ActiveRain Members…We Need Your Input!!! 

I joined in the fall of 2008 - I had attended a back to school night and one of my sons High School teachers said he was blogging. My wife and I had been independent agents with our small brokerage and I was looking for resources that I missed when  I left a large brokerage. All the banter with other agents was very important but I was tired of paying all the fees, so we went on our own.

I searched for real estate chat rooms, blogging platforms, realtor boardrooms etc and discovered AR. It was great, I could ask a question before I turned in for the night and have 40-50 answers in my inbox when I woke up.

Activerain literally saved my career and i have visited almost daily ever since, I certainly do not post as often as I would like, but enjoy reading and sharing tips  from many of the AR ambassadors as well as many of the others here. 

Some things that I wish would change is seeing the same people on the scroll all the time, it would be great if we had more variety than the same 20-30 people that always get highlighted. Also I have found the past few times I have tried to post, I get an error or it doesn't save and I get frustrated and opt not to post. 

I joined AR in 2010 but did not write my first post until August (3 posts), September (6 posts), October (94 posts) November (80 posts), December (36 posts). I heard about ActiveRain at the TX REALTOR'S CONFERENCE in 2009 and in 2010 during the portions when Vendors came to what we called Expo to sell their products. I also attended RainCamp in Houston eating dinner w/Bob Stewart, Kerrie, and other VIPs who invited anyone that wanted to join them for dinner, to be there. I showed up and Kerrie sat across from me while eating dinner. I was immediately sold on AR, knowing it was for me. Bob also came to Plano, TX and I went to his events there too. Bob & I had a 1 on 1 and he was so in tuned to what I had to say, and vice versa. He made me feel like I really belonged to AR. To be honest, a sense of belonging is very important to me.  

I was motivated, excited, and eager to learn on ActiveRain and soon had regular followers, and their comments were very special to me. What surprised me most was when I no sooner sent my post and received a comment almost instantly. I love to write. I was always addicted to writing and enjoy meeting new people. 

Meet-Ups were interesting, and I attended often. I like to read interesting blog posts. Real Estate posts to educate and inform are very important. However, I love reading posts from Home Inspectors, like Michael from TN, Seaton from IL, and another Inspector from perhaps NM??? Unfortunately, he died. Posts to inspire are awesome! Market Reports don't interest me. I want to learn things that fascinate me, i.e., bee keeping, hobbies, travels, and seeing amazing photography. 

There is a very important post written by Bob Stewart on 5/25/2010: Grandfathered Rain Makers Accounts: Rewarding Members Who Continue to Participate: allowing AR to focus on resources, encouraging the members, rewarding members, and striking a balance. You might want to revisit what he wrote.  

Hi Kathy Streib   I joined about three years ago and took a year off due to family issues.  I heard AR was a good website and didn't realize how much blogging and attention to everyone else's blogs was commonly done.  It does take a lot of time to put a decent blog post up and then a lot more time looking at other's and commenting.  I am still working 'full time' and things were difficult but had some down time.  I started with architecture and ended up with motivation, graphics, food, etc.

The people here are wonderful and I just wish I could dedicate more time to making reasonably intelligent comments.  I am not here for the points.

The back links are nice, but especially the comments back on what I post.

Most of the info is realtor related but a lot of great ideas about marketing and tech here make it a very rich forum.

Thank you very much!
JH

Interesting reasons shared so far. I joined to connect with other real estate agents here in AZ as well as nationally. The purpose was to give and to receive referrals. Additionally, one learns quite a bit about other areas of the country, events and can develop authentic relationships with other real estate agents.  Some of the postings are indeed fascinating such as old ordinances in Montana, thank you Kat Palmiotti 

Like you, I joined in 2008 as well in 1300+ place in my state. Another agent in northern Utah invited me to join and from the first post, I was hooked. The point system interested me but the people here are why I continue to interact in the Rain!

Through the multitude of problems, I still saw value in being here. Many new members in the past either posted once or twice as an assignment by a Utah online real estate school. Some longtimers lost interest, leaving because of recent hiccups.

New members should realize that this is not an 'instant coffee' real estate platform and the true rewards are within the relationships that are built, rather than the expectation of receiving consistent referrals to fill their pipeline.

