My new Active Rain 
friend, Tim Thiessen, asked me about navigating around in the Rain.
Seems it is a pretty cumbersome place for newbies. I know it is; I remember those first few weeks myself.
This place is huge and the amount of stuff to learn is often overwhelming.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile now. I’ve only
been here for 3 months (as of August 11th) and I have learned a lot and had an incredible amount of fun while doing so.
Active Rain is everything wrapped up into one. It is excellent for business, you meet wonderful people and make new ‘forever’ friends who you ping with and end up having an intuitive connection with, you learn an incredible amount of stuff to do with Website Optimization (ongoing), Search Engine Optimization, Writing, Real Estate, Financing, Life, just plain everything can be found here at Active Rain.
It is like stumbling or being invited to a 
non-stop feast where as quickly as you are filled, you become hungry again and the feast gets better and better all the time. Your brain cells expand, your socializing metre goes off the chart, you laugh, sometimes you cry, you expand and you grow and it is all in a positive and wonderful way.
What’s not to love about Active Rain ? Sure there are the odd personality types sprinkled here and there who are overbearing or negative or misled, however they are few and far between.
Generally this is the biggest gathering of the most positive, helpful, caring, knowledgable,
warm, funny, professional, intelligent (beyond belief), amazing people I have ever seen ANYWHERE. Every day at Active Rain I am more amazed than the day before.
So, I’ve been here for 3 months and I’ve achieved approximately 37000 points. I never thought I would reach 10,000 , let alone 37,000.
If points are what you are after, then I will tell you how I reached where I am today.
However, being here at Active Rain is not about points; it is about networking and friendships and learning and supporting and growing and being a mover and shaker in whatever field your business is in.
It is also about putting great content out there for your prospects and peers and the world in general. Your grasp here at Active Rain far exceeds your reach, just how far is absolutely astounding. Give a little and you will go far. Give a lot and the possibilities are limitless.
Here is a summary of the most important things I have learned at ActiveRain in the past 3 months.
- Fill out your profile page. Put down everything you can think of and that it is asking you for. The more thorough you are, the more your prospects and peers will get to know you and also, as an added bonus, the more points you will get ! Study a few profile pages of other members. You’re welcome to use my profile page as a guide. I achieved
1785 points by filling it out as thoroughly as I did. Use important search engine words in the titles of each section of your profile page. You don’t have to stick with AR’s titles. You can change them to indicate something about your area. This will help you draw more business. - Comments. The best way to reply to someone’s comment on your
post, is to reply under the comment section. Use their name when addressing their comment so that when they come back to check and see if you replied to them, they will see the comment meant for them quickly.
I usually put their names in BOLD also, this way it is even easier for them to see the reply meant for them.
Try to reply to someone’s comment the same day they left the comment there. They might not remember to come back and check the following day. Things move along pretty quickly here in the Rain.
Reciprocating the comments someone leaves on your post is a fantastic idea and helps you build relationships with the people who like how you think and write enough to leave a comment on your blog.
Read TLW’s post . It about tells it like it is and I feel this post of TLW’s is one of the best and most helpful to all concerned, here at AR. If you do nothing else, do this. - Categorize your interests and then do a search for the groups that fall in your interests. When you write a blog, post it to the 5 groups that are most relevant to that post. While we are talking about groups, hop on over to the Newbies group and introduce yourself.
There is a ton of good info there for new members.
Some groups are great for just about anything. Groups
like Anything Goes, The Lounge at Active Rain, No Writer’s Block Allowed, etc are less specific in content than many other groups. Marti's group, The Art of Marketing You, is a great place to pick up tips on anything and everything to do with marketing and is one of the most active groups here at AR.
Then are the groups that bring you together with people from your province or state. Canadians are still sparsely represented here at AR, so Larry's group Canada, Eh, is a great place to go to network with other Canadians and to post topics relevant to Canada.
If you write a historical post, post it to the Heritage Properties, Historical Sites and Antiques group.
If you write an inspirational or positive feeling type post, make sure and put it in the Inspiration group and the Positive Attitude for the Weary Soul group. And so on.
Groups are great fun and are ways to gather with like minded people. They are also places to go and read posts that lay within your interest zones. - Be positive !! If you are commenting on someone’s blog, please be nice.
If you don’t agree or if you are just generally having a grumpy day, please move along .
Better to not comment at all than to add something negative
and draining.
Negativity is not wanted here. Read my Puff the Blue Kitten post and you will see why your being negative will not serve you well.
Never Ever steal someone else’s words or post or pictures.
Bloggers put in a lot of creative juice and brainpower and time here. They do not want their work stolen by someone too lazy to research and write their own stuff. In addition, we all want to read unique and fresh content that allows the writer’s personality to shine through. Be you !! - Learn how to add pictures and links to your posts. Relevant pictures break up the wall of words, add colour, spice it up with images that leave something open to the imagination of the reader and make your post much more attractive and readable. You can download a lot of free pictures to your computer off the web.
