I am preparing for my first Rain Camp coming to Dallas February 16th, which is great being a short drive from Oklahoma City. Probably what I am most interested in is not the great instruction that will happen that day, it will be that I get to see in person, so many people who I have followed on their Active Rain post as well as their comments on mine. For me this is just the beginning of a journey because it is only one day and that is not enough to deepen the friendships I have been privileged to create with so many people I haven't met. For anyone in Oklahoma reading this who is not on this network, or not coming to Dallas, let me tell you about the Power that is here and I want to write about it with this definition: Power is the ability or capacity to perform or act effectively.
My first Taste of Active Rain. I had been a member for a year here without really participating in discussions. But in November of 2008 I was at a very low point in my life. I was already into receiving radiation at MD Anderson in Houston. Despite great support from my girlfriend, and those who emailed me well wishes, I felt that real estate was a distant memory. Then I started blogging and commenting. I was reading great post about important issues with intelligent suggestions. I was also finding my voice and I wanted to make sure that contributed back. I went from feeling alone in this business to having thousands of compatriots at my fingertips. At that point I saw that I had a future and that turned out to be true.
First Contact. In February of 2009 I got my first comment from a member. I cannot adequately describe what that meant. All of a sudden Active Rain was talking back to me and I had been discovered. Then I got my first featured post and tons, actually about 42, comments came in. I wanted to start work on my Oscar acceptance speech. That may be an extreme statement, but all of you who had a first feature know what I mean. People out there want to know what you think even if they don't agree. It wasn't just someone in my office, it was someone from a far distant land called Oregon. These first two examples are about the Power within the community. it is learning, sharing, and caring. I could not finish this unless again for the umpteenth time I said thank you for your support and prayers.
Localism.com. This is an Active rain benefit that gamblers would call an ace in the hole, it puts you in a superior position. As I Google search terms for my market I see localism.com post that are still on the first page more than a year later. Yes we are an international bunch, but Active rain has given us the ability to use this platform in a hyper-local way. When we had an Active rain challenge about blogging about businesses, my localism post where at the top of Google. Too often we think like Realtors in out marketing. Localism brought me in contact with people looking for a dry cleaners, or a fish store, dog treats, or a new bike. Localism is the Active Rain hidden giant. It will only grow, and it gives us the ability to market with looking like we are marketing.
Comment Indexing. I did a recent posts on something that blew me away. I have been commenting almost every day for a year and a half, but something magical started to happen. On my Google Alerts, I started to get in notices that my comments were being indexed. Talk about power! It is one thing to see an Active Rain post indexed in a matter of minutes, but comments? Incredible. By participating I give the poster an extra boost, and if my comments add to the discussion someone will see that I have knowledge that they may want. Regardless if you have blogging fatigue, or you wonder what to post, just comment. You will be found.
The Series Challenge Part Deux. Active rain sponsored another challenge about us posting about a specific aspect of our business, and I did a 7 part series. Two days after I finished, I used geographical search terms combined with my topic just to see if anything reached Google. In two different cities including Oklahoma City, the states largest, I had five of the post on Page one and the other two on Page two. I would love to tell you that Google thinks I am special, but I think they think I am in conjunction with Active Rain. If Active Rain had not sponsored that series challenge, I would not have had that Eureka moment.
Final thoughts. The power here is all about reciprocation. Active rain is powerful on the blog post because we help give it Power. If only 10% of us blog per day, that is over 17,000 blog post via this network. If we have an idea that we think might work, we get feedback from our peers and we get to know them here, and we give them back gratefully in equal measure. This place will only keep growing. it will pass 200,000 members this year and I want to do everything I can to help get it there. I will make a prediction. Within three years, this will be the Number One real estate portal on the web, bigger than realtor.com, Zillow, and Trulia. It will be done organically versus huge advertising dollars. Think about it, like Facebook Active Rain spends no money on newspaper, pop up banners, or television, yet 172,436 people belong as of this post. You want to prove it to yourself that this is powerful? Just go to Google.com, put in some real estate search terms and see what happens. It will be Active Rain answering the door.
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