As a Marketing & Business Consultant, I love to deconstruct things to see what they are made of (there's that pesky preposition ending again, so I'm adding this parenthetical text). After all, deconstructing the human psyche and trying to determine what makes it tick, what makes it buy, what makes it sell, what makes it choose me over someone else, is simply fun. With apologies to the Beach Boys, "I'll have fun, fun, fun, 'til my Client comes to take me away."
I've only been here at ActiveRain a little less than a month, but for ActiveRain newbies, almost-newbies, and anyone else who is wondering where to get points, here's what I've found so far:
100 points for activating your real estate profile.
100 points for adding your primary phone number. Apparently no points for alternate phone number and no points for fax number.
175 points for short description in your profile. You're limited by the number of characters, so use them all.
100 points for your first feedback or suggestion to ActiveRain.
200 points for including your photo in your profile.
200-600 points for linking to Active Rain. I linked all four of my web sites to Active Rain using their 600-point logo on my home pages for 2,400 points. Added on 3/21/09: Apparently you no longer get points for linking to ActiveRain. That shouldn't prevent you from linking, though, and certainly make sure that you have an invitation link on your web site so that people can click and join, and once they do, you get 10% of the points they accumulate.
400 points maximum for testimonials in your profile. If you have less, get busy. Be wordy. Don't abbreviate. If you have a testimonial from a Client named Viswanathan Anand (for all you chess fans), and you live in Truth-or-Consequences, New Mexico, put that. Don't put "Mr. Anand." If you have a billion testimonials, then you can abbreviate. But re-write or add if you don't have 400 points yet.
400 points maximum for "areas of expertise" in your profile. If you have less, get busy. Be wordy. Don't abbreviate. If you have a Bachelor of Science in Forest Management from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, put that. Don't put "B.S., Texas A&M." If you have a long résumé, then you can abbreviate. But re-write or add if you don't have 400 points yet.
400 points maximum for "about me" in your profile. If you have less, get busy. Don't be afraid to delve way back into your history: "I was born in Kingsville, Texas. My first interest was music, and I was practicing piano, violin, and voice before I was 10."
50 points the first time you view someone else's points summary.
25 points for each blog comment you make, as long as it's either 10 words or 50 characters, apparently. Having problems getting to 10 words? Start with "Hi, James." and end with "Make it a great day."
4-25 points for each comment from someone else in your blog. These are the only points that you don't seem to get awarded immediately. I guess there are Active Rain Blog Trolls (ARBTs) who visit every new blog and then push the magic button that awards points. I've not been able to determine what affects the number of points awarded. I was thinking that it probably had something to do with how many comments you get within the first few minutes, or how many comments you got while your blog post was still on the blog scroller. Nope. I'm currently leaning toward the opinion that you'll get more points if an old-timer has enough interest to comment on your blog, fewer points if lots of newbies common on your blog. I've seen blog posts get no additional points above the initial 200 and then, weeks later, along comes an ARBT and, boom!, 72 extra points. Really weird. I have determined that old blog entries with new comments get updated at midnight on Saturday and midnight on Tuesday.
225 points for a blog entry if you complete Channels. Without Channels, it's 200 points. You can get an automatic 2,250 points by doing 10 blog posts per week. The ActiveRain week starts at midnight on Saturday/Sunday in the Central Time Zone (for you military people, that could be 2400 on Saturday, or 0000 on Sunday). So for me in the Pacific Time Zone, my ActiveRain week starts at 10:00 p.m. on Saturday night, and each day starts at 10:00 p.m., as well. You are not limited to 10 blog posts per week. You are only limited to an automatic 225 points for each blog post up to 10 per week. Whomever the Powers That Be are can award you 225 points for any blog post beyond #10 if they deem your blog post worthwhile, and you will always get credit for comments (see above).
200-275 points if your blog post is "featured."
25 points if you re-blog someone else's blog. Haven't yet determined if there's a maximum number here.
25 points if someone else re-blogs your blog. Haven't yet determined if there's a maximum number here. This seems to have come to an end as of 1/30 or so, but it might return since ActiveRain is always tweaking things.
250 points if someone accepts your invitation to join ActiveRain.
10% of the points that your invitee earns. This is where you can get big-time points if you invite big-time people or Actively play in the Rain. I've noticed a couple of over-300,000 pointers here don't "actively" participate anymore, yet they get 500-1,500 points per day because all the people they invited are still Actively Active.
Bonus points. Awarded as deemed appropriate by the ARBTs.
Contest points. These can range from 200 points just for entering the contest to 500 points for placing, and 1,000 or 5,000 for winning.
Comment points for commenting in your own blog -- From November 13, 2007, through January 7, 2008, I experimented with this. I don't like making comments just for the sake of making comments, so this didn't initially appeal to me. However, I did discover that you can, indeed, get points for commenting in your own blog. For example, in this blog post of mine, I commented back to everyone who commented. Each time I commented, my score went up 25 points. That was the high end. Most of the time my comments in my own blog got anywhere from ½ point to 5 points. You will notice that the heavyweights who have been around a long time carry on conversations in their blogs, so don't be afraid to do that. There's a reason why they do that: They have discovered that it gets them more points. Additionally, if someone subscribed to the blog post by checking the "Notify me of new comments" box, then they might come back and comment again. This tactic often leads to good conversations on hot topics. Added on 1/23/09: I can definitively confirm that one other person whom I know very well is getting 25 points when he comments on one of his own blogs, this one about nice underwear.
Drafts -- You can do drafts in ActiveRain by simply choosing DRAFT rather than PUBLIC or MEMBERS ONLY. The interesting thing about drafts is that if your draft is less than about two hours old, then when you post it, it will be dated, and points will we awarded, for the time you posted it. If your draft is more than about two hours old, then when you post it, it will be dated at the time you drafted it, and points will be awarded for the day and week that you drafted it. This can be useful if you have a weekend off and want to do 10 blog drafts for the upcoming week. The problem with the drafts being posted, say, a week later, is that the blog post doesn't show up on the current blog scroll since it was done a week earlier, so you won't get as many comments, if any, when you post it. I have found that it is easier to write drafts in Word and simply save them for the day I want to post them. I quite often will write all of my blog entries on Saturday and Sunday for the coming week. I do that because I have also found that I get more comments -- i.e., more points -- if I post my blog entries between 6:00 and 9:00 in the morning Pacific Time. Saturday and Sunday are almost useless for getting lots of comments.
500 points for completing an ActiveRain success story.
Again, you get rewarded for being wordy in your profile, so do it, but do it properly, as I've explained above with abbreviations and your personal history. If you don't have anything to say, check your own web site for content.
There might be others that I haven't found yet. As I find them, I'll keep you posted. Be sure to scroll through the comments below because there might be some updates that I'm still working on.
Please leave a comment if you found this helpful. Thanks.
Scroll down for links to some of my other blog entries.
116 Comments on How the system works and working the system, or ActiveRain point values that I'm aware of
SEP
01
2008
The points are what got me very involved here. I'd say it likens to an addiction, with benefits. Look into the GROUPS for more ways to accumulate points.
Good job. You forgot something important. Once you have posted a sufficiency of posts, collected a sufficiency of subscribers, comments, you can just relax because, in addition to the points you earn, you will also accrue "unearned" points.
The elves come in during the night and distribute points.
So far I haven't detected any points being awarded for joining a group, being in a group, or starting a group since I've done all three. If I'm lazy for the day, it is easier just to go to a large group and comment on 10 blogs there in the group. Those are considered blogs, but for some reason if you start a blog within a specific group, you don't seem to get any points for it. If you start that same blog as one of your blogs posts and then post it to the group, it gets the standard 200 points.
Within a group, if you're the one who started the post, or posted your blog to the group, and you comment within it, you get no points. If you comment on the posts or blogs in the group that were started by others, you get the standard 25 points.
I also haven't determined any point value for someone choosing to associate with you, or you with them.
Excellent Blog Russel. There were a few that I was not aware of. I find that most of the time I am just trying to get my information and data in the correct spots, I guess I should pay more attention to points.
Thanks a million for helping to feed my Active Rain blogging addiction! You are the greatest! I am now a faithful reader of yours for life. Now I really have to go run to add more information to my profile for a smattering of extra points. blah blah blah. Have a lovely Sunday!
This is very helpful----the AR site isn't that clear about how to get points. I've also wondered how some people jump ahead so quickly and this helps explain.
Consistent blogging, commenting, and inviting new people to the Rain--that's the ticket.
