From Newbie to 133,000 Active Rain points in a year. How I did it.
I remember looking at folks with 100,000+ points this time last year, thinking it would take me 4 years to get there. Cal Yoder told he he did it in one year and gave me some tips on how to do it. I decided to try. I know the points are not everything but what are they to me? A Motivator to write, to log in and read and to comment on the blogs of others.
Here is what I did and YOU can do better!
Log In Every Day -36,500 possible points:
I logged in 321/365 days of the year. 321x100=32100 points. 88% of what was possible. That is just for logging in! As you can see I missed 4400 points by not logging in. You can have those points just by logging in every day. If you are traveling, you can log in from your smart phone.
Write a blog post every day - about 83,000 points:
I did not come close to this goal. I wrote 250 / 365 posts, 68%of what was possible. You can blog twice, the second one worth about 200 points if you missed a day.
Enter Several Contests: 500 to 7000 points each.
I entered only the contests in which everyone who posted got points, not just the winners. I chose 16 Contests over the year. Some of my favorites were the ones that really pushed me outside my comfort zone. Some examples follow.
Video Blogging Challenge by Terkel Sørensen: This contest got me using video, which I said I would do but had not started.
Monthly Market Report Challenge by Donna Harris. This contest got me in the habit of writing my monthly market reports, which I still do.
Hyper Local Challenge by Amy Hahn. I had a huge block on this one. What is to write about in a town of 5500? And we had to post 30 times in 30 days. Well, I finally got it and am still writing hyper local posts!
2011 December 30 day Blogging Challenge. This contest came just in time.. I had only been a member for a month and was running out of ideas. I learned how to think outside my box for post topics.
Reblog Posts Daily. Pick ones that you Enjoy and that are Relevant to your Business: 25 points each.
Re-blogging is a compliment to the author of the blog. It helps build community. I only re-blogged 32 posts last year. Here is where you can excel. There are hundreds of daily posts that are worth re-blogging. Our community has so much to say!
Write comments on Blog posts you like: You can and are encouraged to comment on one another's posts. As a motivator, you are offered 25 points per comment and can get points for 10 comments per day.. 250 points a day x 365 = 91,250... worth it, yes? I will comment more this coming year, not so much for the points this year but for the development of community.
The magic of Active Rain:
When I was counting my points for this post, I noticed the amount of clicks I had on very early posts versus now. The amount of clicks has doubled or tripled for almost every post. Does this mean my posts have "spidered" out onto the web? Does that mean more folks look for them and follow me? I don't know. Does anyone out there have an answer? All I know is that I love it!
In summary, I DID commit and the best result is the community
connections I have made. I have over a dozen AR members who I have developed a friendship with and about two dozen more that I follow because I love the way they write. I am looking forward to an even bigger network this year.
Another benefit for me in doing this post is how I can improve.
Good luck and have a great year blogging!
From Newbie to 133,000 Active Rain points in a year. How I did it.
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