Call me a hypocrite.
I'm suggesting that you focus, and I'm not focusing. I should be continuing my series on how to use Flickr to your benefit, and instead I'm writing a top ten list of things you should stop doing when blogging.
Why would I do that? To paraphrase J.P. Morgan: every man has two reasons for what he does, a good reason - and the real reason.
My good reason for losing focus is that Rich Jacobson commented on a previous post and asked me to state, from my "experience and perspective exactly what everyone is doing wrong and how to correct it." My real reason for losing focus: it's easier than maintaining focus, and I can be as mentally lazy as the next guy.
Here's a list (in no particular order) of ten things many ActiveRainers do wrong. In each case the way to correct the mistake is simply to stop making it.
1. Stop stealing copyrighted material and posting it here. Over and above the fact that AR warns you about this each time you post so that you're violating the terms of service, no one wants to do business with a thief. Not to mention the brute fact that there are civil and criminal (yup, criminal) penalties for pirating others' intellectual property.
2. Stop slobbering over each other in comments. Advance the conversation or shut up. Too many of you sound like you're at a little league game encouraging the uncoordinated kid who simply forgot to swing at the pitch.
3. Stop spamming each other in comments. Vendors should post about their products and not try to steer people to them through comments. Realtors shouldn't use comments to try to hustle business or recruit other Realtors.
4. Stop posting your bloody listings. Would you walk into a room full of strangers who you want to become your customers or friend and start reading a listing sheet? If there's something truly unusual or noteworthy about your listing, it's OK to talk about that, but it better be something really special, and shut up about the rest of it.
5. Stop braying about your company to consumers. Like the children of Lake Wobegon, you're all handsome and above average and expert beyond our wildest imagination - and readers don't want to hear it.
6. Stop disrespecting your readers by cluttering your posts and comments with your name, logo, contact info and tag line. If you have something worthwhile to say that motivates me to learn more about you, it's easy to find that info.
7. Stop whining about how misunderstood / under-appeciated Realtors are. It just makes us appreciate you all the less, and think we understand you all too well. Tell us something you know that we want to know more about.
8. Stop pretending to know more than you do. The last person in the world I want to hear babbling about interest rates is a real estate agent or a mortgage broker. If you really knew what you were talking about you wouldn't be here begging for my business. Tell me what you do know.
9. Stop writing those idiotic profiles of yours. Re-read item 8. Almost every one I've seen makes wildly inflated claims that subject the writer to ridicule from people like me - and there are a lot of people like me.
10. Stop ignoring location, location, location. Tell me what's going on in an area you genuinely know something about. If I'm a buyer or a seller I'm starved for tidbits, stories, information, trends, changes, developments, preferences, etc. The media do a lousy job of giving me that informatton, but you guys give me even less. Give me what I want and I'll reward you with my business because you'll have established yourself as an expert rather than simply claimingi you're one. Real experts don't have to tell you they're experts - they show you.
A blog is not an ad, and it's not your Web site. It should be a conversation in which you quietly impress people with what you know and with your passion for your business. What might work in an ad or on your Web site is probably hurting you when you put it in a blog.
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