10% of the points that your iinvitee earns. This is where you can get big-time points if you invite big-time people or Actively play in the Rain. I've noticed a couple of over-300,000 pointers here don't "actively" participate anymore, yet they get 500-1,500 points per day because all the people they invited are still Actively Active.
It helps when you take the time to get your invitee all set up and running.
Hey Russ: So I have been missing out on points for the Channels...can you explain more what they are. Also, the reblog points, how can we get more of those???
When you post a blog entry, you have "tags" and "channels." You can put as many tags as you'd like (actually only up to 256 characters it look like) but only one channel. Think of it like a book:
A channel is like the book genre: science fiction, history, psychology, religion, etc. So when I do a blog entry on a home inspection topic, my "channel" is "home inspections." But it could have many tags. For example, if I use a song by Paul McCartney and some nature pictures to make my point, my tags might be "home inspections, Paul McCartney, nature."
With reblogging, I have sees some people re-blog to get points. It's pretty obvious. I—and most people, probably—re-blog to give something a wider distribution. For example, you could re-blog this entry of mine about points to give your fans more information. Or you could take the time to re-write the whole thing. Sometimes someone's blog entry will give me an idea for a blog entry of my own. The way I decide is if I'm going to add more than three sentences to the other blog entry, then I just do my own blog entry. If I really can't say it better than what someone else has already said, or have nothing to add, then I re-blog.
When you re-blog someone else, or when someone else re-blogs you, both of you get 25 points.
Just for fun, go ahead and re-blog this blog entry of mine and see what happens. You'll see that it provides a link back to me and you'll get to add whatever you want in front of the link. Once you do that, check your points summary and you'll see the re-blog points there.
Thanks for the email. I hadn't thought to revisit my old posts to add Channels. Once I started looking at them, I found that about the time new Localism was launched, (don't know if there's a cause and effect there) many of my old posts were disassociated from the groups to which they had been posted. I've been correcting that.
Thanks for the tips Russell. Lets see...did I just earn points? OH, maybe I earned YOU points! Or was it we both got points? OK, my head hurts, I'll go back and read some more.
Hi Russel, Thank Russel for this post. Many people ask frequently how points get awarded, and from now on, I (I mean Susan) ;-) will give them a link to this post. By the way, I put links to Active Rain and Localism on my home page of my website, but never got points for it. Oh well. Points aren't my main motivation for blogging, so I haven't really worried about it. If I get them I get them. I just like to write and share and receive the knowledge others are willing to share.
You are a wonderful person!! WooHoo... finally a break down of how the points system works!! I am sooo lovin' this blog!! I'm not in this for the points - but I do see the value in rising up in your given area!! Love the info!
I've wondered where those extra points came from on old blogs -- seems very random but I'll never complain about extra points! Thanks for this list -- I see areas I can improve!
Hi Russell, Can we re-blog our own blogs? For instance, they are old ones and we want to bring them up to the surface again? And, since we can only post in not more than six groups per blog, can we send the same blog again to another six groups if applicable? PS- thanks for all the great info.
Russel - I just found your posting. I've bookmarked it for future reference. A good, concise explanation of the AR point system, which we hadn't seen before. thank you!
Hey, Janet. You probably didn't miss anything. Just notify the ActiveRain Powers that you linked. Include the web site. Then sit back and wait. Sometimes you'll get points overnight, sometimes it takes four or five weeks. They will show up when you least expect it.
Awesome information. I had no idea how many point you could rack up while learning, having fun, giving information, sharing information or just chatting with others trying to grow their business.
Thank you for the insight, knowledge and opportunites opened up by your post.
fabulous post, thanks for the information. I am boggled by your having 84000 points after one year, you, obviously, are "the man" on this points thingy...
Ok, 94000 points... I went and tried making changes to my profile to get the extra 400 or so points it looks like could be possible from your blog and so far nothing has worked. How do you know how much you have received for each portion? I had 3 and added a fourth testimonial - no change, have to assume already wordy enough... Tried adding to areas of expertise, about me, etc... no reaction... not sure what I am doing wrong. just wondering how you know what has been assigned to each area?
I figured it out with the help of a couple of friends here at ActiveRain. All of us had less than a 1,000 points and found that when we did something, point values increased.
There are some bugs in the ActiveRain system right now, so points might not show up until midnight when point values from old blog entries and stuff like you're doing get updated. However, sometimes you can log out and log back in to get updated point values for what you're doing. Try it.
