Today, I'm going to cover two parts of ActiveRain: Groups and Associations

ActiveRain Groups

Not only is ActiveRain one big real estate community, but it is filled with many sub-communities interested in specific issues.  You can find "groups" dedicated to just about any real estate topic.  To see what I mean, click on the Group tab (near the top of the page) and do a search for a real estate topic that interests you.   Some example groups include OC real estate, land specialists, or ActiveRain Newbies.   And creating a group is so darn easy that I created a 4RealzEd group where we can all post things making it that much easier to follow other people from the group!

So, today's only activity is to find a group that interests you and then post an article to that group.   How do you post an article to a group? 

Here are the steps:
1) When you see a group that interests you, click on the button that says "Join Group" on the left-panel of every group homepage. 
2) When writing a post, there is a section just below the "entry" that will list all the groups that you are a "member" of (see step 1).   When you are done writing your post, check the box next to the group and click publish!

It's that easy to publish to a group.    And if you want to see what others are saying on the group, you can always go to the group homepage to see the latest posts!

ActiveRain Associations

An association in ActiveRain is simply a connection that you choose to make with another AR member...  It can be a really useful way to organize and follow the people on AR... and adding someone as an associate is an easy goodwill gesture that can help integrate you into the AR community.

To give an example of how the associates tool can be used, I decided to track and follow as many 4RealzEd attendees as I could find who had AR profiles.  To do this, I did a search on people's names and then when I found someone I recognized I would add them as an associate under a category I created called "4RealzEd".   Now if I want to see the posts that are written by people I've added to this group, all I have to do is click on the text that says "posts" next to the "4RealzEd" category under the "Associates" section on my homepage.

So if you are a 4RealzEd attendee and you have an ActiveRain profile, leave a comment below to let me know and I'll make sure to follow your posts!  (and probably even leave a comment!).   And if you post an article to the 4RealzEd group, you get double credit!  ;)