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#1 Annoyance on Active Rain Many Realtors Can Avoid: Do You Want To Be Linkedin or Redirected?

By Dean Guadagni

Services for Real Estate Pros with Inner Architect

August 01, 2008 04:59 AM

Annoyance: "an unpleasant mental state that is characterized by such effects as irritation and distraction from one's conscious thinking. It can lead to emotions such as frustration and anger. The property of being easily annoyed is called petulance.

What is the biggest annoyance in contacting you on Active Rain? What is the one piece of information the majority of the Realtors on AR neglect to place on their profile? Why is this ommision so annoying to anyone who wants to contact you immediately?

If you answered: Few Realtors place their business or personal email addresses in easy to find spots on their profile front page you would be CORRECTAMUNDO!

3 Reasons Why Realtors Are Not Placing Their Direct Email Link on Profile Pages

1. Active Rain provides an internal contact "sheet"

2. Realtors want to "redirect" people to their websites

3. Some Realtors don't understand why an internal Active Rain contact email is not good enough

The Advantage of Direct Email on Your Profile

1. Linkedin- Anyone wanting to offer you a spot in their network can easily find your email without having to wait for your website to load, or wait for your internal AR contact sheet to get to you

2. Time and Tone- Any client who needs info or affiliate who wants to bring you information is forced to redirect to your website for direct contact. Many clients and affiliates do not want to take the time to do this nor do they want to be forced to leave information on your "contact" sheets--they just want a quick communication method

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Tom Davis

Harrington ERA,DE Homes For Sale, $$ Save $$ Buy Today ! - Dover, DE

FREE Delaware Homes Search!, $$ Save $$ - Find Homes! Delaware Realtor

Well the main problem is when I had the link "visable" the amount of SPAM I WOULD GET AND Non Stop communications from vendors was enormous! I got the same amount of business by keeping it the way active rain was created...with a contact form. I see the point your making though... I will consider what your saying.

Thanks,

Tom Davis

World Class DE Realtor

Aug 01, 2008 05:14 AM

Bill Gillhespy

16 Sunview Blvd - Fort Myers Beach, FL

Fort Myers Beach Realtor, Fort Myers Beach Agent - Homes & Condos

Hi Dean, The spam thing is becoming more of a concern. Not sure how I have mine set-up ! Off I go to check it out.

Aug 01, 2008 05:18 AM

Dean Guadagni

Inner Architect - San Rafael, CA

James, That is an EXCELLENT solution. Set up a free gmail account that is tied to your Active Rain activities. They if you have spam you can easily dumb it without revealing your main email destination. I like that solution. Thanks so much for reading!

dean

Aug 01, 2008 05:21 AM

Travis Newton

Salem and Bend Oregon FHA, VA & USDA 503.931.4490 - Salem, OR

FHA, USDA, VA, LOAN EXPERT - Salem OR Homes For Heroes SALEM OREGON

Agreed. I think it's important to have your contact info as visable as possible.

Aug 01, 2008 05:22 AM

Dean Guadagni

Inner Architect - San Rafael, CA

Hi Evelyn, thank you for your feedback and readership!

Jack, I love a man of few words but vital feedback. Thank you. I feel I am on the right track!

Aaron, You too come from the school of "succinct" which is a great place to communicate. I appreciate your feedback and like I stated above-I feel I am on the right track

Robert, I did not take into account the number of unwanted solicitations and blatant sales pitches you guys are hit by everyday. That is my oversight and my apologies. I think that James has the best solution. Set up a separate email account and filter through it.

Tom, Thank you for your feedback. Again I did not realize the spam problems you all face. James has the best solution please refer to his comment. Thanks for your readership!

dean

Aug 01, 2008 05:26 AM

Dean Guadagni

Inner Architect - San Rafael, CA

Travis, thanks for the support. I guess I was unaware of the mountain of spammer scammers who troll the waters of Active Rain.

The solution for sales people who don't KNOW HOW to be salespeople is simple. Here is my advice to those spammer scammers:

GIVE VALUE FIRST, DON'T SELL ANYTHING, INFORM PEOPLE ONCE YOU HAVE PROVEN YOU WANT TO COLLABORATE. It's time consuming but it works.

Thanks so much for your readership

Aug 01, 2008 05:31 AM

Tom Braatz Waukesha County Real Estate 262-377-1459

Coldwell Banker - Oconomowoc, WI

Waukesha County Realtor Real Estate agent. SOLD!

Gary

Great post, and I am coming back to it again. If you ever want to network on LInkedin.com, faceboook.com, or naymz.com I would be honored.

Sincerely

Tom Braatz

Aug 01, 2008 05:44 AM

Jackie Kyles

Keller Williams Realty - Rock Hill, SC

ABR, CNE, SFR

I' getting ready to put mine on right now!!!!

