Once upon a time in my ActiveRain life I posted daily, and did so for over a decade. Along with being semi-retired as an engineer, I'm semi-retired from being an "active" ActiveRain blogger, down to 1 a week unless some special itch just has to be addressed.
How do I decide what to post?
The basics that influenced me during the daily run are the same as the once a week post, a set of filters that prompts what ideas survive to clicking "Publish" and which ideas never get beyond the initial strokes of the keyboard.
First and foremost, I have to decide who my audience is for the post?
Rainers? Consumers? Friends? Other agents? Other parts of the real estate profession? Just myself? And just how broad is the audience?
So audience established, I need to pick a topic that fits the audience.
Personally, I lean heavily into writing to consumers because I'm more likely to find a home buyer or seller than an agent looking to provide a referral to my market.
So what does the consumer need from me?
Ideally something they can't find elsewhere, and the more pertinent to local real estate, the better. Long tail topics don't have to reach the biggest portion of the consumer audience, they just have to reach the section interested in what you have to write that your competition has missed. For me, the sweet spot has been posts about real estate niches, new construction, market reports, subdivisions, etc.
After I've established the who and the what, there's still the HOW.
What's the best way to present the information? Those that follow me regularly know I lean heavily into analogies. Take an experience that might not appear to be real estate related and then tie it to real estate. Now for someone else, it may be all about charts, graphs and other visual aids (especially if a market report is the topic du jour).
And another part of the HOW is the tone of the post. Factual? Fun? FAQ?
One of my key filters is I don't personally like to rant in my posts. Have I in the past? You bet. That type of post can't get lots of comments, but I've reached the conclusion that rants aren't in my best interest. What type of potential client are they likely to attract? Probably not the kind I want to work with. And frankly I can cause myself enough trouble without picking a topic that is likely to bite me in the hindquarters if I proceed with posting.
So those are my key steps. Run through the decision tree, select, type, edit, post.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help,
Bill & Liz aka BLiz
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