This is my 100th post and I just want to say thank you to Matt Heaton, Jonathan Washburn, Ben Wisely, Caleb Mardini and anyone I missed from Active Rain for putting together a great platform.
I first heard about blogging during the 2004 national elections. The newscasters were predicting election winners based on what the "Bloggers" were posting on their blogs. I really didn't pay too much attention to it because it really didn't make a lot of sense to me. It just didn't really affect me in anyway and I didn't read any blogs or know any bloggers.
Now fast forward to October 31, 2006 and I am sound asleep and my wife Monika wakes me up to ask me to upload her picture to her blog. I must have grumbled something like "ok" and rolled over and went back to sleep again.
The next morning I woke up and opened up her laptop to see what she was up to. She had created a profile on Real Town Blogs and she needed my help. I got her photo up and she was off and running and she never looked back. Our lives have never been the same. To say that it opened up our eyes and widened our outlook on real estate would be an understatement.
Then while emailing back and forth with Ann Cummings we told her how we started blogging and she needed to come over and see what it was all about. She laughed and said we needed to visit a real estate blogging community called Active Rain and see what they were doing over there. We took the bait and jumped over.
We noticed a big difference right away between the two blogging platforms. Once we started rolling along we noticed we were receiving more comments on our AR blog as opposed to our Real Town blogs. Active Rain seemed to be more visible and more friendly within the community. We felt a part of the community where on Real town we felt very much alone.
As we started to find our voice I really noticed a change in my wife. She was actually doing real well and getting featured posts and at one point during the time when we had the top 20 featured bloggers featured on the main page, she actually jumped to number one.
She questioned how could that happen? When she checked with the rain gods they assured her it was true and that they had just updated their algorithms. She clinched a number 1 spot on the infamous dash board.
It didn't last long as she got bumped off real quick by none other than Broker Bryant. He probably holds the record for being number one back then. He was rivaled by Carole Cohen and they would go back and forth. It was fun to watch and read their great posts.
The Active Rain Real Estate Network has allowed us to really spread our wings and enhance our 23 years of real estate experience more than I ever expected! Everyday on Active Rain I learn more and sometimes I am reminded of what not to do through someone else's experience.
It has really made me realize how grateful I am that I have able to provide my customers and clients the opportunity to achieve the American Dream, Home Ownership.
With a lot of hard work and a lot of education I have been able to help build our business in good, bad, good and now bad real estate markets. Active Rain has allowed us to share our experience as we have seen the ups and downs of this business.
We have met tons of great real estate agents throughout the years from all over the country and New England as we have attended many many NAR Conventions. Now I look forward to meeting the many Active Rain members as well.
There are many different personalities here on AR and it is so transparent that you can really see how people really are...what their core is. That makes doing referrals great! When I need to place a refferal, I go to AR frist and try and find a member.
There are many different people here, people that have a sense of humor who show it in their writings. People who love sports, people that are very technologically inclined as I love to learn about technology. I love people who speak their mind and are passionate about what they believe in. I may not always agree with what they have to say but I am always listening to see why they have said it.
It is these types of people that make Active Rain the greatest real estate social network in the blogosphere and that is why I am still here after one year and will continue to stay here and help those that need my help and receive help from those that are willing to share their knowledge as well.
Active Rain really is the people who populate this site, the people who share their time and skills to help others get better so they too can achieve more. The best education is Free right here on AR and I for one have taken advantage of it. Thank You AR it's been a great ride...one that I hope does not stop!
*** OOPS looks like I had a couple of posts in draft and never finished them and they show as actual posts on my back page. OH Well sorry.. Looks like I have only 98 posted.
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