Yesterday I wrote a blog entitled An Active Rain FEATURE Can be Good for Your Business!.  In the post, I wrote about how having a Featured Blog would be good for your business economically.  I was amazed at the comments I received.  The post focused on 5 benefits of writing a featured post. 

SOME COMMENTS I RECEIVED ASTOUNDED ME!!!!!

In essence the Featured Post was treated like some elusive piece of gold.  The comments made it sound like either the "grand pubas" had a "good ole boy network" and if you were in you got the features, or if you were out, then you didn't.  The second batch of surrendering comments were around the fact that a lot of people were resigned to the fact that they would never write a good post.

I'd love to say that I'm on Active Rain's payroll.  I'm not.  If there's a good old boy's club I'm not aware of it.  I joined Active Rain when there were about 60,000 members.  I had no idea on what I was doing here in Active Rain.  My wife teased me when I told her that I was writing my daily blog.  It took me six months to get my first referral (I'm up to 86 now) and 9 months to get my first feature.  THAT WAS WITH ONLY 60,000 MEMBERS!  We're over 200,000 members now. 

2 WAYS TO GET YOUR POST FEATURED:

1)  Create a catchy title.  Seems simple, but in reality, I've only had a few posts that got me featured because of me being creative with a blog title.  One of first feature posts was entitled Oprah ruined my life....but I got it back!.  It was actually a true story about my wife being on the Oprah show.  I won't bore you, but Oprah sells....even in Active Rain.

2)  This is a pill that is hard for most people to follow......

CREATE A FOLLOWING! 

Yikes.....I said the word "Create."  Almost like ..."And God Created The World"....."And Bettag Created A following."  The reality is that God did create the world and if I want a good shot at getting a post featured, I do need to create a following.  What amazed me on yesterday's comments were these comments:

• "I finished the 31 day challenge and didn't get noticed."  Well guess what?  I finished 8 months of postings and never got a feature.  It bummed me out.  When Bill Clinton ran for president the first time, he was getting killed in the primary.  He locked himself in his trailer/mobile home/tour bus and for 2 weeks just studied Ronald Reagan speeches.  All about presentation.  I thought I was a better writer but started to read just the featured blog roll to see what I was missing.  I was almost there, but I still needed a bit of ooooomph!
• "I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll never get featured."  I cant touch this one.  If you have this attitude, you probably wont. 

To Create a Following.....a few things need to happen.  You need to blog frequently.  31 posts in 31 days is great and nice and all....but if you want to get a featured post....persistence, persistence, persistence....you need to know that persistence is not just posting 31 days.  I was well over 200 posts into it before I had my feature.  It's hard to create any following in 31 days.  You can being to create a following, but you can't have a real following.  Once you get your following, then folks will start to suggest you....and it all flows from there!

Comment and subscribe to others.  You need to actively engage if you are going to create a following.  I comment religiously on other people's posts.  I subscribe to people who are interesting.  Some are so different than the others, but hey....you need to engage.  It's taken a while, but I have over 300 subscribers.  I'm not bragging at all.  I remember seeing some of these awesome people keep getting featured.  Loreena Yao, Missy Caulk, Jeff Belonger, et al.  I'm staring there and drooling as they have a million subscribers and are top dogs here.  I befriended them and watched them.  I'm not good, but I am better than I was.  The reason that blog subscribers is important is that's a key indicator as how I'm probably doing out in the community as well....that's where my income is made.

Other Recipes create great dishes.....I do know that this recipe works!

If you choose, you can find me here:

                                  

 

                    

                                          NMLS ID#158606               An Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee