Have you been checking your points and place rack here at activerain recently?

In the Real Estate and Community Service game, making sure your profile is public and known is critical. In large communities, having people recognize your name and face can be difficult; targeting a neighborhood close to home, it is easier to be known.

I'm a little fish in a little pond, fishing in the great big real estate waters of the DC Metro in Northern Virginia. Though I am well known in certain circles around the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions in my other professional groups, there are very few spots I can go "at large" where I am known by people I don't know.

Put me in my comfort zone, working in and around Ashburn and Brambleton, and someone usually recognizes me or knows about my community service website (that residents are beginning to use to keep in the know about what's going on in and around the town). Pull me out, and I have a long way to go.

I think that's why I like the feature on this site that allows me to see my advertising efforts moving up the line. With each post I make and each article I post, I'm able to work to earn my place in activerain's own internal version of SEO.

Like reeling in a fish, page rank works as my own motivator that keeps me involved and on task with the marketing boat. I throw out a goal like bait for myself (for example, to strive to be in the top 30 of my target area or to surpass another realtor's posting points and rise above). Once I create my article, I've essentially cast and set my own hook.

Advertising (and guerilla marketing), in that sense, is a lot like fishing. You never know what leads you are going to catch. Does not having a guarantee of fish daunt or thwart the fisherman from heading out offshore with fishing gear in tow? No. Is fishing, in and of itself and regardless of a haul, pleasurable? It all depends on your willingness to go.

If you have prepared for a day at sea, you know that the most important part of the experience--and the ONLY way you will have success is if you get off your behind and (again) GO. The only things in your control are preparedness, participation, and attitude.

Now get to work and write that next positive and effective community post!

~~ Kae