Thank you for digging deeper to find out how to attract more members and retain them, Kathy!

Oh Boy, it's the Zoom call in a post.  Having just celebrated the milestone of 16 years, not too far after yours,  I came to learn and continue to do so almost on a daily basis.

I joined to network and to learn about current trends etc. There is/was a lot of talent on the Rain but it seems that there is a dearth of new members

Journey since 2006
I joined in late fall 2006. My 1st blog was in Nov 2006. I stumble upon Activerain while craving to learn as a new agent. This platform gave me an option to share my insight about the local market. Beyond that, I have met some amazing Realtors and have received and given referrals. 

Fast forward to why  I am still here:
True I am heavily focused on social medi while activerain keep me grounded on something can be basic and relevant.  I still enjoy reading. I think reading calms me down rather than swiping through reels or short video after video. 

What we can do to improve:
Add AI images to generate for your blog post. 
Improving SEO. I have seen the stats from my older blogs to newer ones Google, Bing, and Yahoo all have dropped the page ranking.
Attracting more members through social media platforms. Giving a spotlight on example Instagram and linking to the Activerain site. 
Allowing polls and quizzes so we can have so members and non-members interact.

I truly appreciate all the Ambassords for their time and efforts.

I think that blank profiles should be removed, especially if inactive.  I wouldn't remove inactive profiles that were once active, since they might still be lurking, even though they don't appear to be active.  Heck, Gayle Rich-Boxman Fishhawk Lake Real Estate recently made a return to the Rain and she has always been one of my favorites!

My first blog post was 10/23/2009 and I had 6,514 views!  Charlie Gantz and Susan Mangigian were the first members to comment.  I lurked in the background for about a year as I had no clue what blogging and SEO was about.  When the real estate bubble burst in 2008 I joined a marketing group affiliated with Dan Kennedy.  I began adapting to technology.  I did not even know what google was.  

I was thinking of coaching new agents in the business and developing a business model.  When I reached the part to attract business, I discovered banner ads.

My mentor located ActiveRain and joined.  

Fast forward, despite not blogging overtime I hosted local meetups TriCounty here is Southeast FL.  I love marketing and networking and learned how to navigate this site.

I am grateful to Ben Kinney for buying back the site and preserving the evergreen posts with the responsive development team in place.  Thanks guys!  He is keeping the lights on and surely aware of the status of the site ongoing.  All top-notch company owners do keep their eye on the ball for their ever-changing goals year in and year out.

I see the definition of cleaning up the leaderboard as archiving those no longer active or have met their maker not merely disappearing.  We can help the development team accomplish this mission with our participation about who we know has left this world and those who are permanently retired and so forth.  

We are now engaging new members and all members to challenges and zoom calls to keep the rainships alive .  With all the mergers and acquisitions over time it amazes me that we are still here 4 years later.  

I see leaders grooming the new generation of real estate professionals to take the helm or ActiveRain since it has served many over time.

Thanks for the shout-out!! I miss there interaction here! 

I joined ActiveRain in June 2007. I wrote my first post on June 25th. I was a lurker prior to that. 

My first post title was: What A Great Place Active Rain Is! 

I joined for SEO:) I joined for helping to pay it forward with referrals and to help agents grow in business and life. I joined to connect with realtors who homeschooled their kids as I was doing. 

I joined because I was also blogging on Webmaster and they were the meanest bunch of people I had met. You know, this is before Facebook. It was MySpace era and I was not into that. 
Because of that meanness I still posted there because I was learning and applying SEO to get found by buyers and sellers. So when I found ActiveRain, I discovered nice people online. That is when I totally switched over from those mean forums. 

I loved and I miss the way ActiveRain was back in the day. Also, I was addicted to the point system! SO LOVED IT! Put a carrot in front of me any day! 

I still write on ActiveRain but it is not the same as it was back in the day. 

I was the keynote speaker for ActiveRain RainCamp nd spoke in Atlantic City and well at participating in meet-ups like where I met Kathy Streib and many others!  

Loved reading the comments here, Kathy! I'm with Katerina Gasset - I miss the days of old and TOTALLY agree that it's just not the way it was in the beginning either. 

