How To Get Started on ActiveRain - A quick route to a successful Journey on ActiveRain.

The ActiveRain Staff,  along with our members and ambassadors, wish to welcome you to the ActiveRain community.  We know you have a choice, and we're glad you've chosen our network as a place to connect with others, support your local neighborhoods and communities, plus grow your business and relationships. 

Before you begin your journey here, there's a few areas we invite you to navigate first.  This will save you time and give you a better understanding of the Network.  We're confident that our site will bring value, benefits, and substantial rewards to you and your business.

    BEFORE YOU BEGIN
    These are REQUIRED and a MUST READ for ALL New Members - NO EXCEPTIONS!

•   What We Stand For - Weltenschauung
  Weltanschauung: The guiding principles and philosophy of an organization. A world view.

•   The ActiveRain Community Guidelines
  Please take these rules seriously.

•   Terms of Service
  Terms of Use are binding and we want you to feel comfortable with them.
  
  

   ACTIVERAIN UNIVERSITY
   Get live training weekly to make your blog the best it can be

• ActiveRain University Schedule - Classes every weekday
  Learn the ins and outs of ActiveRain and how to utilize it to the fullest with our live trainer.

• ActiveRain Orientation - A Live Webinar to get you acquainted
  Steve, our live trainer takes you through the basics on the site to get you familiar with ActiveRain

• ActiveRain University Suggestion Box
  Don't see a class you would like us to create? Make a suggestion to us for future classes.
  
  

    GETTING STARTED in 3 EASY STEPS
    Follow these next steps to get setup on ActiveRain.

•   How To Complete Your Profile - Part II
  Your profile has three areas that allow you maximize the page.  Learn How to use these sections.

•   How To Use Your "My Settings" Page
  Now you are ready to Customize your ActiveRain Settings.
  
  

    GETTING THE MOST OUT OF ACTIVERAIN
    Social Networking, Connecting and Blogging

• ActiveRain Member Success Stories
  Read what other industry professionals and members have to share.
  Here's A VIDEO version

• Understanding ActiveRain Points
  Learn about points and how they work on the network.

• The RainMaker Membership
  Becoming a RainMaker - The Value and The Benefit
  
  

    READY TO MAKE LIGHTNING, THUNDER AND RAIN
    Now that you're a member and RainMaker, put the power tools to work

• Top 10 Tools for New Members and RainMakers
  Take the time to review what this network has to offer.

• ActiveRain Custom Outside Blogs
  How To Create and Maximize Your Outside ActiveBlog.
  
  

    OTHER USEFUL RESOURCES TO HELP YOU
    Use these links to dive deeper in the "Rain" if you need more information

• The ActiveRainGuide
  A Tutorial Blog by Members for Members

• The ActiveRain Staff Blog
  The Official ActiveRain TEAM Blog

• Help/FAQ Group
  A network group created to help members

• An ActiveRain eBook Tutorial
  Find Almost Anything about ActiveRain here
  

• ActiveRain University
  Online Campus for Training and Support

• Real Estate RainCamp
  "Live" Local Conferences and Seminars
  
  
• My Blog, Your AR Resource
  Your One stop Shop for all AR Tutorials

DID YOU KNOW?
ActiveRain is the TOP Real Estate Social Network in the World (source: Google)

The ActiveRain Network hosts over 170,000 RE Industry members averaging 200-300 new members daily.  There are more than 1.5 million articles posted, with an average of 700-1000 new posts daily.  Two million+ visitors traffic the ActiveRain network each month, over 80% are consumers.  Only Rainmaker upgraded accounts receive Google traffic to their blogs and posts.  ActiveRain Member's Blog posts receive more than 500 views on average.  Activerain is the ONLY on-line Network that offers this wide variety of tools, diverse services, and proven solutions to the Real Estate Industry Professional and for consumers on the WEB.

Best of Luck and Enjoy!

Registration now open for RainCamp: More Social, Less Media

When: April 19th 9:00am to 12:30pm Pacific Time (12:00pm to 3:30 Eastern Time)
Where: Online, join us from your office, couch or even your bed
How much: Free (thanks to our sponsors)
What: Learning to use Social Media tools to increase your business
Who: A great lineup of speakers, check them out below

Social media is a buzz word for 2012. It was a buzz word in 2011. But how does it actually impact your business? How do you use social media to create more value for your existing clients and to potentially create new connections for your business? What Pinterest, the new emerging star in the social media sky? Do you really need to be concered with Google+?

