Building Your Active Rain Network

Building Your Active Rain Network

The following suggestions are just my opinion and what has worked for me. That said, I have built a sound network of wonderful friends on Active Rain that I interact with almost every day, have talked to many on the phone, text and exchange emails with. Start building your AR network today!  

1. If you notice the same circle of members commenting on a blog that you visit regularly, there's a good chance you too share common interests so check out their blogs.

2. You don't build relationships on Active Rain with cut/paste comments and in fact this has the opposite effect. People know it's a "point's comment" and some even take offense.

3. Be sincere and consistent - if you find a member who puts out great posts, check in regularly and comment. You will usually find they will start visiting your blog as well.

 4.  If you have a question or want to get to know more about a member - shoot them an email. Don't write a mini post on their blog- make it more personal.

5. If you find yourself visiting a certain member's post frequently, subscribe to their blog. Once you've established a group of subscriptions visit these members often, if not daily and interact with them.

 6. If you visit a member's blog over ten times in a short period of time and they never visit your blog, rethink if they are worthy of your time. No relationship should be one sided - IMO.

7. Look at groups that resonate with your interests and join them - likeminded people become friends quickly because they share common interests.

8. When members take the time to read and comment on your post, thank them by visiting their blog and leave a comment. It can be time consuming at first, but you will build relationships much faster. It's all about reciprocation, like any other friendship.

9.  Let people know who you are. Write a variety of posts and include some that tell us who you are and what you're all about. I'm a home stager, but have many wonderful relationships with realtors, inspectors and photographers because we share the same values, interests, humor or causes.

 10. Share your knowledge or expertise - write posts with tips & advice. Keep it short and sweet, most of us don't have long attention spans or a lot of time- we like the Reader's Digest version.

Lastly, be patient - the old adage, "Rome wasn't built in a day" applies to Active Rain relationships. They take time to build - hang in there and before you know it you will have a sound and meaningful network. It wasn't that long ago that I was lucky if I had 2 or 3 comments - we all start out on an even playing ground.