Just look for ‘public domain’ clipart and images. You’ll find tons. Half the fun I have when writing my posts is searching for just the right pictures. Sometimes I take my own to add to the relevant part of the post. Be creative !!
- Do not worry over who is getting ahead of you or who you are going to
overtake in points. If you start doing this, you will be defeating the whole purpose of ActiveRain and will end up bitter, envious and unhappy.
Not only that, but in addition people will see you as a fair-weather person who is only in it for themselves. Not a good way to be.
For every little bit of giving here in the Rain, you will get back tenfold.
Learn to give selflessly and happily and forget about how far your neighbour is getting. Help your neighbour out.
become his/her associate, support one another, cheer him/her on, Be genuinely friendly and caring ! - Feel free to ask anyone here any questions about navigating in the rain that you may have. There are no stupid questions.
We all were new once and we learned by watching, researching, and asking.
I’m happy to help anyone out with whatever knowledge I have gleaned.
You can email me privately or ask under one of my posts in the comment section.
I will always reply and be totally honest. If I don’t know the answer , I will direct you on to someone who I think does. - If someone leaves a comment on your post that gets under
your skin in a bad way, bite your tongue and take a time out for a bit before replying.
Things may look differently after you’ve thought about it for a bit and you may decide to not add to the negativity and just let it go.
If someone leaves a negative comment on your blog that you do not like, delete it. It is YOUR blog and you have every right to delete comments you don’t want there. - Do not advertise yourself or your company under someone else’s comment section. This means do not post a link to your website or make a plug for yourself in their comment section. This is in very bad taste and just not right.
- What I have learned about widgets is that widgets will slow your blog loading time down. A couple of widgets are ok. Too many and your blog begins to lose it's professional appeal.
If you are here to attract business, be aware that your prospects and clients will see those widgets. If that is the image you are trying to portray , then fine.
Just use your own discretion. I recently took down my Librarything widget as I saw it was slowing down the loading of my main blog page. I also decided that I wanted a cleaner and more professional look to my blog. - When you post a blog, remember, you can post to Members Only or to the Public. If there is something in your post that you do not want the public to read, then make sure and use the members onl
y option. Not everything should be put out there for the public eye.
That being said, also be aware that ANYONE can join AR with a false or fake persona and read your 'members only' content.
So use discretion. Going on rants that put down buyers, sellers and other agents does not become anyone and will lose you business and respect in the end. - Learn about keywords and use them in your post titles and in the body of the post itself. I have many posts in all categories that are now in the top 5 of google results for innumerable different keyword searches. There are ways to track what keywords are leading people to your blog.
Adding Statcounter or Hittail to your blog are two of them . Both are free and go a long way to helping you learn what is attracting viewers to your blog.
If you would like some help with this , drop me an email . - Be wary of spammers, predators, and green monsters.
The best way to deal with spammers and predators is to delete the spam and also report it to Bob Stewart or another AR wizard who works behind the scene in the control tower. The same thing with a predator, report to Caleb. Do not get drawn into their game.
Green monsters are best left to stew in their own juices. Another one for the ‘ignore’ file. - When you ping with someone, and after you know them a bit, add them as an associate.
If they feel the same way about you, they will add you as an associate too. Then you will have an association !
When you add someone as an associate, make sure and put something in the associate comment section about them. Something truthful and nice that will help them to be attractive to the public who reads their associations list.
Associations are friends. There is no point in having hundreds of associations that you have forgotten who they are and why they are even in your association list to begin with.
That is defeating the purpose.
When you associate with someone, make sure they are someone like you and someone that you would be happy to refer business to, because you most likely will end up doing just that. - Yes, active rain is excellent for business. Link your blog
to your websites and as your AR profile rises, so too will your website. The public will come and read your blog, peers will read your blog, people all across the world will be reading your posts when they do a search for something that you have blogged about.
I have people from China, Sweden, Japan, all over Europe, Britain, pretty much anywhere you can think of reading my posts.
It is a great way to get your name out there as the knowledgeable and caring person who they should contact when in need of whatever business you are offering. It works, it really does. - One final word of advice. If you plan on writing a long or very creative
and valued post (one that you are going to put a lot of time and energy into), write it in WORD or some other program first and save it. Then transfer it over to your AR blog. I've lost a few great posts by writing them only in the post section of my blog, then hitting the wrong key, or google decides to sign out and 
'poof, there goes the post I just spent an hour on. Not a fun time.
Well, now that I have written this small book, I guess I will sign off and go and make some dinner. I hope this has helped you somewhat, Tim; and any other newbies out there. I know this can be an overwhelming place to be at first, however in no time you will be splashing away with the rest of us and enjoying every minute.
Jo
Jo 
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