We'll take a look at these questions and give you some solid answers and applications of how to use social media in your business to impact your bottom line. Let's figure out how to capitalize on the social part of social media and stop thinking about it as another media opportunity to cram our marketing down someone's throat (not that there's not a place for that approach in your marketing tool bag......different strokes for different folks)

We are excited to have these guys joining us:

Scott Stratten, president of Un-Marketing

Becoming a Trusted Expert using Social Media

Are you familiar with Scott? He was recently named one of the five most influential social media personalities by Forbes.com and he's created viral videos for some of his clients that have been viewed over 60 million times. His twitter ramblings go out to over 119,000 people every day. If you're not familiar with Scott, take ten minutes to check out his blog, his twitter feed, or even some videos of him presenting his thoughts on Social Media. This guy gets it. He understands how companies and small businesses can utilize social media to make real connections for their business.

As his bio states: "He is an expert in Viral, Social, and Authentic Marketing which he calls Un-Marketing. It’s all about positioning yourself as a trusted expert in front of your target market, so when they have the need, they choose you." (Did he write that stuff about himself? Or have someone else write it? I always wonder when I see someone's bio......I'll have to ask him during RainCamp.) I'm super excited that he will be joining us to talk about some things real estate agents can do to to position yourself as a trusted expert in front of your target market.

**Warning: You may spend more than 10 minutes if you take the time to check those links

(All the awesomeness in his bio, combined with $5, will get him a cup of coffee anywhere in the world. I stole that from his bio page. But your ability to absorb some of the things that he's learned over the years will be way more valuable than your morning caffeine intake. And it's a webinar, so you can watch from home and get your coffee for cheaper than $5.)

Ben Kinney, REALTOR® with Keller Williams in Bellingham WA

Between 8 and 13 Practical Applications of Social Media to Increase Your Leads

If you're not familiar with Ben, he is a mega producing agent  whose team did over 530 transactions in 2011. He's also the founder of IMSD, the Internet Marketing Specialist Designation, a program where he shares his entire business, the same things he's doing that lead to his team having over 530 transactions last year. The reason I love having Ben at RainCamps is because he is a practioner who is using the advice he is going to share with you to generate more leads for his business. Ben and I have been kicking a title for his presentation back and forth and it's going to be somewhere between 8 and 13 ways to use Social Media to generate leads.

If he's feeling particularly generous, it could be more than 13........and those of you that have followed Ben know that he's more than willing to share good ideas that are working in his business. He'll even share them with his competitors because it forces him to come up with more and better ideas.

We want you to walk away from RainCamp with actionable items that you can start to work on right away. No one is better at sharing actionable items that lead to more business than Ben is. He shares his ideas all the time on the success principles group (you have to ask to join the group once you land there in the top right) that he created on Facebook that now has over 3800 members sharing, getting and giving advice.

Chris Smith, Chief Evangelist for Inman News

Pinterest - Because Pretty Pictures and Real Estate Go Hand in Hand

Of course you're familiar with Chris. He's was the brain behind the wildly popular TechSavvyAgent.com blog before coming over to lead the Inman Next Community for Inman News. In some ways, he's probably a competitor to ActiveRain, but we don't care. We want to bring you great minds to help you navigate the social media landscape and he's S.M.A.R.T! Smart. A thought leader in every sense of the word for using social media in real estate. He's also passionate about helping real estate agents understand and use some of the technologies that are emerging at break neck speeds. Every day, it seems, there is another app, website, social media tool or something that you hear you should use in your business. The latest one is Pinterest.

You've surely heard of Pinterest. It's hard to have missed it the last few months as it exploded on the social media scene as a way for people to collect and share images from around the web that they enjoy. But as with all the shiny new objects we encounter, we have to figure out if these things have practical applications for our business.

Chris will be taking drilling down and focusing on how Pinterest can be more than just a collection of great images. How can you utilize this rapidly emerging medium to market your business? How can you make sure you're not just another dolt out there collecting friends for an as of yet undecided purpose? Chris will have you pinning for the right reasons in no time.

