Testing out Active Rain's Rain Maker

Not sure what is going on here either.  You need to do some more probing.

Steven, here is a link to the Active Rain Newbies Group. There used to be a Manual on Brad Andersohn's profile page but it is gone. As of yesterday, Active Brad is no longer the Community Builder on Active Rain; he has been recruited by Zillow.

I am not charged for Rainmaker status but I heard that people joining now will have to pay. I pay for my Outside Blog and also for Hit Router.

Another person you might want to talk to about ramping up your presence is Katerina Gassett. She is excellent at making Google juice and shares much information on her blog posts. I actually took one of her classes and learned more than I had time to implement.

Good luck in your business.

Also, I noticed that you're in Ontario so try talking with Liz Moras. She is in Canada and an excellent Rainer.

Steven do you blog regularly? That is the best use of Active Rain. From my imperfect understanding, as a RainMaker when you blog, the service indexes and tags your blogs which gives you "Google Juice" - in other words, it helps the search engines find and consider your content valuable, which increases your rankings.

There are LOTS of people in the AR community who will willingly help you. The newbies group is great, check out the tutorials, and blog daily, as well as comment on others' blogs.

The reality now is for new clients to find you, they look on the search engines. If you're not on page 1, your competitor is and they'll call that person first.

Best wishes!

FYI Rama, Rainmaker and Outside blogs are 2 different services.

I suggest signing up for the classes on Activerain University.  Click those words and you'll go there directly.

Steven - I signed up for Rainmaker through the 30 day free trial.  I pay $39 a month, probably plus tax, so $41 something sounds about right.  The biggest benefit for that is the ability to make public posts (instead of just to the AR membership) and the outside blog.  Public posts and outside blog posts are indexed by the search engines.  Spend some time going through the new member resources, webinars and AR University and you can learn how these tools will help your business.

I did invite an agent in my office today and within a few minutes of signing up, he got a call from someone at AR.  I warned him that someone would probably call and see if he needed help with anything, like they did with me.  Instead of getting a call from the helpful person I talked to, his call was a hard sell from a guy who wouldn't stop asking for his credit card information.  He tried the nice, polite route but finally just hung up the phone because the guy wouldn't give up.  I was a little embarassed that I had referred him to the site and he had to deal with that.

Gayla, an agent in my office had the same experience last week. I hope this is not a harbiinger of things to come at Active Rain. The helpful phone calls from Brad Andersohn will be no longer now that he has moved to Zillow.

Steven,

I am also new to Active Rain. I have been here for a little over one week and I am enjoying it. I did not sign up to be a Rainmaker yet because I am not convinced of the value. I do have an outside blog and I don't see the benefit of maitaining another one here. My outside blog is a subdomain of my domain (MyFirstHouseAZ.com).

Having said that, if you don't have a blog under your own domain I would recommend you use the blog functionality here. It is amazing how interactive and helpful everybody are. My blog (under my domain) has a little over 2 months and I never had any comments there. I had viewers but no comments. I started my blog here last week and I had comments for every single post. This encourages me to continue posting.

And before I go I would like to leave you with a little piece of advice. As you know, there are lots of companies and people that sell to real estate agents. Some of them are very convincing and have great products. However, never sign up for anything that you don't understand or are not sure will give you the return you want/need. Gary Keller (founder of Keller Williams) has a very interesting recommendation regarding our investments - we should play red light/green light with our money. Do not spend another dime until you are sure your current investments are generating the returns you need/want. And please don't be upset with my comment. I wish I was able to follow his advice all the time. I too have spent money on things that did not generate the return I wanted. :O)

Cheers.

I was never called, I just saw the value and signed up.  The value is there and it is tax deductible!

When I signed up for the Rain Maker Trial I found I didn't really have time so I called to cancel several time and got no response. I never did get a call but found that I could go into my account setting and change my credit card # to all zeros making it unusable. I still post comments but have never been called back.

All I did was buy a ticket to go to a RainCamp event...now I've just realized my credit card has been billed the last 3 months to be a member of Raincamp.  I had no clue!  I've called and emailed and gotten no response to shut it down and refund what they took out!  I like the zero's idea - definitely going to try that.

I have been a member since 2007 and I see that new members are offered memberships for $20, $30, and $40.  Why do mine says $69.00 a month, what is the deal with that.

I joined activerain several years ago and was listed as a "rainmaker" but then they said if I upgrade my blog I would get more hits and traffic.  I did that and am  not seeing results for the $39/month.  I asked several times for help and all they say is to go to the webinars.  I like to 000 idea too. 

Steven, I am so sorry that I am just seeing this now and that you've experienced that kind of service.  It truly makes me red in the face because ActiveRain prides itself on superior customer service and it looks as though we have dropped the ball here and for that, I apologize.

The benefit of becoming a paying RainMaker vs the free account is you have the option to post your blogs publicly.  If you are not a RainMaker, your posts are only being seen by the other members of ActiveRain.  Public posts are indexed by the search engines and if done right, will show up on page one of Google for the search terms you'd like to get recognized for.  There is a certain algorithm to this, "Google Juice" if you will and thus is why we provide free ActiveRain University classes.  You must know how to blog in order to show up on page one. 

The price of RainMaker status has changed throughout the years in order to keep up with trends.  Current price is $59/month.  If you are paying another price, it is because you signed up when that price was active and you will continue to be grandfathered in at that price so long as you don't cancel.

Steven, I'm here to give you some one on one if you'd prefer anytime.  Your success is my success!

Steven was excellent and very helpful, but, of course, he has now left, together with Doug Ching.  So many changes!

Interesting. I signed up at RainCamp for an account and received a fair amount of traffic but like someone else said I did not have the time to post regularly on here and m personal blog so I scrapped it with the Gary Keller red light/green light philosophy. I now get automated emails that my credit card has expired and they have called me to try and get me to come back to being a RainMaker. I don't see the overall value. If you can work the SEO angle you can do this all from your own site.

well almost a year has passed since you wrote this post........im interested in knowing...how are things since oct 2010.....are you happy ? are you still with AR? are you still a Rainmaker? and what advice do you offer me....for I was a rainmaker for $39./mo..never really knew what I was paying for...tried to cancel and couldnt find a fone # either.....in fact, at the time, I had 2 AR accounts...not sure how that happened...I tried to merge the two but I gave up. One was a rainmaker and was "free".....I eventually changed the credit card # as well..and never heard from anyone till they discovered my card was no longer accepting their 'debit"...Thats really not my style but i had no choice...to this very day..i'm active on AR...not as aggressive as many ive seen...but today i discovered University...and explored. Still "free" and explore a little each day..I was left with a bad taste for many months i attempted to get help...and didnt. That's why today, i'm still cautious. Actually I found your post via search mode and I related well to your comments and others apparently who experienced the same.....Im not "putting down" AR for I do enjoy it day to day. The posts are great. I'm still not sure if the rainmaker will benefit me that much..and technically Ive been active with AR since 2008. I found somewhat of a comfort Zone,,,,,just browsing each day....but still wonder why im not taking advantage of all features...like you, I need "insight" and proof of benefits ! and $59 month is getting steep if you ask me....

really interested what path you took after writing this post.....hope all is great for you.