How To Succeed on ActiveRain without Really Trying

I think we're forgetting that it is the choice of the person who is doing the blogging as to what type of content they wish to post and how often they wish to post.  I've been here 3.5 years and have never seen any policing  as far as what we should post; neither would I want to see it. Most of us enjoy the posts about family, pets, recipes. If some people only want to see "meaningful content"; then they can subscribe only to those who post endless SEO-targeted posts.

"Look at the Top Point Scorers in your respective State. The guilty 'Easy-Button' culprits are easily identifiable. Why should people be rewarded so much for contributing so little?"

#1 since sometime in 2006 although I am virtually gone from AR now my content still shows up in the search engines for ActiveRain and me. My content on AR was slowly built, mostly local content with no recipes, no quotes, no jokes.

I was one of the first to post a market report on ActiveRain, for locals.  There was a category for market reports, ActiveRain was set up for talking to consumers as well as one another, so I used it.  The response from an AR member in my market? "No fair!" He claimed I was doing market reports for points. He claimed I was cutting and pasting market reports into AR.

One of the reasons Realtor.com backed away from purchasing AR in 2007? The question of whether  the agents use AR to talk to consumers or did they just want to talk to one another? Many were relieved Realtor.com did not buy AR.   

There was policing way back when. Remember the flag?  I think the platform would have imploded if not for the early policing.  Those who are content to post photos, recipes, pet stories, etc.  today would not have a safe haven for it if not for the early policing because there were people who liked the easy button from the beginning.  There always will be. Are there more recipes, quotes, listings, jokes on ActiveRain now?  It is hard to see the forest for the trees.  I think it is too easy to see your own content as good and other member's  content as "less than." It always will be on a network.    

Should there be a button on AR or is AR too large?  Maybe.  Facebook is huge and some inapropriate content there is sometimes removed based on being flagged.  

Rich -- not too sure about how many are in that category, at least from recent postings - as I don't see to many of them (other than the blanket listings folks - who seem to think it will help to post 10 of them all together -- not realizing they would probably get better results by spreading them across the day).  One of the things that I notice is when I go to find a person to refer to, and the last blog post is 2-3 years ago.  Is there way to find out how many of the "over 320,000" folks actually post anything in a given month?

Fortunately, I think when we post legitimate informative content, it speaks for itself and creates the opportunity to connect with the public.  That can last a long time.  Those posting recipes and just listings aren't getting much traffic I'll bet.

For the most part, I enjoy reading many of the posts. But I will say every so often they really read as if somebody was just throwing something out there just to post... short, not a well developed them, and hard to understand the message. I just stop reading those.

Hi Rich, we agreee.  We wish Active Rain would find a way to limit those countless listing posts.

I thought we did with the red flag that we used to have & now that is gone. Not sure why. 

There is a person in my area that does nothing but post listings & he will soon overtake me in points. Guy's never written one word in a post.

This is a terrific topic worthy of a feature. I'm encouraged by the fact that the types you refer to don't usually last all that long, as was said earlier. Quality content remains impressive and continues to show up in searches.

I am kind of a post random thoughts about the world, business, etc type of blogger myself.  But I see nothing wrong with those people who post listings, market reports etc, they say that these things boost their seo, and that is what we are here for isn't it?

as for a tattler button, I would rather not have one, people will eventually adapt their content to meet the needs and wants of their readers, and a button will just scwelch creativity and destroy some of the community here when people start getting upset about their neighbors.

Rich- i've seen a post that was lifted from somewhere, and it got featured.  I like seeing a variety of blog topics because it adds a richer layer to Active Rain.  I do agree with Liz and Bill, some of the serial drive-by commenters eventually lose interest and go away.  

Well, maybe the spurious posts can boost your point total, but they're not going to win any awards from potential customers.  I like getting points, but the object here is to get clients.  It's just a huge waste of time to put the cart before the horse, and I imagine it's ultimately unsatisfying for its practitioners.

Hum, I am relatively new to activerain.  I don't look at property listing and did not realize people reposted the same listing again and again.  Do they get some type of "google juice" for repeated posting?   I came to Activerain to work on my Blogging skills and the habit of blogging.  I have read many blogs to get a feel for what is a good Blog.  

Hmmm... The points issue doesn't bother me because I'm not an agent, so showing up at the top of the page for Idaho doesn't affect my business one way or another. I seriously doubt that anyone searches there for a coywriter!

So -  I don't care if people post information that I don't want to read. All I have to do is NOT read it. Recipes aren't my thing, but an occasional joke is OK, and I always enjoy the opinion pieces and "tales from the real estate wars." 

My big objection to "robo commenters" is that it's difficult to figure out how to reply to them - and I think it's only polite to reply to everyone who comments.

Rich, my motto has always been "look at the top agents and duplicate what they are doing". On AR you can look at the top 10 and really tell the difference in what you are talking about. Hat's off to Debe Maxwell in my market though, I want to be like her when I grow up!!

As many have said in the comments attached to this post, most authors of robotic comments tend to disappear after a period of time.  The majority of comments I read and receive are original.

I can still see a red "Report a concern" link when I hover just to the left of the date/time stamp on comments, so at least we can try to work on getting rid of the bad spammers.  

But you're completely right, we used to have a way to report posts that were "spam" like in nature.....I don't see that anymore.....and I think that there were quite a few heated discussions about gaming the system.

At the end of the day, it's really about the content you produce and not the score in this ecosystem that really matters.

I am with you to a point.  I think as long as people are within a very loose legal guideline you have to let them post what they want.  I don't want people telling others what kind of content they can publish.  There were times I posted links to worth while information with some commentary of my own.  I did not copy the material. 

I think the abuse we need to watch for his plagerism.  

I know in my market an AR member is number one just because of daily postings of her listings. No content at all and she take #1 go figure. To report a spam on a comment scroll to the AR comment bottom which has a hidden button in the comments section. Go put your mouse next to time in the right hand corner. A link for a "report a concern" shows up. 

It would be kind of cool if listings didn't really add points to the tally. Wonder if that's a viable solution? I do some listings from time to time, and wouldn't mind at all if they didn't count as points.

This post hit home! I have someone who always comments on my post, but it is short and irrelevant and always the same.  I am going to delete his comments from now on. But should I address it in some other way?