For Newbies Only: The Ten Commandments of Active Rain, With Apologies to Moses

When Moses came down off Mt. Sinai, he brought with him ten commandments.  "Do, or don't do these things," was the idea, "and you will prosper in the land."  There are ten do's and don'ts for success in the virtual land of Active Rain as well.

Edit:  But first...  Read the ActiveRain Community Guidelines !  Then bone up on the following commandments as you move toward the Promised Land!

1.  Thou Shalt Blog.  It's the first commandment.  If you're not going to write, what are you here for?  Quick true story:  One member (score: 115,500 or so) has brought more new members into Active Rain than anyone else.  507 to date, and more each week.  They join up, but they don't blog.  How do I know that?  If they blogged, this guy would get 10% of their points added to his own.  His invite points (109,354) divided by invitees (507) equals an average of less than 216 points per new member.  If each new member would post just one blog, he would get an additional 10,000+ points.

2.  Thou shalt subscribe to blogs that interest you.  If it doesn't grab your interest, you won't stay with it very long.  I found the subscribe button before I learned anything else about Active Rain.  When I got to 60 subscriptions, I had to start weeding out the non-bloggers (see commandment #1) and adding new interesting bloggers.  I still do that. You'll find a handful of favorites, but new favorites are joining every day.

3.  Thou shalt comment daily on ten blog posts.  You're more competitive than you think .  The genius of Active Rain is that it rewards interaction between members, and some of that reward is limited to each 24 hour day.  When day is done, those potential points have evaporated into the ether, never to be captured.  if your ten comments haven't been made prior to midnight, AR time, that's 250 points that will never be yours.  p.s. "Great post!" is not a comment.  It's the quickest way I know to have a true blogger bar you from their site.  Didn't know they could do that?  They can!

4.  Thou shalt join at least 10 groups.  As of this evening, we have 2,429 groups in Active Rain.  The biggest, most active groups are listed on the Groups page.  You'll join one or two of those.  Dig deeper.  Find groups that share your interests.  I joined Photography, not because I had anything to say on the subject, but to find people brighter than I, from whom I could learn.  And what do you know?  Today, after having posted 100 blogs, the single blog I posted to Photography won a Feature from that group!

5.  Thou shalt not plagiarize.  Moses had this one, too.  He said "thou shalt not steal."  One member found an essay on the internet that was just superb!  He copied and pasted it on AR, added a couple of lines of his own, and was featured!  When the plagiarism came to light, he was banned from the community.  It's so easy to catch the dummies that do this; just copy a line or paragraph of text, paste it into Google, and hit Go! 

6.  Thou shalt post articles of interest to Localism.  You'll get Google juice!  And along with the articles, learn to post pictures of local interest on Localism.  You'll get 100 points for your first, 50 points for the next several, and 25 points for the rest. 

7.  Thou shalt READ Active Rain posts as part of your education.  I joined AR with zero knowledge of Widgets, SEO, Web II, or much else.  I found so much useful content to help me improve my skills.  I found people who write tutorial posts explaining the "How To..." of things I wanted to do.  Can you embed a video into your post or comment?  There are Active Rain members with Tutorials just for you. 

8.  Thou shalt reciprocate!  When you're fortunate enough to have someone comment on your post, you'll see a little link back to their AR profile.  After you've commented back to them, and saved the comment, go back to that link.  Click it and be whisked into their Active Rain presence.  Click on their blog, and find something to comment on.  You may have to look for awhile sometimes.  Some members post nothing but listings.  Okay, but boooooring!  The queen of reciprocation is The Lovely Wife.  TLW...ROAR.  Look her up; you'll subscribe to her blog.  You won't be able to help yourself.

9.  Thou Shalt Have fun!  It's a commandment.  Garrison Keillor said "Thank you, God, for this good life, and forgive us if we do not enjoy it enough."  Don't you love that?

10.  Thou shalt..._____________________________________________________________

Please fill in that 10th commandment for me in your comment below.

Mike in Tucson