ActiveRain has been a daily part of my life for over a decade, and in that time I've seen a lot of people come and go. And the reasons many go can be found in the category of easily avoidable mistakes and unfulfilled expectations.
Here's a handful of things you can do that will increase your odds of success:
1. Identify yourself, in particular answer the "where are you?" question. Your service area needs to be clear. I can't count the number of times I've seen a profile with NOTHING that identifies where they work. Fill out your profile, edit your comment header, etc., to make it clear where you work.
2. Be in it for the long game. I'd love to say "write one blog post, get calls, make serious jack!!!", but that is NOT the way it works. Blogging is not a silver bullet, but a dedicated approach to supplying consumers with what they need to know and no other agent is giving them. Build up your relevant posts until you reach a critical mass that gets you found.
3. You can shorten the time for blogging to work if you a) identify your target audience and b) develop a niche approach. My best results are subdivision posts, long tail search pages (homes with barns, basements, 3 car garages, etc.) and posts about local low maintenance living options.
4. Make it easy to contact you. Make a phone number, email, website, etc. apparent.
5. Play nice in the sandbox. You should have learned this in 1st grade, so take a refresher course if you need it. This isn't Facebook and frankly when I've got my real estate hat on I couldn't give a lesser bleeeeeeeeeeep about most things people argue about. Kicking people in the shins is not helpful. My assumption? If you can't keep your cool here, I should be wary of trusting you with friends and family for referrals.
6. Don't mistake point totals for anything other than being point totals. There are MANY ways to get points. You can take an approach that helps your business AND gains points, or you can just throw out anything to get the points. Do what you feel you need to do to reach 500k and the free account, but trading points for quality (e.g. repeat serial comments) can be harmful to your community reputation.
7. What you write doesn't go away. Ever. Sure, you can delete it, but it's remembered, or even worse, screen capped and sent to your broker.
8. NEVER click post without having a copy of your post saved, copied, or otherwise available if everything goes POOF when you click submit.
9. Along the same lines, back up your posts here periodically. It's easy enough to do and takes just a couple of minutes and a little space on your hard drive. (My Home>My Blog>Export Blog Entries)
10. Don't try to figure it all out on your own. People here are more than willing to help. Ask in the Q&A section, email someone, call, etc., but ask.
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help,
Bill of Bill & Liz aka BLiz
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