New Port Richey, Florida Real Estate Blog

Accelerate the ActiveRain Learning Curve aka Success leaves Clues

This is what I am doing to learn how to become better, if not the best at Blogging for Business on ActiveRain.  It comes from a widely held belief in business, that Success leaves Clues.  That if you follow in the footsteps of those who have mastered, or at least are benefiting from ActiveRain, you will yourself become better faster.

I do not proclaim to be a master, as I do not even have a featured blog yet.  But that does not bother me (you will see why in the last graphic), because my business, which is why we all are here, is being taken to a whole other level, just about every day. because of what I learn on ActiveRain.  From the members to the Ambassadors, and one can not forget the ActiveStaff as well.

There are a number of ways to accelerate your blogging learning curve.  One way is to find people here who specialize in SEO.  You can find some of them HERE using ActiveRains convenient inside Search Feature.   These are the people that will help you learn different ways to maximize your Search Engine Optimization(SEO).  Believe there is alot to learn about it

Another way is to subscribe to the Ambassadors in a new program ActiveRain rolled out recently where the cream of the crop take newbies and help them become Rainmakers.  You can find a lot of them HERE, they will have a gold star in the upper right hand corner of their reply.  You can click on their info at the bottom of their reply, make sure you open it in another window.  You land on the page and click on their Blog link.  Then you can subscribe to their blog.  you close this window, back to the page I pointed you to an repeat as necessary.  If there is another way to find them, other than noticing their stars in replies or stumbling upon their blog, I have not seen it yet (hint hint).

Now to take this to a local level, this is what I have found to be extremely valuable.

Step 1: click on the states button in the upper right corner of most, if not all, ActiveRain pages.

Step 2:  When you click on this a drop down will show all states and Provinces, I believe it is called in Canada.

Now you find your state/province on the list and select it, and what you will find, as was the case for me, in Florida is:

and here is a descending list of the All ActiveRain members in my state.  The top two are the Featured Agents for the Entire state of Florida of which there are over 17,000 people.   Both Nestor & Katerina Gasset, as well as Broker Bryant, have around 600,000 points, compared to my paltry ~50,000.  

Don't you think they have remained committed to this platform, and that it has had to of impacted their business, in a very meaningful way, as to incorporate it into their business model?  

 

Step 3:  But as you can see, the list is long, and you can not subscribe to them all.  I say pick one or two in each category, which you can filter with the drop down pictured to the right which is in the center below the Featured agents.  

But like we always say Real Estate is local, so back up on the main page view of Florida, on the left of the above picture, you will see a list of counties.  

 

 Step 4:  When I click on my county, this is what I got

Step 5:  and than you pick  few to follow here, and subscribe to their blogs, but is that truly local? you can see in the picture above there is once again a list of cities (towns, etc..) in the left column of links.  

Step 6:  As I have targeted Hudson, in Pasco County Florida, as my target area, since I live and work here, this is what I found

I am already number 1 in my town.  You may want to do some research on the towns/communities/cities you work in to see which one you can get to the top, the fastest.  I was fortunate to live and work in an area not already DOMINATED by Veteran ActiveRainers.

So how does finding the top dogs help my blogging and subsequently your business?  

Step 7: You go to their blog and Subscribe to it so you can read them daily.  Because once you subscribe to them, take a look at the first picture in this thread, and look for the Blog button next to the states button.  They all appear on your 'Blog' page.  Here is how I start and sometimes end every day of the week.

On the left is the Stream of All ActiveRain Blogs.  But the right hand column is my subscriptions.  I follow some of the best IMO, and if I find a person I subscribed to, no longer meets my expectations, I unsubscribe and replace them.  I have yet to unsubscribe anyone I have chosen to follow IIRC.

I hope you found this helpful and it accelerates your learning curve.  The people in My Subscriptions are perfect for me, but you may need an entire different list that better suits you, your business or your location.  Best of luck out there in the Rain

EDIT:  I would like to take a minute to point out that while there are many ways to measure your success here, points, rank and featured posts are nice.  But what really matters is getting a blog that drives business to you.  That is why I am learning from the Best.

But if you want to also be amused, I would recommend Broker Bryant for this video 

http://activerain.com/blogsview/1192777/disclose-multiple-offers-sorry-it-s-none-of-your-buisness-