Calling The Shots, It's MORE Than Just A Hobby!
Anyone who has followed us for any length of time knows we take our participation here pretty seriously! As an engineer, I enjoy numbers, and milestones, tracking the metrics, seeing what's working, what's not.
But for the most part, We're not so prone to posting about milestones as when we first started off. The points flow smoothly as we post daily, and we rolled over the 300k mark and passed 500 posts as quietly as possible. But there's one metric we will trumpet a bit, because even though it's OUR number, it's really more about the community involvement. So as you've probably already guessed, that metric is the Called Shot!
And if you're new to Active Rain and didn't know, Called Shots are what you get when you suggest a post for a Feature and it IS actually Featured. You get five tries a day, then the Suggest button goes gray until the next day's counter starts at midnight. Collect a total of 5 Called Shots, you get the Purple Star bling under your comment photo. There are no minimum number of suggests by the Active Rain members that guarantee a post will be featured. Zero suggest to 10, doesn't matter. Pressing the suggest button is like ringing the bell at the deli counter....just a way of catching the staff's attention. If the post doesn't fit their criteria, it WON'T be featured, but you made the attempt, and that counts for something.
And we know the whole Featured post thing has some folks all upset, and all I can say is, IF YOU'VE GOT A BETTER WAY, TELL BOB STEWART. On more than one occasion, he's made that comment. Personally, I appreciate our opportunity to be involved, and in my perception it has spread the featured posts around more than pre-Suggest button days.
So hitting 500 Called Shots yesterday IS a milestone we'll talk about. We EXPECT to hit 100 additional Called Shots about every two months because we actively look hard for posts that are worthy of the Feature. We subscribe to some great writers who routinely post fantastic information and opinions, and we go off our subscription list to look for more info that needs shared, or a conversation that needs more voices. Sometimes it's NOT about the post itself, but the comment stream.
Some days we don't get any Called Shots (kind of a bummer), other days we'll get 3 or 4 right (YEAHH!!). Sometimes it's an Active Rain friend of ours, sometimes it's a newbie, we just like getting the best of the best out in front of the rest of the community.
It adds value to us, the process keeps us more involved. We read MORE posts than we otherwise might....and guess what? We LEARN more as we read more. It's been beneficial to our business to have a more thorough understanding of what is out there in the rest of the real estate world. New technology, new techniques. We're made some fantastic virtual friends that we someday hope to meet.....all started with the search for a reason to press that little gold button!
So keep pressing the button! Consider it a community service Pay It Forward for all the great information YOU find in the Rain. You win, the author of the post wins, the whole Active Rain community wins! :)
And keep on writing the good stuff!....and time for us to go write something Local!
Liz and Bill aka BLiz
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