Active Rain came to town! 

The room was full of people last week when the Rain Gang showed up.  They came armed with T-shirts, goody bags and a ton of great technology tips and practical applications for them.

This day wasn’t for the weak of heart, the information came with the force of a fire hydrant unleashed on a hot summer’s day.  No one complained we just wrote as fast as we could taking notes and hoping against hope we could remember it next week!

The excitment of learning is not the only attraction at Rain Camp, it's about getting to meet people you've never met in real life before. 

Anyone who spends their time on social networks will know this to be a fact, when you finally meet for the first time someone you've been reading or chatting with, they hardly seem like a stranger.  It's more like a big, happy family reunion.  Everyone is hugging and laughing and having a good time. 

So Raincamp goes like this, you arrive, stake out a place to sit then go find people you want to meet.

When the session started there was hardly time to take a deep breath, there was so much information coming at you it was hard, really hard to keep up.

Most find the best way to deal with it is to grab what they can and let the rest pass.  There will be time to fill in the blanks later, as what we did catch will take plenty of time to impliment, so why stress!

Here’s my Top TEN Tips from RainCamp:

1. Brad Andersohn’s presentation on the Top FREE Real Estate Tools 2009 http://slidesha.re/2rHprP
2. Find out what influencers are talking about on Twitter, use Klout
3. Active Rain now has a University where each day there is another interesting presentation you can tune into from the comfort of  your chair!
4. Agents are still using Archtelecom to capture leads with success
5. 74.1% of the population is  now online, 32% spent their spare time on the social web, 94% home buyers are between 24-44, 32% found their actual home online.  If you aren’t online you don’t exist. (I said that! So Google Me already!)
6. Ben Kinney is a real Pain you might want to friend him on Facebook and find out why. (hint, he sells a lot of real estate)  Ben likes to SaveAWorm  Facebook is really about building community and marketing your listings (not so much!).
7. Save time by syndicating your posts to go from one network to the next. Then all you need to do is show up and respond to the comments.
8. Twitter is a great way to prospect for leads, if you know how to set up searches. Geo chirp
9. Feed your website to Wordle, it not only gives you a cool looking graphic, but you can see what words you focus on. Hopefully the consumer and not egotistical you!
10. Build your brand, become and live the Purple Cow
    

Rain Camp will come back again soon.  They plan to branch off into other specialties so it's not always about social media.  The thought is next time we'll talk REO's or FSBO's or some current topic that will bring another fire hose of new ideas that come from actual practitioners and not some trumped up, sales trainer who never actually sold anything (at least in this millennium). 

Just bringing that up because I'm oh so tired getting fed the same old hash and rehash.  Give me fresh ideas, today's learning is about colaboration, community and sharing.  We know the business, now we want to learn how to leverage the tools of social media so we can provide better service to the consumer while keeping our sanity.

Raincamp was a good experience for me.  It exceeded my expectations, and I can tell you I've been to many industry events of the course of my years, I don't say that lightly.

Thanks to Jonathan, Bob, Brad, Lauren and Ben.  You out did yourselves, here's a pat on the back!

kk

P.S. After the session, @Mizzle was spotted taking the Purple Cow concept all the way! Go Mizzle!

Broker Associate, ABR, CRS, GRI, ePRO, PMN, PNG
The Berkshire Group, REALTORS
3801 E. Florida Ave., Suite 400
Denver, Colorado 80210
720-279-4599 ~ direct     303-953-5362 ~ fax

Selling Colorado Since 1984, Serving the Following Areas:

Denver Home Search	Highlands Ranch Home Search	Parker Home Search	Englewood Home Search
Littleton Home Search	Search Denver Foreclosures	Greenwood Village Home Search	Relocation to Metro Denver