And me, Bob Stewart, Chief Evangelist for ActiveRain

I'll Let You Decide, Facebook Fan Pages or Google+

You have spoken, Google+ It is!

I'll be the first to admit that Google+ is something I ignored when it launched. I knew it was there, but I wasn't diving in until I knew it was going to be around for a while. But Google has been doing some interesting stuff with Google+ and it's integration with their search algorithm. Can you really afford to ignore Google+ any longer if there's a chance it could impact the search results of the people you're connected with? I don't think it's an option anymore and we're going to talk about why, as well as what can you do to make sure you're keeping the 800lb. Google beast happy as you navigate the social media highway.

(I use that picture of me and my wife because she makes me look so much better than I actually do.......)

A special thank you to all of our sponsors that allow us to bring this to you for free!

I have always been confused by receiving a 'save the date' postcard prior to getting an actual invitation for someone's wedding. You've surely seen these? My wife and I have gotten a few of these and each time I always chuckle to myself. I'm still waiting for the subsequent invitation to one of these weddings to be replaced by the 'sorry, you didn't make the final cut' letter.

When that day finally happens, I promise to send a gift for the outright honesty of the friends getting married. Luckily, you don't have to worry about sending a gift for RainCamp or missing out on a chance to attend.......as long as you save the date (and you show up a few minutes early).

We are asking you to save the date of April 19th, from 9:00am to 12:30pm Pacific Time (that's 12:00pm to 3:30pm Eastern time and you guys in the Central and Mountain zones are going to have to do the math) to join us for RainCamp where we will be discussing Social Media. This will be a free event open to all of our members. Registration will begin next week, which means........

Can you sign up yet?  Nope. Probably for similar reasons to why you don't get invited to the wedding from the start. There are still some logistics to work out, and we want you to start thinking about being there before we actually invite you. (Doesn't make a ton of sense, does it? I don't make this stuff up, I just follow the generally accepted principles.)

Why would you want to save the date?

One of the reasons is because we are going to have Scott Stratten, president of Un-Marketing, joining us. Are you familiar with Scott? He was recently named one of the five most influential social media personalities by Forbes.com and he's created viral videos for some of his clients that have been viewed over 60 million times. His twitter ramblings go out to over 119,000 people every day. If you're not familiar with Scott, take ten minutes to check out his blog, his twitter feed, or even some videos of him presenting his thoughts on Social Media. This guy gets it. He understands how companies and small businesses can utilize social media to make real connections for their business.

As his bio states: "He is an expert in Viral, Social, and Authentic Marketing which he calls Un-Marketing. It’s all about positioning yourself as a trusted expert in front of your target market, so when they have the need, they choose you." (Did he write that stuff about himself? Or have someone else write it? I always wonder when I see someone's bio......I'll have to ask him during RainCamp.)

**Warning: You may spend more than 10 minutes if you take the time to check those links

(All the awesomeness in his bio, combined with $5, will get him a cup of coffee anywhere in the world. I stole that from his bio page. But your ability to absorb some of the things that he's learned over the years will be way more valuable than your morning caffeine intake. And it's a webinar, so you can watch from home and get your coffee for cheaper than $5.)

The real estate industry is on the forefront of adopting social media as a way to market. We have real estate professionals building fan pages, using Twitter, tapping into Pinterest and blogging at dizzying rates. Our business is about making connections and staying top in the minds of friends and people in our sphere that might chose to do business with us or refer business to us. It makes sense that this emerging ability to market our business would be something of which real estate professionals are taking advantage. Social Media and your real estate business are a great marriage..............

.......Unless they are not.

Just because I have these great channels to market my business, doesn't mean that everything and anything I do to get my message in front of more people is actually going to be a benefit to me. Because real estate is all about making connections, many professionals are abusing the priviledge they have of interacting with their social circles. So where is the line? How do you know what's a good idea and what's a bad idea as it relates to using social media?

If anyone is qualified to look at how real estate agents are using social media and give us some suggestions of the horrible things we are doing and the real ways to build your brand and make better connections, it's Scott.

