While I have been an ActiveRain member since 2007, I never really saw any value in it and my account sat dormant until April of 2010. I had to good fortune to run into Loreena Yeo that month. Gina and I had lunch with her (Frisco Olive Garden!) and she told us all about the power of blogging. I left that meeting with a renewed sense of direction. I set up a blog and upgraded to RainMaker.
Roll forward nine months to January 2011. With this post I cross the 150k point mark with over 300 posts. But the journey has not been about the posts or the featured blogs. It's been a journey of enlightenment.
I was introduced to a number of great people including Lenn Harley (is there anyone who doesn't know her?), Greg Nino, Leslie Ebersole, J P Faranda and a cast of others. I've had the pleasure to meet Greg in-person (big dude!) and Leslie and I often talk on the phone to share ideas.
Our first success story came in May when an investor found one of my Short Sale blogs. We listed and Short Sold the last four of his properties.
In August, we had our second success story. As a result of my blogging we had the chance to interview with a major referral company. Most people had to apply to interview. They came to us as a result of our blogging efforts!
The next bit of enlightenment was called the "long-tail" search. I really didn't believe in it but I watched as people would call or visit our website as a result of something we had posted. Last week I wrote a blog about a new townhome community coming to Craig Ranch in McKinney. Google "Craig Ranch Townhomes" and that blog is number seven on the first page of Google. I now concentrate on the long-tail!
The last bit of enlightenment so far came in December when attended RainCamp in Houston. We had a great time, met all kinds of great people, and we left there was several new ideas. One of the things we took away from RainCamp was that our IDX solution really did not work well. It appeared to be an afterthought (it was!) and there was no SEO value in a pop-up or framed solution. We came back and just before the New Year we launched a new IDX solution from IDX Broker. In 2010 we did not develop a single lead from the old IDX. In less than 3 weeks we've had 3 people sign up to use IDX Broker. That's 50 new leads a year if it keeps on this pace!
For me, the 2011 forecast is for sunny days with a 100% chance of ‘Rain!
't change, just the weather changes. Here's my patio today, Tom. No exactly like Plano TX.
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