the results and rewards, then at least you'll have the peace of mind knowing that you didn't miss out on something that later you might have regretted. I'm 100% positive, you're going to be happy you joined. See what thousands of other members are saying.
The cost of having your content crawled & indexed by the search engines, and accessible to consumers is well worth the monthly subscription fee. Very few other platforms can empower you to achieve such excellent page rank as ActiveRain. The additional benefits of a rainmaker account including but not limited to your own "Multi-Authored - Custom Outside Blog", "Hit Router and IDX Lead Generating Solutions", and the "support and training" available from our staff, are just a few of the reasons that consideration to upgrade should be made by every non-rainmaker member.
You can't fill your car with gas for the week, for the price it costs you to be a Rainmaker per month. ActiveRain is a tool and vehicle to get the job done, and make life simpler, just like a car. In fact, you can be much more effective building business here than you ever could in your car, and at 1/4 the price. The value and power of the relationships you'll build here can't be bought at any price.
If you ever have any questions or need assistance here, please give me a call or email me. "I will respond and I do answer my phone." Enjoy your experiences and successes here. From the Staff and Support Team here at ActiveRain, we not only wish you the very best, we're here to help you achieve it.
Not sure where to start? Here's 3 Easy Steps: 1. Pick up the phone 2. Dial My Number 3. I will help you.
If I'm away from this Blog for any length of time, it's possible you might find me over on one of these other sites, I make my rounds every so often because I know that if you're not here, you're probably over there too! :-)
"RainMaker" Special - Signup Here and Get New Member Discount
It is kind of funny how one thing can lead to another on Active Rain... and how just reading the blog posts of others... can end up stimulating an idea that I end up making in a comment to one of those posts... which then leads to my using the idea from that comment... as the basis for a post, itself.
Like this one...
First... I read a post tonight written by Steve Shatsky... about how "It's a Sign of The Times" that so many people are living paycheck to paycheck. In my comment to Steve, I shared how important it is that all of us help to provide just a bit of whatever safety net we can... to help those in need.
Then... I read a post by Alice Linahan... titled "Help Someone If You Can." It, too, was along the lines of how absolutely important it is that we... need to help those in need... whenever possible. What a great thought !
My comment to Alice told a story that I want to share. Here it is...
Alice... I would like to share with you, if I may, something I saw some time ago on a Dr Wayne Dyer PBS show. It was also about helping people. Aside from any moral, spiritual good that helping someone does... Dr Dyer shared how helping someone... performing an act of kindness... actually has "healing effects" on the mind and body. But... there is more to it.
First... and Dr Dyer said that this was scientifically studied and measured... first... the person who receives the help... is overcome by such a warm and cared-for feeling, that certain enzymes are released into the blood... endorphins and other stuff... that actually produce a healing effect on the person helped.
But secondly, that feeling is ALSO experienced by the person performing the caring deed. They, too, experience the same degree of healing effects in their mind/body... from helping someone.
But... here is the surprise.Thirdly... if there is someone who actually sees... actually watches the caregiver tend to the cared-for person... that third person, too, experiences the same degree of mind/body healing effects... just from seeing someone help someone else. I thought that was just incredible, and when I think about it, it just makes so much sense.
By the way... special thanks to both Steve Shatsky and Alice Linahan for inspiring me. Active Rain strikes again. :)
It is kind of funny how one thing can lead to another on Active Rain... and how just reading the blog posts of others... can end up stimulating an idea that I end up making in a comment to one of those posts... which then leads to my using the idea from that comment... as the basis for a post, itself.
Like this one...
First... I read a post tonight written by Steve Shatsky... about how "It's a Sign of The Times" that so many people are living paycheck to paycheck. In my comment to Steve, I shared how important it is that all of us help to provide just a bit of whatever safety net we can... to help those in need.
Then... I read a post by Alice Linahan... titled "Help Someone If You Can." It, too, was along the lines of how absolutely important it is that we... need to help those in need... whenever possible. What a great thought !
My comment to Alice told a story that I want to share. Here it is...
Alice... I would like to share with you, if I may, something I saw some time ago on a Dr Wayne Dyer PBS show. It was also about helping people. Aside from any moral, spiritual good that helping someone does... Dr Dyer shared how helping someone... performing an act of kindness... actually has "healing effects" on the mind and body. But... there is more to it.
First... and Dr Dyer said that this was scientifically studied and measured... first... the person who receives the help... is overcome by such a warm and cared-for feeling, that certain enzymes are released into the blood... endorphins and other stuff... that actually produce a healing effect on the person helped.
But secondly, that feeling is ALSO experienced by the person performing the caring deed. They, too, experience the same degree of healing effects in their mind/body... from helping someone.
But... here is the surprise.Thirdly... if there is someone who actually sees... actually watches the caregiver tend to the cared-for person... that third person, too, experiences the same degree of mind/body healing effects... just from seeing someone help someone else. I thought that was just incredible, and when I think about it, it just makes so much sense.
By the way... special thanks to both Steve Shatsky and Alice Linahan for inspiring me. Active Rain strikes again. :)
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.
ActiveRain awards members points based on participation and their individual involvement within the network and community. While there is a much more complicated and technical explanation of how the point system works, this post is to provide you a general overview of how points are earned and distributed that to ALL ActiveRain members.
ActiveRain is a place that supports you and the need to create a 
;)
;)