Scott will be kicking off RainCamp and in the next two weeks, we will be sharing some of the other people that will be joining him. What can you expect to learn at RainCamp? How about techniques that can help you generate leads for your business using Social Media, an in depth discussion of Pinterest (the rapidly emerging new kid on the Social Media block) and some practical applications of Facebook Pages to connect with locals in your market? Maybe we can sneak in a few of those things.

So save the date, even if you're not officially invited yet.........

 ~Bob

Real Estate Marketing Plans

Do you have your real estate marketing plans for 2012 ready?

With SO MANY alternatives for real estate marketing plans, are you confused on what to do in 2012?

So as you develop your 2012 real estate marketing plans, here is some great food for thought:

ActiveRain, the largest blogging platform and professional social network in real estate, conducted a survey of 1,910 real estate professionals asking the simple question of "what is the most effective real estate marketing or advertising that you do?" 

The results:

1. Referrals (including word of mouth and sphere of influence) were overwhelming the most preferred marketing with 26% of responses.
2. Blogging was #2 with 13% of responses.  (Keep in mind that the survey was conducted on ActiveRain, so these results may naturally be skewed to blogging).
3. Direct Mail continues to be incredibly popular.  Direct Mail includes post cards, mailers, and newsletters.  Direct Mail also received 13% of responses.
4. Internet Marketing as a general category received 12% of responses.  Our assumption is that Internet marketing is generally speaking pay per click marketing on Google, Yahoo or Bing or lead generation from a number of different sources.
5. Networking Networking includes partner referrals and face-to-face meetings. Face-to-face networking received 8% of the responses.
   
   

 (Share these stats - link to this article: http://activerain.com/blogsview/2641172/real-estate-marketing-plans-most-effective-marketing-of-2011)

 As you can see based on 2011 real estate marketing plans, real estate professionals continue to favor more traditional offline, "tried & true" hand to hand real estate marketing techniques.  Though the general bucket of Internet marketing & blogging are equivalent to direct mail, the top marketing techniques tend to be more offline - referrals, direct mail, networking, working with past clients, open houses, door knocking and cold calling.   Hard to know if ActiveRain is the same as blogging and if Zillow or Google are the same as Internet marketing, but interesting to see that from a response perspective, that Open Houses are more popular than any one web site AND Door Knocking is more preferred than CraigsList and FaceBook.

When real estate professionals were asked, "What is the most effective real estate marketing or advertising that you do?" only a small number of real estate web sites were mentioned in reasonable frequency: ActiveRain, CraigsList, FaceBook, Zillow and Google.  Of course, blogging and Internet marketing are large categories with a lot of different companies.  But there were very few mentions of Wordpress or other ways to market online.  Noticeably absent were Trulia and Realtor.com   Though we believe ActiveRain is a very powerful blogging platform, fans of ActiveRain are likely over-represented in the survey.  Kudos to Zillow to have name recognition equivalent to Google in the real estate industry.

For 2012, here are the key questions to ask:

1. How important is developing your REFERRAL BASE?  How are you going to do it?
2. Are Blogging and SEO part of your 2012?  If so, what to do - ActiveRain, Wordpress, Blogger, or other?
3. Direct Mail continues to be an important part of the real estate professional's marketing mix.  It is amazing, but true.  Direct Mail allow neighborhood targeting unlike online marketing.  What kinds of direct mail campaigns will you be using?
4. Internet Marketing needs to be part of your 2012 marketing mix, but there are a lot of options from pay-per-click advertising to lead generation to Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com 

ActiveRain is great place to start the learning process to figure out the best Internet marketing strategies to achieve your personal and financial goals in 2012! 

Share this blog post!  Either blog about it or share on your social networks.  Link to and reference this blog if you use this content: http://activerain.com/blogsview/2641172/real-estate-marketing-plans-most-effective-marketing-of-2011

From everyone here at ActiveRain and the folks at Kodak, we would like to congratulate Glenn for his winning entry in the Kodak Moments contest.

There were so many great entries that it was agonizing to even select the top ten. The reality is, every post was worthy of the same accolades. But when you are giving away prizes, there has to be a winner. So this time we put it to you, the community, for a vote and you selected Glenn's moving memories of his friend Mike and the image that allowed his family to remember their fallen soldier over 30 years later.

