What is Localism and How Can I Make It Work For Me?

What is Localism and How Can I Make It Work For Me?

Today's post is two fold:

• Help real estate salespeople understand the value of Localism as a marketing, advertising, and community service tool.
• Educate home-buyers, visitors, and investors as to the power of Localism in locating markets, homes, and learning about a new locale, or their current surroundings with the convenience of their home computer

What is Localism?
Localism is where folks gather to share knowledge about their community, be it about employment, restaurants, entertainment, or where they live and play. In a word, it's about networking:  establishing the bonds between neighbors near and far.

So How Do I Find It?

It's as easy as typing in www.Localism.com.  Here's the page it takes you to.

Notice that there are featured communities, Top Communities sorted by the amount of information posted about them, Top Cities, and Top Neighbors (I'll explain about that a little further on)

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you can see how it divides into states:

I chose to investigate Arizona for the purposes of this post and what it can do for you as a consistent blogger.

Notice that there is a current blog, Top Neighbor, Pictures of Arizona, and Map feature.  If you have recently posted about something in your community and chose the Localism tab, it will show up on the blog roll.

Pictures are gathered by Localism from anyone who has thus labeled a photo in one of their Localism blog posts and offered as a slide show for visitors.  (One of Mike Jone's beauties is shown)

I wanted to narrow my search criteria further, so I clicked on the top of the state page where it said COUNTIES.

Again, the blog, top neighbor, pictures and map are featured on the page.  I narrowed my County Search to Tucson by clicking on the top menu bar where it said BROWSE CITIES. 

Notice that there is an opportunity to SPONSOR a Localism page, and you can find out more about sponsoring from your Active Rain Staff.  The cost is minimal and the exposure is huge.

However, for FREE, and who doesn't like free, you can work to become a Top Neighbor.  What is a Top Neighbor?  Top Neighbor spots go to the most active members blogging in Active Rain in their hyper-local communities.  Post high quality local content.  Keep a steady stream of information coming, be it posts or photos. Dedication to blogging will have Localism noting you as a Top Neighbor.

I also checked out the Tucson "suburb" of Marana, the nearby community in which I live, work, and play.  I tend to feature it often in my blog.  Look!  Top Neighbor - I must share enough information.  :)

Within your city, you will note that neighborhoods are listed, again on the top menu bar tab.  Note that the number of blog posts published will affect the font size of the popular communities, as well as cities, ranked in order of information available:

I selected Gladden Farms:

Again, the reason for today's post is to show professionals that if they choose, they can literally saturate their community with their love and knowledge of the area.  Some folks do it by advertising listings, others by highlighting events and community news.

As a reader interested in learning more about an area - you can search through the Localism menu choices as outlined above.  You will get lots of stories and information.

Or you can simplify and simple Google it.  I went to Google and typed in "Localism Marana".  Here are my results:

Agents and professionals, as you can see by the results captured above, you, too, can use your local knowledge to find and create a niche for your marketing efforts.  Time, dedication, and a love of community can help you Google your way to the top.

Buyers, visitors, investors - use Localism as a way to educate and entertain yourselves and get to know your community through the eyes of those who love the area.  Find out today, What is Localism and How Can I Make It Work for me?