When you go to your points summary, scroll all the way down to the day you joined ActiveRain. There you should see all your points for the stuff you're trying to do. Compare those point values to the maximum ones I have and if you're not there, add some more stuff.
Let me know how it works. Also, if that's not making sense, I'm Playing in the Rain right now. Give me a call at 619-341-0173 and I'll walk you through it real quickly.
Thanks, Russel, I will try all you say and may give you that call at a later date. Right now I have a date with a dog (the handsomest dog in the world, by the way) to go play in the ocean at Muir Beach!
Thanks Russel, I will try redoing my profile. I only only got 490 profile points and I completed all those sections. Guess I'll redo it and see if it improves any. Again, Thanks for all the good tips.
WOW thank you... I am new to this site and blogging in general you have provided a useful breakdown for Newbies like myself... It is greatly appriciated...
Hi Russel - I like the AR point system. It's a bit of "tokenism" that you might find in the Summerville studies. Personally, I love reading different posts and commenting on them. I also enjoy blogging and sharing information on this platform (points or no points).
Thanks Russell. I was unsure of when the AR week began so thanks for stating that. I also did not know that you get points for commenting on your own blog..
Hi Russel. Thank you so much for putting this all together. This question may expose my technoignoarance, but how do I link my homepages to AR? I haven't seen the linking logos and instructions anywhere. Thanks for your help. I've added ou to my associates cause your blogs are great!
Very helpful information. I haven't really decyphered why the points are important...but now I know how to accumulate more of them! Your article was well organized and clearly written. Thank You!
So very interesting Russel. I usually comment back to several posters on my blog at the same time, if I would get 25 points for a comment, it may be time to rethink it?....
Hey Russel! This is a really informative post! I just started playing in the rain in the past week and have gained points that I had no clue where they came from. They weren't listed in the "how to get points" section of the 1st message I got from AR. This really helped clear things up! Thank you!
ActiveRain has the same believe as my wise old grandmother: "If you want to stay the same, you have to change." They are always changing things to move forward and help us all more, so if you find they've tweaked something, let me know.
I try to keep this post updated, and have edited it twice so far when I found things that had changed, so it should always current.
My son lost his 3rd basketball game today. The score was 23 - 2. The other team was huge. We are small. They had ten and a half times as many points as we did. They won, we lost. But in the end I think our 12 year old kids had almost as much fun as the winners did. Taking a lesson from the kids. I'll take the points if I can get them, but I'm really here for the fun. :)
There's a lot to be said for having fun, but sometimes unfettered competition can put a damper on things.
There were two schools in Texas playing basketball a couple of days ago. The final score was 100-0. You read that right. The school that scored 100 had hundreds of students and a basketball team with 20 kids on it.The school that score no points had 20 students and 8 kids on the team. The score at halftim was 51-0. They played on. They should have instituted the mercy rule like NCAA women's softball does. If the mercy rule is good enough for ladies 18-23 playing softball, it should be good enough for those even younger.
One could say that the arbitrary awarding of points for Featured posts, and the arbitrary awarding of points for comments, and even, apparently, comments by certain people is "unfettered competition" amongst those having fun with the points.
When there are no rules, or arbitrary rules at best, I like to dissect things to see how they work and then let everyone know in order to try to level the playing field. Helping those who are discriminated against -- for whatever reason and in whatever industry or game -- is how I have fun.
By the way. I believe one of the schools in that 100-0 basketball game was a school for the hearing and/or visually impaired.
Still learning but your breakdown was very helpful. I have invited someone and they have accepted-No points for the invite yet. Will the point fairies come soon?
It depends on how they accepted. If you just told them, "Hey, join ActiveRain," and they did, you'll get no points. If you sent them a click-through invite, then you should get points as soon as they accept and initiate their membership by verifying their email address from the email. It's pretty much instantaneous once they do that.
If you don't get any points, contact the Powers That Be and they'll be able to tell you how they joined and whether or not you should get points. Sometimes errors are made since the ActiveRain system is still being tweaked.
You're welcome. Ask them to leave a comment here, too, so I can continue to track what ActiveRain is and isn't doing. This is one of my high-profile ongoing test threads.
Hi Paul, just stumbled upon you while looking to see if there was a book club in AR. And voila - there is and started by you. I look forward to delving deeper into that group. But meanwhile had to stop in and say this is an excellent explanation on the points scale. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.
