Washington, Are YOU on a quest to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?  Get Recognized? 

This post is a result of two posts by my friend Richard Weisser down in Georgia.  The first post was "How do you expect to get drenched in the rain if you don't even want to get your feet wet?" dated 5/21/09 in which he offers 6 suggestions to those of us here in Active Rain.  In addition he also offers his personal guarantee "So, for those of you that want to succeed at blogging, I offer you this challenge. Before you throw in the towel, write at least one hundred quality posts before you make your value assessment. It takes that long to develop the correct skills and disciplines and also to create a body of content large enough to have a significant SEO impact on your business.  Now that is some guarantee wouldn't you say?  Richard then follows that post with another post titled "Achieving national celebrity status as a result of ActiveRain blogging becomes a reality! (of sorts)" where he talks about a recent interview with Realtor Magazine on line where he was interviewed about blogging for business.  So, IMHO, Richard is not only a celeb but one that knows where of he speaks.

With the numerous posts talking to newbie's here in Active Rain on how to be a success in their blogging venture to improve their visibility to the public I am setting out on a quest.  I am not going to suggest things to newbie's or those that are less active on AR; I am on a search for some of these folks for introduction to our AR family.  Here is my 3 step plan:

1. Go on a state by state search and post between 5 and 7 people each Saturday
2. Then you the MEMBERSHIP will be able to see and encourage them by responding to their most recent post
3. A NEW qualification, the post must be done since January of this year.

The end result will be, hopefully, an increase in activity with more members becoming visible.  Now there is a really BIG problem with this plan.  I will not be able, my rule, to suggest those that have not done a post and posted their picture to their profile.  You see there won't be any secret agents, lenders, stagers, inspectors, etc. shown.  Sorry, if you want to be considered I need to see who you are, sorta like your picture on your business card.

Today I am looking at the state of Washington, where Active Rain has a total of 6216 AR members as of this morning.  I would say that  Steven L. Smith #1 and  Rich Jacobson #2 could have some competition coming up behind them.  So, say hello to:

Clarissa Candelario with RealEstate.com in Bellevue, WA.

Dwight Bickel with Rainier Title in Edmonds, WA..

Brent Taylor with John L. Scott Real Estate in Centralia, WA..

Shirl Aronson with Keller Williams Realty in Olympia, WA..

Don & Susan Karstedt with Milennium NW Real Estate, Inc. in Lake Tapps, WA.

Mark Daughtry with CASCADEwest Building & Home Inspections in Redmond, WA.

Elizabeth Caldwell with Liberty Lake Insurance Services in Liberty Lake, WA.

Be looking for your state coming soon to a post near you.  Next I will be off to  Wisconsin; if you know of someone celebrating a birthday in Wisconsin next week just email their name to me and I will acknowledge one person.

Please stop by and encourage these guys and gals and let's see if we can improve some of the participation.  Thanks for stopping in.

If you are looking for a very simple way to move up in your standings for the state that you live in, here are three small suggestions:

Make one comment on someone's blog post.....Just pick one of the Featured Posts and read it then comment on what you read and

Complete your profile and then if you are looking for other suggestions,

Click here and here and here for more help.

Thanks to Active  Brad Andersohn and  Jeremy Blanton for their contributions.  BTW, don't let these guys scare you they are really docile.