I attended REBar camp in Rye today. All I can say is awesome + information overload. No, seriously, it was an amazing day - learned a ton and more importantly, got to meet some amazing Active Rain Bloggers for the first time.
First, I finally got a chance to meet Suzanne Welch, a local realtor in Croton-on-Hudson. I met her virtually on Active Rain just a couple of months ago when I joined, and she has already referred 2 flooring jobs to me (Thank you Suzanne). The first one was a hardwood and refinishing job for one of her closings and the 2nd one a laminate job for a friend in her mom's networking sphere. Suzanne is the one that told me about this meeting. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
It was so great to meet her, and I feel like we are long lost sisters. She is so full of energy, fun and super easy to talk to. And, it was so great to have a buddy to walk around with in this realtor conference. Can't wait to get together again. Let's do it soon.
Then, I had the pleasure of meeting J Philip Faranda. Now, this was really cool because I've been reading 
his blogs for a couple of months (he is an excellent writer and blogger, and if you're not yet subscribed to him, you should). So, because I read his blogs I felt like I knew him already. He is exactly what I expected - the same in person as he sounds when he writes.
Spontaneously, he led a session on blogging. He provided some great advice on how to blog (e.g. 1) find your own voice/be you, 2) mix up the blogs on business vs. local vs. personal - mix it up, 3) some advice on search terms). He informed us that often it's the local blogs and the ones that don't get the comments that get him the leads. He likes to be known as the "Westchester guy" and that a lot of people that have found him online said to him, it looks like you are the resident expert on "blah blah blah" and I can tell from the tone of your blogs that you are a stand up guy. He also gave me some great ideas for future topics for my blogs (I'm very excited because to use his words - they are "brilliant ideas," and, I wouldn't expect anything less coming from a brilliant guy.
One of the stars of the day was Chris Smith (aka TechSavvyAgent). He is dynamic and energetic speaker all full of knowledge and energy. I think he doesn't even need the caffeine - he's just naturally like this. He led a session on Facebook and explained to us the importance of a fan page and why we are so much better off using that vs. our personal profile page. He gave us insight as to how to name our page and how naming it for search terms (rather than our name or company name) will get us so much further. I have a lot of homework to do in this area.
Some realtors in the audience knew this guy already and said, you guys HAVE to friend him (his fan page, that is) and/or follow him on twitter. He also explained to us the potential power of Facebook Ads. He showed us how we can target the ads based on demographics and geography (super cool) and how you only pay for the ads based on the clicks...therefore, all the impressions you get where no one clicks is free advertising. Now, that's cool.
I don't know if I can ever thank Amy Chorew enough. She is the one who told me about Active Rain (and 
as I understand it, she is responsible for getting a lot of us onto Active Rain...AR God, you definitely should give her some bonus points because she announces this at every social media conference).
I missed her first session which was on the basics of hub & spokes (your web and/or blog is at the center and everything feeds or links into that). I then attended a joint on the fly co-session with her and Chris on Twitter basics. I did learn a bunch of tips, but what really made this special was all the back and forth banter between the two of them.
They both gave us some great people to follow (i.e. observe who is doing this right and that will help you become better.
It was a great day. Lots of super tips (and now my to do list is even longer) and lots of good networking. I ran into several other realtors I know as well as a past customer from over 2 yrs ago who happens to be a realtor. My head is spinning...but, in a good way. Thank you.
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