25 points if someone else re-blogs your blog. Haven't yet determined if there's a maximum number here.
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Russel, they seem to have "killed" this one... I have been reblogged a bunch recently (including once by you, thank you very much).. and I don't see any points in my summary for them.
Also, you used to be able to go to your summary to click on the points, and see WHO reblogged you... but now the only way seems to be a "google search" of the title.
Really good post, btw... handy to know all this shit stuff.
Concerning Item #12 above, with the help of a few other people, it looks like you get more points if you have a great variety of people commenting in your blog. In other words, if you have 50 comments, but it's an ongoing conversation between you and two other people, you won't get as many points as if you have 50 comments from 50 different people. Also, 50 comments from 50 different people apparently gets more points than 50 comments where 25 are from different people and 25 are by you. Consequently, I've gone back to my original tactic of simply returning comment for comment. So if 50 people comment in my blog, over the next days or weeks, I'm going to be visiting their blogs and commenting. That looks like the way to get the most points.
Work does have a habit of getting in the way. That's why I do ActiveRain in the wee hours of the morning when it's dark. No one knocking on the door, calling me, emailing me, etc. LOL
Thanks for the tips. I've been poking around here and plan to make AR an active part of my marketing plan this year. I've also invited several people that will find having this info at the start will be really useful!
This is the first time I have seen any of your posts. I loved it! I have bookmarked and will come back and read more of you stuff. You are a great writer and explain it where I can understand. I say you are great because you are, but I also don't want to sound really stupid (LOL)
This is a most informative blog for achieving points. There were quite a few tips that i was not aware were point getters, as checking out a point summary and reblogging and 10% for invites. I am going to do my first reblog with yours. As always i daily read your blog, you are an amazing writer, Love your style and topics.
Russel -- I'm not even sure how I stumbled across your ongoing post, but I'm sure glad that I did! Very insightful, thank you for your tenacity and attention to detail. One update that's happened since you originally wrote this post that I didn't see mentioned in the comments -- I've been told that we can no longer earn points for linking AR to our web site(s). Apparently some people were sort of gaming the points and instead of allowing us each a one-time point award, they did away with it altogether. Things change!
By the way, am I to gather that you're another former Texan living in California? I just moved here from Austin 7 months ago...it looks like Austin and California keep swapping residents! Thanks for your informative post, Russel.
Yep. I came through in May 1992 and told myself that I would retire to San Diego some day. It only took 11 months, arriving back in April 1993. Then I spent 11 months (hmmmmm, 11 seems to be the key number here) laying out on the San Diego beaches doing nothing before I got bored and went back to work. That's probably the essense of my retirement at this point. Been there, done that, wasn't exactly a lot of fun.
I have looked and looked for a way to get my picture to show up in my posts, like everyone else here in this Blog. That is everyone but ME!!! Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Up until about a month ago, no one had pictures in the comments. Now pictures in the comments are considered a privilege, not a right. If I remember correctly, you have to have at least 10,000 points before your picture will start showing up automatically.
ActiveRain seems to be changing on a daily basis right now. Even I am having trouble keeping up, so if something noted above doesn't work, or is no longer available, you'll know why.
If some of them don't work, it's because they have been terminated by the ActiveRain Powers That Be in their search for the biggest and baddest web site ever. They are always playing around with the points system.
I am still working down your list for newbies. This post is great! I just checked my points for my profile and it is weak! Much work to do there. Thanks!
Just found this after running into Karen's post about points -- this is a great help in the "thought process" behind the mystery of points AND explaining why my profile photo doesn't show up yet. Here I thought it was because I don't pay... but I am only at 7500 points. So, if AR is still doing somewhat the same, I will pop into living color in another week or two, depending on how much I post and comment :) Love your posts -- thanks!
Russel, so I found this post yet again and this time bookmarket it. I'm going to check it against my Points Summary. Didn't even know there was a way to check on the points in your profile. I guess I was too overwhelmed in general to notice that detail the first time I read it! lol :)
Hi Russel, I really needed the information about the point system. I had someone get me interested, but she is from a different office, so I really have no one to ask questions. PS I love the contests. Now I see why people didn't just put the three entries they chose. Didn't know about the 10 word minimum. Thanks again.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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The points are what got me very involved here. I'd say it likens to an addiction, with benefits. Look into the GROUPS for more ways to accumulate points.