Aug 01, 2008 05:44 AM

Dean Guadagni

Inner Architect - San Rafael, CA

Jackie, Thanks for your feedback. I would consider the idea that James suggested-open a free email at gmail to filter the spam. Thank you!

dean

Aug 01, 2008 06:00 AM

Anonymous

Not Yet Licensed

Hi Dean,

Good post. Every agent should have at least one backup email account. I have 4 accounts that I use on a daily basis, plus a 5th account that I check about once a week.

Aug 01, 2008 07:01 AM

#15

Dean Guadagni

Inner Architect - San Rafael, CA

Dear NYL, thank you and I agree I too have a number of email accounts with different functions. Thank you for the readership!

dean

Aug 01, 2008 07:35 AM

Bob Stewart

ActiveRain - Seattle, WA

ActiveRain Ambassador

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but if you are to put your email address directly on your profile, you make it able to be 'scraped' off the site and added to spam distribution lists. It's the reason we don't display them on behalf of our members.

If you have great spam protection software for your email.....then I would certainly encourage people to add their email. But I would also caution them of the potential for it to be 'scraped' and used to spam you.

Aug 01, 2008 11:39 AM

Dean Guadagni

Inner Architect - San Rafael, CA

Bob, that is a valid concern until you begin to realize that we are and have been moving into a 2.0 world of transparency. I like James idea of providing an email address specifically for AR communications. You don't have to let anyone know this fact. Just set up a gmail acct. and monitor it for spam. Thanks for reading!

dean

Aug 02, 2008 04:53 AM

Joanna Quan

Keller Williams Realty - Alamo, CA

Realtor, SRES, Notary

Hi Dean

I may have missed it, but I didn't see your email address on your profile?

Aug 02, 2008 03:02 PM

Dean Guadagni

Inner Architect - San Rafael, CA

Joanna, I am not a Realtor and I do not provide services to anyone on AR who is looking for a Realtor or affiliate. I am a contributor of information the type I hope is valuable to this community.

I am not looking to land deals as a buyer, seller agent or any affiliate deals.

My wants and needs are to present Susan Hanshaw and Inner Architect her personal development firm. Anyone wishing to email me can find me at dean@innerarchitect.com, dean_guadagni@yahoo.com; ddguad@aol.com.

The best place to contact me has and always will be my stand alone not Active Rain blog deansguide.wordpress.com.

As I stated in this article, the biggest annoyance for people interested in finding or contacting Realtors is the fact they do not make their email addresses available.

The reason I wrote this article was the fact that I wanted to invite many of the kind contributors and commenters to my Linkedin network.

But if I have to be redirected to a blog and then I have to fill out a sign in sheet and a straight email address is not available then I cross those people off of my list of Linkedin hopefuls.

dean

Aug 02, 2008 04:47 PM

Joanna Quan

Keller Williams Realty - Alamo, CA

Realtor, SRES, Notary

Dean

I guess I misunderstood the meaning of your post. Thanks for posting. You do have a wealth of valuable information to share and I always look forward to reading your blogs.

Aug 03, 2008 02:19 PM

John Slocum

Premiere Property Group, LLC - Vancouver Washington - Vancouver, WA

Broker, SFR - Vancouver WA Real Estate

Hello Dean, I've run up against this issue as well. As Bob has said and I have found, posting a naked e-mail address on any webpage creates a target for the Bots that roam the web harvesting e-mail addresses from websites. Most Bots are foiled when using the encoding technique (see www.mailtoprotector.com) however, in the case of the AR HTML editor, the encoding is re-coded upon final publishing of the blog post, resulting in the naked e-mail address that a Bot can scrape off your page.

Another option may be to create your e-mail address in a gif or jpg Banner (like using CoolText.com), that an AR human reader could see but a Bot could not see, then post that banner in your profile.

-- John

Aug 04, 2008 01:35 AM

Dean Guadagni

Inner Architect - San Rafael, CA

John, All great suggestions. I think for many it remains easier to just utilize a "dump" email address for AR communications and then monitor it for the good information. You might consider writing an article about CoolText.com and mailtoprotector.com as methods to approach placing an email address on AR. Thank you for the education and thanks for the feedback!

dean

Aug 04, 2008 04:58 AM

Dominick Dina, MA, REALTOR®

Christian Realty San Antonio - San Antonio, TX

GRI, e-PRO, TAHS, SFR, Notary Public

Amen Dean!

You are so right on. It is soooo easy to be connected in a flash and sooo much of a pain to be forced to "aait" for a connection.

And not to point fingers, however some are so fickle they would bolt if they have to wait a nano second more than they think is necessary.

Dominick

Aug 04, 2008 01:57 PM

Dean Guadagni

Inner Architect - San Rafael, CA

Dominick, I guess it is up to the individual. I think each method has its advantages. It is a sad fact that we have to "go around" these spammers and scammers who are bent on invading, without provocation, our privacy and our space. Thanks again for adding to the conversation!

dean

Aug 04, 2008 04:34 PM