If you're a real estate agent chances are strong you want MORE business! Chances are also strong that you're in the Rain participating because you want to learn how to increase your business, gain relationships and hopefully gain referrals.
Blogging in the Rain gives us two main audiences:
1. Consumers
2. Fellow Rainers
How we approach these two audiences is significantly different. For group 1, self-advertising is definitely called for, but it requires a delicate touch. It's not all about you but all about them. You want to demonstrate expertise and competence, but with a bit more subtlety than Negan's bat Lucille.
Your blog is the avenue for broadcasting those messages. Answering consumer questions, helping them find the right homes, etc. Advertise away! You can even use your blog to advertise to group 2! Think of all the virtual assistants, inspectors, web gurus and more here in the Rain. They write to attract our business.
But there is an area where self-advertising is against the ActiveRain Community Guidelines:
Do not advertise yourself or your services in the comment section of another member's post.
Consider the audience of the blogger's post. Is it consumer based? So are you trying to swipe their potential clients after they did the work of writing the post? Trying to swipe some SEO credibility with the bots?
Either way, it's a no-no. Linking within a comment MIGHT be acceptable under the right circumstances, but in general not when the post is consumer facing and not when you're using the comment to self-promote.
And it may also be dependent upon your relationship with the blogger. If you're friends, it might be in good fun. If they don't know you, they just may delete your comment as spam.
And by the way, another method of self-advertising that is frowned upon is using the AR email/contact system to spam people. You don't win any friends with that approach.
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help!
Liz and Bill aka BLiz
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