Like Endre Barath, Jr., I started in 2007 and like you, I lurked for quite some time prior to that - at LEAST 6 months!

Oh how I wish the SEO was as good as it was back then. I remember crazy posts about life and family and OH the insane amount of comments. Hijacking posts and new posts spawning from those lengthy discussions. 

Commenting with a new comment by the author on each of their posts' comments, points have TOTALLY gotten in the way of that sense of community. While some are motivated by them, let's be motivated by our positions locally, number of posts, comments, etc. Somehow calculating that in the back-end, not by points. 

Still, I have so much love for this platform and everyone here. I cannot imagine a more loving, caring, sharing, educational blogging platform - in the WORLD! 

I ❤️ ActiveRain!

What a great response to your question, Kathy Streib. Each answer would make a stand-alone post. I joined in 2006, and I'm sure I've logged in daily since then.

My husband's illness required us to spend time in hospitals (JHH, Boston, NY) for treatment. AR kept me connected to the real estate world, and that's when I began calling a member daily. Most did not know what we were going through, but a few did. The support, love, and learning I received were invaluable. When he passed away in 2014, the support from the Rain community was overwhelming.

I held AR meetups long before they were called meetups. This community's support resulted in my book, my going out as a solo broker, and my live radio show.

And that support never stopped with the friendships, connections, referrals, and having a place to share my RE experiences and get information on any subject.

To this day, I talk to a member and log in daily. Many of my clients follow my AR blog, and I include them when posting about their questions, listings, sales, closing, and many other things I learn from them. Many of my clients and friends used to comment on my daily blogs, and it's fun when I get that call about Baltimore crabs or the fire station holiday train display.

There is no question or real estate topic that cannot be found  and answered  on this site. There is much more learning here than our required CE can ever offer. Reading, commenting, and calling members, along with the weekly Zoom calls, are just a few reasons AR has become a part of my life.

Wow, Kathy Streib, I am delighted you remember, and I appreciate our friendship. 

I joined AR on Aug 07 2006, and like many here filled out my profile and lurked until I figured out what blogging was all about. I like the community, reading about the many communities around the country, the latest issues in real estate and having referral options with knowledgeable real estate professionals from all over. My other passion is Baseball and the AR Baseball Junkies 2024 season is about to begin. The fantasy draft is tonight. It would be great if there was a way to promote the site to some younger agents with the passion for blogging to energize the site with some young blood.

I joined in September of 2008.  It was court-ordered, and I was sentenced to a couple of decades of self-inflicted bloggishment.  It's no big deal, I could do five-years standing on my head, and I'm sure if you've read any of my posts, you can tell that many (most?) of them are written from that position.

The truth is that I first heard ActiveRain mentioned on one of the discussion boards on Trulia, which I frequented.  One of the AR regulars used to visit and talk real estate.  I didn't really care for him, but I checked out AR, and while it seemed interesting, he was a bigshot here... and I really didn't want to hang around anywhere that he was, so I didn't stick around.

A year, or two later, someone else on Trulia mentioned AR again, and I popped back in, and he seemed to be less present, so I started blogging.  And that, as they say, was that.

I joined 2024 to be part of a blogging community! I am able to do talk about the things i nerd about HOME INSPECTIONS,  where, I think, people could benefit from it. I like to contribute on home inspection topics and questions as much as I can!

*Why did you join ActiveRain?  What do you hope to learn or achieve by being on this platform?
I was hired as staff for Activerain by Jonathan Washburn and Bob Stewart in 2007. My role as community mgr was to help grow and support the AR network. I had an extreme desire and passion to want to help build and grow this network, more importantly are the PEOPLE within the network.

*What posts do you read here? Listings, marketing reports? Tell us what catches your attention. 
I tried to read every posting on Activerain (it was part of my job) along with other moderators and staff. Can you imagine how much knowledge I gained and in such a miraculous short amount of time? It was like the Matrix and learning Kung Fu. Unbelievable experience.

* What would you like to see on the site to keep you coming back?
The love, respect, education, knowledge, collaboration, and relationships etc. are enough to keep me here and coming back. There are so many other benefits, stories, and other Activerain successes. If others knew what we have here and its value, and if they knew they could have access to this, they'd sign right up and join Activerain.

Great post!