ActiveRain is a “social network” for real estate professionals. The network was launched in June of 2006 and the growth has been exponential with over 6,300 real estate professionals joining the network in the last four months.
ActiveRain provides a forum and a blogging platform for its members. The ActiveRain blogs are wildly popular with over 200 blog entries posted every day. The information contained in the blogs varies from local real estate happenings to national real estate news. Tips and techniques for real estate professionals range from marketing to web site optimization and everything in between. The blogs contain a wealth of information for real estate professionals and consumers alike.
ActiveRain awards “points” to members for building a profile, blog entries and comments, and for inviting new members. The more points a member accumulates, the higher they are listed in the “featured members” sections. Given the competitive nature of real estate professionals, accumulating points has become almost an addiction for some. Countless blogs in the ActiveRain network speak of the ActiveRain Addiction.
ActiveRain has become so popular that it’s spawned many terms unique to the network. “ActiveRain Speak” is quickly learned by new “Rainers” and the lexicon is continuously growing.
While there is a lot of fun to be had on ActiveRain, there are business benefits to be gained. Members profiles are indexed in Google and submitted to Google Base, and the astute member can pick up some great one-way links to their main website and blog. Search engine benefits are just the beginning. Like other social networks, it’s easy to “meet” people and the blogging platform provides a unique insight into members business practices and personalities. Much of the real estate business is built on referrals, and the members of ActiveRain have a unique place to go when searching for another real estate professional to refer business to. There are also reports beginning to come in of consumers finding agents and lenders through the ActiveRain Network.
While two-thirds of the network is made up of real estate agents, members also include loan officers, title companies, real estate trainers and coaches, virtual assistants, lawyers and more. Anyone connected to the real estate industry is welcome to join and participate in the network.
I joined the ActiveRain network in the early days because the concept of social networks has always intrigued me. As I watched the growth explode, I quickly realized that the network provided a unique opportunity to learn and to socialize with my fellow real estate professionals. I now count several members as true friends, and look forward to making many more friends and expanding my business. I encourage any real estate professional interested in learning, increasing their web presence, or just wanting to meet other professionals to join the ActiveRain network!
Thanks for reading! We value your thoughts and opinions, so please feel free to leave a comment. Contact us if you have any questions or need help. You can also get automatic updates for this blog free via:
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to this blog via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Maureen Francis 10.02.06 at 3:19 pm
ActiveRain is a great place for me to learn how to use WordPress. Blogroll is now up an rolling. Thanks for the widget advice.
I see bonus points in your future for this post.
I agree with you, and would encourage any professional in our industry to check it out.
teresa boardman 10.02.06 at 4:36 pm
You forget to mention how we have all become active rain addicts and
when there is a short outage real estate sales go up from
coast to coast.
The Phoenix Real Estate Guy 10.02.06 at 11:20 pm
MF and TB - as always, thanks for stopping by!
MF - no problem. Widgets are cool. Glad I could help. Don’t hesitate to fire away with any WP questions!
TB - Ah yes, the withdrawal from ActiveRain can be dreadful, but you are right — I sure get a lot more done when I’m not on there!
Kristal Kraft 10.05.06 at 7:46 pm
Theresa is right about The Addiction of Active Rain. I cannot stay
away from it and need to check myself into rehab!
We learn so much there, everyone shares experience and knowledge, which
in turn makes you want to share more.
I’ve been involved with other real estate networks and this is the first
of it’s kind…
Maureen McCabe 10.06.06 at 12:46 am
I just stopped by on my Island Tour and saw this familiar looking spot.
I have been reading your blog occasionally Jay since I started reading
Active Rain. Good blog… I really can’t say why I never commented
before but I don’t believe I have. Of course I was ready to leave a comment on Pittsburgh Homes Daily whn I noticed I had the day before.. Active Rain and Maureen Francis (Island Tour Director)are teaching me better manners..
Your interest rates …I guess they are really Freddie Mac’s interest rates are infringing on this comment box so I take no responsibility for spelling or making sense on the right side of the comment.
Maureen
The Phoenix Real Estate Guy 10.06.06 at 1:08 am
Maureen - thanks for stopping by! And a BIG thanks for reminding me about Freddie’s interest rate box. I’ve been meaning to kill that thing. It not only gets in the way, it sometimes brings the blog to a crawl.
For whatever reason, the comment box is contained in the center column when I’m on my laptop, but it stretches off to the right on some other systems. I can’t figure out why, but we’ll see if removing the interest rates in the sidebar helps.
Late Night Austin Real Estate Blog 10.05.07 at 10:59 am
I saw this listed in “what was happening last year”. Has it already been a year it seems like active rain just came around recently. I looked through and my first points were collected a month after this post. It would be interesting to follow up this post with a “Active Rain Thoughts and Observations a year later”