After 423,000 Points and 712 Posts in Two States, I Still Find Value in ActiveRain

My journey through ActiveRain has spanned four years, with profiles in two states (Minnesota & Wisconsin). And in that time, I've managed somehow to accumulate a total of almost 425,000 points. I've written 712 blog posts on AR and those posts have received over 6100 comments.  And somehow, I've managed to get featured sixteen times.

An old ActiveRain friend messaged me a few nights ago, asking why I had divided all those points between two states, using two profiles. From the beginning, I made a decision to be on ActiveRain in both local areas where I have real estate brokerages (Wayzata Lakes Realty in Minnetonka, Minnesota and Madeline Island Realty in LaPointe, WI). These are two separate and distinct offices with a very different market. My La Pointe office on Madeline Island serves a recreational and second home market. And the Twin Cities area, including Minneapolis and Saint Paul, is clearly a primary home market.

It's true that I'd have almost 425,000 points if I'd done all this blogging and commenting in one state. That means I would be ranked in the top 240 bloggers on ActiveRain, out of 215,652 total members, if I had carried out all my activities on AR using a single profile and account.

I needed one blog to concentrate mostly on Localism posts and to promote the Madeline Island real estate market on the Web. And I needed another distinctly separate blog to deal with more global issues and to speak to the primary home consumer in the Minneapolis - Saint Paul metropolitan area. One blog alone wouldn't have been enough to perform those two very different tasks.

Over time, the advantages of blogging in two states on ActiveRain have outweighed the disadvantages. In Wisconsin, I'm featured in both Ashland county and zip code 54850, and ranked 7th in the state. In Minnesota, I'm featured in both my county and zip code, and ranked 11th in that state. Who could possibly complain about that?

Putting aside the mundane issues of points and rankings, the biggest advantage has been the value that has come from participating in this great community. ActiveRain was the platform from which the effort to amend Article Ten of the Realtor Code of Ethics was launched. And in August of 2010, I was delighted to read an article by Stacey Moncrieff in Realtor Magazine which praised the Madeline Island Real Estate Blog, stating “Eric Kodner’s Madeline Island Real Estate blog on ActiveRain is a lively mix of business and human interest stories”.

I'm always pleased to learn that my blogs are getting read, not only by a handful of people here on AR, but by the public. A year ago, I met a buyer who had been following my Madeline Island blog for months and he made a significant purchase through our office. Two months ago, I picked up a very nice Wisconsin listing referral from a highly-respected Minneapolis area agent who had been reading my blog.

ActiveRain has provided me with a platform to promote these two very different markets and to better serve my clients in those markets. It has also given me an opportunity to get involved with many diverse aspects of the real estate industry, including fair housing advocacy, that I probably could not have accomplished otherwise.

ActiveRain has made it possible for me to do more in real estate than I would ever have imagined, and for that I'm grateful.