Are you going to Inman connect? How many people do you intend to meet? What areas of knowledge do you want to boulster? Are you along for the ride, or do you have a plan? Whether you lobycon it, or buy a full honking pass to Inman Connect San Francisco, there's little dispute that this event is one of the most opportune chances to learn and network with peers in your industry. Will you make the most of it?

Here's my plan so far for the first week of August.

Monday whatEVAHcamp - I planned an informal unconference of sorts with several of the people I consider thought leaders in real estate. Two hours of idea sharing with feedback from all.

Tuesday RE BarCamp - Man, if you don't know yet, where have you been? This marks the first anniversary of the first event. Many people told me last year's event was the best part of their week at Connect 08. Don't miss it.

Wednesday - Breakfast. Yep, I'm having breakfast. With who? I don't know yet. it's my goal to have breakfast Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with someone I've never sat down with before. Interested?

Thursday - Bob Hale speaks on agent ratings at Inman Connect from 3:40-4:25. Bob is one of the smartest guys in real estate. This is the session I want to see the most.

Friday - It's all about the halls baby. While I might be burnt out on trade booths and seminars by Friday, I still plan to spend as much time as possible in the halls, and meeting people. If you see me, come introduce yourself. I WANT TO MEET YOU.

Saturday - Siteseeing. I love the bay area. I'm actually going early and staying late to take in the sights. But it's one thing I don't intend to do during the week days.

Thousands of people are coming to connect F2F. Grab the bull by the horns. You never know when you'll have another chance to form relationships with a possible referral source from across the country. Online relationships are awesome, but turning them into F2F relationships strengthen them that much more. Are you going to Connect? What's your plan?

I've been away from posting on Active Rain for eleven months. So long, that every link in my profile was wrong. So long that my avatar was outdated. So long, that I forgot how to post here. But the truth is, I was never really here, even when I was here. I think it's kind of funny that the folks here at Active Rain gave me this badge. I guess it's time to start living up to it.

A Brief Introduction

I've been blogging in the real estate industry since January of 2005. I created lenderama, Denver Modern, Lucid Ninja, and at least a dozen blogs that failed. Over the years, I've contributed to the Inman blog, The Real Estate Tomato, Realty Blogging, and most importantly The Real Estate Weenie. I currently write for REALTOR Magazine's Speaking of Real Estate Blog. I'm also the host of REBarCamp.com, the online home to a grassroots real estate focused unconference.

Now, I'm the Manager of Social Media for the National Association of REALTORS. I'm helping the association to communicate more effectively on social media platforms like twitter and facebook. But with so many REALTORs here on Active Rain, it's high time that I start participating in the one social network, dedicated to our members. So here I am.

Connect With Me

I'm on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and more. More importantly, I really want to connect with you face to face. I'll be in San Francisco the first week of August for RE BarCamp SF and Inman Connect. If you see me, come say hi. I'm also doing a webinar for REALTOR Magazine with Doug Divitri and Mariana Wagner for agents just getting into social media. If you're new to the game, I hope to see you there.

Can I Get Your Advice?

Okay, so back to my early point of never really connecting here. I tried a few times, but never really had to much success. So let me put it to you. What would you like from me? How can I best contribute to this community? I'm all ears.

We receive the occasional email asking if REBlogWorld is available ala carte. That is, just our event on Friday, and not packaged with Blog World & New Media Expo. We can’t do that. But I wouldn’t want to offer it, even if I could.

We’re supremely confident that sessions we have set up for REBlogWorld are going to impress, but as much as I’d like to brag, Friday's sessions are not the best reason to come to REBlogWorld. It’s the rest of the weekend that is really gonna blow your mind. The sessions being put on during blog world are coming not just from the best bloggers in real estate...

They’re coming from the best bloggers period.

Here’s an example. Lani Anglin-Rosales is well known for bringing great blogging and technology advice to our industry. Ever wonder where she gets it? In a recent post on Agent Genius, she comments that “Darren Rowse is kind of my go-to guy when it comes to blogging”. She’s not alone. During the course of the blogger interviews I did on Blog Fiesta, at least a dozen top real estate and mortgage bloggers mention Darren’s ProBlogger as one of their favorite blogs. Same goes for Brian Clark’s Copyblogger.

Wouldn’t you think that what the top real estate bloggers are reading for inspiration and advice might be a good place for you to visit as well?

Darren Rowse and Brian Clark are speaking at Blog World.

