300,000+ Pieces of the Active Rain Puzzle

The Active Rain Expert Real Estate Blog Site. For all your Real Estate Questions & Needs

Fellow Rainers, this blog's for you. Yes, it's for you.

I know, I know. You're probably wondering how a post about my 300,000+ points could possibly be about you. But it is! Bear with me and let me paint a picture for you.

To reach 300,000 points, I've obviously written a lot of blog posts, and made a lot of comments. I've even won a couple of contests. But the snapshots of our history pages are what really tell the story of our time spent here. It could be viewed as pieces of a puzzle. To elaborate on this theory, I'm going to offer you a challenge. I challenge you to take a close look at your own blogs' snapshot. But wait! Not yet!

Before you start analyzing and comparing your progress to anyone elses', let me frame this for you by sharing some of my journey since I joined Active Rain, and my experiences along the way.

DISCOVERY:  When I first discovered Active Rain, it was from a Tampa Florida agent who told me this is where her company was getting most of their real estate leads. (She was considering a move to the Daytona Beach area at the time) This agent didn't send me an invitation. She just told me about the site, and how great it was to be working alongside REALTORS® from around the country. (We've now gone international. Woo Hoo!) So I decided to check it out. I immediately found blogs from knowledgeable, professional REALTORS® who were sharing their experience and expertise with anyone who was willing to listen and learn. (At that time, it was mostly just REALTORS and a few mortgage professionals.) So I jumped right in and started blogging and commenting, and inviting others.

POINTS:  Now I know we hear some people say that points we get from Active Rain are not important to them. And for some people, that's probably true. After all, our primary goal here is to make contact with new real estate clients through our blogs. But let's remember, it takes people with specific skill sets or personalities, to succeed in the real estate industry.

Most real estate professionals are... self-motivated, driven to succeed, and dedicated. (No points needed to keep us blogging for business with those characteristics.)

We have to be constantly watching and learning and adapting to a changing market. (Still no points needed to keep us learning from each other on this forum.)

BUT... there's another piece of this puzzle to consider. It's that which comprises the nature of a real estate professional. We ARE competitive!

Let's face it. We have to be competitive, in order to negotiate the best "deal" for our clients... to stay ahead of our competition (even if we are friends with that same competition)... and to be successful in our business endeavors. And this is how points are a piece of the puzzle we call "Active Rain". In my earlier days here, my competitive nature enjoyed competing for those little points, and making playful jabs at my fellow AR bloggers as we competed for our points. But we didn't even realize that those points were a blessing in disguise. Because while playfully competing for points, we were blogging and commenting... and working!  And as we worked/blogged, we created a powerful source of real estate information for all who needed it. And with that came the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that brought our blogs, and web sites to the tops of the search engines. And more real estate buyers and sellers found us through our blogs. Wow! What a great idea, to give away those little points! But enough about the points. Because we're still piecing together a puzzle. And we have more pieces to explore.

CONTENT:  I've already mentioned "Quality Content". And this is an important puzzle piece. As Active Rain continued to grow, unfortunately we were found by some puzzle pieces who were not a good fit. We obtained some pieces who didn't see the big picture of the Active Rain puzzle... Some people will always look for the shortest path to success (it doesn't exist), and a way to "game" a system. These people are pieces of a different puzzle who got lost on the way to their home puzzle. (I'm sorry, but I don't have the directions to it.) These lost puzzle pieces posted useless content, stole other bloggers' materials (BTW, the original blogger is the owner of the material... it's automatically copyrighted... and this includes images!), and complained about not getting more points. *insert rolling of eyes and dramatic sigh here.* I won't even elaborate further. Because thankfully, most of them have gone. I hope they finally found their own puzzle where they belong. (And I hope they all stay right there.) But I digress. The bottom line is, there is no substitute for Quality Content. If we want to keep all the good things I've already mentioned, we need to only post Quality Content! This is not the place to gossip and complain and act like children. It's a place where many of us are proud to be at home amongst other professionals who also want to learn and share their expertise. We want to help our sellers' sell their homes; we want to provide buyers' with wise counsel, and we want to be the expert source of local information for anyone who needs it.

COMMENTS:  Near the beginning of this post, I challenged you to take a close look at the"snapshot" of your own blog. We're still not ready for that yet. So before I continue with this section, I'll mention those who are excluded from this next line of thinking.

There are some bloggers who have a talent for communicating in a way that many of us will never have. If you're not one of these, welcome to the majority.  Not having this specific gift does not make you inferior! (WE have other gifts that they don't... so there! LOL) And it's certainly not a reason for anyone to let that deter them from posting their own blogs. But the chosen few will have MANY people who subscribe to their blogs, and anxiously await their next postings. There are many comments on those blogs, and the blog posters' time is spent monitoring those comments, and posting their next nuggets of information that we would not otherwise have, thus making it difficult for them to read and comment on many other blogs. But for those of us who are not among those chosen few, we should be reading and commenting on other blogs, and supporting each other. And proof of this should be reflected in your personal blog snapshot. We should especially comment on listings! Listings posts rarely have comments. But it's the comments that use specific words from the post and include the location of that listing that help that post rise higher in the search engines. So help each other as much as you can! Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!

As for commenting on regular blogs:  Have you ever spent a long time putting together what you thought was useful, and genuinely helpful information for your potential readers, and not received a single comment? ... OK. All puzzle pieces listen to me now (this means you)... this should never happen! So I'll quickly break this into two points.

1. Blog Posters:  Make sure you have a catchy, applicable title on your blog, so others will be curious enough to read and comment. And use pictures! A wall of words will not generate much attention. (Dare I mention grammar?)
   
2. Blog Readers:  Take a few extra seconds to think of an encouraging, applicable comment to leave on the posts you read! A little bit of encouragement can go a long way... and remember that the public is reading your comments too!! Always remain professional!
   

FEATURED POSTS:   Being featured is great. But it's not the Golden Goose. Just because a post isn't featured, does not mean it wasn't an excellent post!  But if this is something you seek, just refer back to my section on Quality Content. And don't forget, if you write Localism posts, you can be featured there as well. It just doesn't show up in your "snapshot". I think I've had more Localism Featured posts than I've had featured on AR.

At this point, you're now ready to take a close look at the snapshot of your blog. As you do, here are the questions you should be asking yourself, and the thoughts you should consider....

• Are you commenting regularly on the posts of other bloggers? Unless you post multiple blogs per day, your "comments left" should be higher than your "comments received". This is where you discover whether or not you're truly supporting your fellow Rainers.
  
• Are you blogging quality content? It's so important to make sure Active Rain remains the premier location for the most accurate and current information on real estate. Through our daily work, we have our fingers on the pulse of the real estate industry. Sharing our experiences is far more accurate that anything the media can conjur up!
  
• Are you including your own quality pictures in your blogs? It's actually fun to drive around town and take photos of all the interesting things you'll find. You can then use those photos as the foundation of your Localism posts.
• Are you a quality piece of the Active Rain puzzle, with a blog full of superior real estate information, for which you can be proud?

For my final thoughts, I am proud to be a contributing part of Active Rain. And I'm proud of the quality resource we've created here. Let's continue to take pride in our blogs, and make sure we keep Active Rain the most accurate and trusted source of real estate information, for anyone with real estate questions or needs.

Written by Lisa Hill; a proud piece of the Active Rain puzzle.

(To take a "snapshot" of your blog stats, try this freeware program, called "MWSnap". This is the program I used to capture the stats of my blog, as you see them in my post.)

For all your real estate needs, make a Smart Choice and contact Lisa Hill with Adams Cameron & Co., REALTORS®.