I started thinking today about how great Active Rain has been for me both personally and professionally as I hope it's been for you or will be in the future.  As with anything, you get back what you give out.

Personally I've made real friends here from coast to coast. We talk on the phone, get together (if local & some of my other friends and I have talked about meeting somewhere in the middle) send personal emails and notes and genuinely support and encourage each other.

Professionally, it's increased my business and my SEO as well as keeps me connected with other North Texas RE Pros in my market. It's like my own personal Tuesday morning network group that meets anytime I want or that time allows for, with benefits beyond belief.

As you may know, I started the group Collin County, TX Real Estate Professionals.  Originally it had been the Plano, TX Real Estate Professionals group but as time went on it seemed limited to only one city and the primary area I serve is really all of Collin County.  My friend, the Dallas Loan Guy, Tom Burris suggested I change the name or group to the DFW area but that wasn't the target area I wanted to hit but he did get me to change the name with his suggestion. I wanted this group to be a form of social networking locally for any RE Professionals who have dealings in Collin County or surrounding areas to connect as well as participate in the local and blogging community. Active Rain as you may have already figured out, gives great SEO to your relevant blogs and positioning yourself as a local expert is key!

The purpose of this group is as the description says:

This group is for anyone interested in Collin County, Texas. Whether living, working or playing, this is the place to discover Collin County, TX. Posts should apply exclusively to Collin County; listings, happenings, cultural and civic events or any points of interest, this is the place to find it.

Although there is a variety of subjects not necessarily related to Collin County being posted I'm OK with it. I enjoy reading many of the blogs posted here as well as featuring posts with good content that is of value to the community at large.

Keep in mind that featured blogs whether on the Home page of Active Rain or within this group get more readership and exposure to your blog which is good SEO! So please keep blogging and posting to our group!

With this said, I checked the Collin County section today which shows the profiles and how many Active Rain members are signed up in our area. And I saw this:

There are 827 Collin County Real Estate Profiles

That's quite a lot!

My first questions was, "where are the other 700+ Collin County RE Pros for our group?"

Here's the challenge and the purpose of this post. I'd like to :

• encourage you to reach out and find some of those other Collin County, TX members
• invite them to join the Collin County, TX RE Professionals Group Heck you may know some of these folks too and they just may not know the group exists
• if another member joins that you've invited, please post a short blog that we may welcome them to our group (remember each post with 50 + words or more gets an automatic 200 points - so this is an easy one!)

Just like any networking group, it's only as good as the members who participate.

I have gotten to know many of you through your blogs and look forward to building our relationships personally and professionally.

Let's continue to encourage one another through the year ahead and read, comment (reciprocate too if someone takes the time to comment on your blog - etiquette would beg at least an acknowledgment - Lorrie Semler just wrote on this subject) and blog our way to personal and professional enjoyment and achievement.

Now lets see if we can add another 741 or 10 to our great group!