But it gets better, because that’s just one session out of dozens. Robert Scoble is speaking. Elisa Camahort is speaking. Chris Brogan, Liz Strauss, Nicole Simon, and a hundred more top bloggers will be there.

When RE.net SEO Experts are giving you advice, where do you think they get it from? Michael Gray and Lee Odden are in most SEO minded blogger’s feed readers. They’ll be at Blog World.

When you started your real estate blog, how many of you went out and purchased the McGraw Hill published book, Realty Blogging? Paul Cheney, it’s author, is speaking at Blog World.

There’s sessions dedicated to Twitter, Facebook, hyperlocal blogging, legal risks, podcasting, dealing with trolls and spammers, search engine optimization, and building relationships online.

Any of this sound useful to you?

With all this content coming at you, you won't need to party for you're head to hurt. Oh, but we're gonna party anyway. This is Vegas after all.

We’ve been asked on several occasions how we were able to attract so many of the top RE.net bloggers to REBlogWorld. It was easy. We gave them a ticket to the rest of the show. Our speakers know who these people are, and what they can learn from them. Shouldn’t you?

REBlogWorld early bird pricing ends FRIDAY! Now is the time to act. Active Rain Members save an extra 20% by entering ACVIP (case sensitive) into the promo box before checkout. Register here.

... should't Louis do a little more than this in his effort to evaluate it?

I questioned it's usefullness as well. But once I started using it, really using it. I finally "got it".

 

I'm tcar on Twitter. Let's connect!

We'll have more than a dozen speakers at RE BlogWorld. Here are the first three

Teresa Boardman

Author of the St. Paul Real Estate Blog, Teresa Boardman is a great blogger in many respects. She has a lethal sense of humor, she’s a great writer, and she’s an even better teacher. But what truly set’s Teresa apart from her colleagues is her ability to leverage her photography skills in her marketing efforts.

Mariana Wagner

Mariana is an ideal example of how to generate real business in a web 2.0 world. In addition to achieving market leading organic search results on her main blog, Colorado Springs Real Estate Connection, she also markets at the hyperlocal level with several neighborhood blogs. More...

Dan Green

It pains me to say this, but Dan Green is, in my opinion, the best mortgage blogger. It pains me because I’m a mortgage blogger myself. I’m feeling far less pain tonight though because Dan has agreed to share his strategies on authoritative blogging at RE BlogWorld. More...

Stay tuned to our blog for the latest updates!

OK, so you've made it to Active Rain. That proves at the very least that you understand the importance on building your online reputation, and the power of Internet marketing. So, no what?

Join me at RE BlogWorld to find out! This three day conference on September 19-21 at the Las Vegas Convention Center is part of the biggest new media convention and trade show in the world. On the 20th & 21st you'll be able to take advantage of BlogWorld's offering of over 50 seminars on SEO, podcasting, video and much more. To kick things of on the 19th, we're bringing content specific to the real estate and mortgage industry from industry leaders with a proven record in new media marketing.

 

Subscibe to our blog for the latest details and speaker announcements. We're announcing our first speaker tonight, and anyone who's spent any time at Active Rain will certainly be psyched to see this speaker featured!

I used to sell web sites to mortgage brokers in the Pre-Google erra. At that time, being on page one was everything, and we knew how to do. One problem though, Google came along and changed the game. It's because of this experience that I've never been a proponent of SEO as the only, or even the most important way to market a blog.  

 

In article in Tech Crunch today reflects my opinion that while Google's search model dominates today, it's future is uncertain.  

I speaking at the REALTOR Rally in Denver next week on Client Relationship Management and am curious as to how many of you currently use email to keep in touch with your client base. I really appreciate any feedback on services or software that you use as well.

I wrote about Zillow Mortgages' initial entry into the mortgage industry last night. Is anyone going to sign up?

 

If so, I'd like to feature your experience on lenderama.  You'd be a part time contributor, reporting throughout the year as to how it's working out for you. If you're interested, visit this page for details.

Are you planning on attended Inman Real Estate Connect in San Francisco this summer? Come a day early. We're planning a free event for RE.net.

RE BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendee. Plus, It's free! Visit our wiki and our blog for more information. I also set up a AR group for the event.

 

If you're planning to attend, please RSVP!

We need to have a pretty good idea as to how many people are going to show up. Please fill out this form if you think you might go. Here's a list of people who are already planning to attend.