I was contacted the other day about building a Realtor a new blog site that she had full control over. The statement that she left me with is what inspired this post. It was "I need to see if blogging will work for me. I need to know if I 
need to build an internet presence." Frankly, if you are not cultivating an internet presence, then you are missing out on something that the rest of us have embraced and ran with. Over the last few months, I have been gathering information on internet presence and how it affects you as a marketing agent. What I found was shocking to me. To begin this, I need to go back a year and a half ago.
Many of you have heard the story of how I got into blogging. For those of you that have not heard the story, let me give it to you in a nutshell. I started back in September of 2007 and I did so because I needed to start sourcing my own loans. I had been a non-producing branch manager for 2 different mortgage companies over the course of 5+ years. As a manager, I had a few contacts, but not enough to drive business to me.
I tried the lead route when I got back into sourcing business and I have to tell you, they sucked. The return for the hours that I spent on the phone calling people over and over and over, quickly got to the point that I knew that it would not be the answer for me. I needed to find another route. That is when I received an invitation to join Active Rain. Reluctanly, I did join and since that time, I have never looked back.
I am proud of the accomplishments that I have made since that fateful day. I learned how to filter out my interests and spin off new sites to draw readers that I was not getting on AR. This is what gave birth to Athletic 
Alley and Sportsfanatic. Since then, I have created several other sites on the net and am very active on several internet social marketing platforms.
One might wonder why I do not take the opportunity to link to the sites that I have created or the sites that I have joined. I have to answer that by saying that is not what this post is about. This post is about your internet presence. What happens when you google your name. Frankly, for me, I show up 8 differnet times on the first page of the google search and it does not stop there. I know that if someone types my name into google, they can find me. I also know that if someone looks for loan officer in knoxville tennessee, they get Rich Dansereau first and me second.
So, why do I ask the question about internet presence? Well, frankly, in today's market, you have to be doing everything that you can to get business. If you do not have a website, then you have limited what business you can attract. Marketing strategies are ever growing. Either you evolve your marketing or you get left behind.
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