Everyone has different emotional triggers. It was clear from the voting that different people connect with different stories and images. It's also clear that heroes, friendship and family are something all of us treasure.

Congratulations Glenn!

Glenn will be receiving a KODAK EASYSHARE M580 Digital Camera, a 7 inch PULSE Digital Frame and a few extra ActiveRain points. Our second place winner Karen Kruschka will receive a 7 inch PULSE Digital Frame and her own share of ActiveRain points for her fantastic entry about her son 'aiming high' in life.

The rest of us? We got to enjoy sharing these amazing images with each other (a few of which brought more than one tear to my eyes.....)

How many times have you tried to link your ActiveRain post on Twitter or another site only to get the response that the url is too long?  Well Happy Holidays, ActiveRain has a gift for you.

Once you have written and posted a blog post you now have the option of generating a shorter url. 

Simply go back into your post and click Generate short URL.  Take a look at the screen shot below:

I hope many of you find this useful and take advantage of the new url. Here is what Lenn's shortened URL looks like once we generate the shorter URL for the post in the screen shot above.

The shortened URL for this post is http://actvra.in/45. As you can see, the shorter structure uses the actvra.in domain.

In order to see how many times someone has clicked on that shortened URL, you can go to the 'statistics' area of your 'my home' page in order to track performance. It will show you how many times each shortened URL has been clicked.

And an added bonus to deal with the continual onslaught of spam......

Let's call it a stocking stuffer.  To help with the spam you may see occassionally, we've now made it so only logged in members can leave links in comments.  Our hope is that it cuts the spam down drastically.  Fingers crossed!

Happy Holidays!!!

Kerrie Greenhalgh

ActiveRain has done it again!  We've added yet another feature to enhance the AR Community.  Members now have the option of posting Listings! 

Here's how:

1.  Go to http://activerain.com/action/listings and click New Listing
2.  Upload photos, enter the address, description and stats
3.  Click Save Listing
4.  Click Activate

I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, "It can't be that easy can it?"  Yes, my friends it is. 

A few clarifications:

You may have up to 20 listings at any time.  Each listing will be active for 30 days.  This is to keep any stale information from being displayed.  If you make any changes to the listing, update the price, add a picture etc. the 30 days will reactivate from that day.

Each listing may have up to 20 photos.  Photos must be 960x440 at a minimum.  We encourage you to take the pictures from your digital camera to optimize clarity.

One of the following browsers must be used to post listings:  Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome or Internet Explorer 8.

Listings will appear on the new Community Pages and as an added bonus of RainMaker status your listings will appear on the sidebar of your blog.

I hope everyone takes advantage of this new feature!

Let it Rain!

Kerrie Greenhalgh

The ActiveRain Point System

ActiveRain awards members points based on participation and their individual involvement within the network and community.  While there is a much more complicated and technical explanation of how the point system works, this post is to provide you with a general overview of how points are earned and distributed to all ActiveRain members.

ActiveRain points are earned based on a member's individual activities and efforts. Points are accumulated over the course of the calendar week which starts Monday morning at 12:00am Pacific Time, and ends Sunday night at 11:59pm Pacific Time.

The following are some ways you can earn points and move up the "Featured Member" ladder in your local area:

• 200 points for each blog post
  (Max 10 per week) (50 word minimum required)
  
  
• 25 additional points when post is added to channels with a topic
  
  
• 400 points for Featured Post on ActiveRain.com
  (Excludes posts featured in ActiveRain groups)
  
  
• 25 points for each comment
  (Max 10 Per Day) (Comments on your own posts excluded)
  
  
• 25 points for each reBlogged post
  (Max 10 per week - these do not include your own posts)
  
  
• ActiveRain profile points
  (Building your ActiveRain profile will build points)
  
  
• Received comments on blog posts
  (No blog post to exceed 475 pts.)
  
  
• 100 points awarded for logging in to ActiveRain each day
  (This applies 7 days a week)
  
  
• 250 points when someone accepts your ActiveRain invitation
  (Must sign up under Member's Invite Code)
  
  
• 10% of total points earned by new members invited by you
  (Example: invited member earns 1000 pts. - you earn 100 pts.)
  
  
• ActiveRain and member approved contests - points will vary
  (These show up as "Bonus Points" in your Point Summary)
  
  
• Staff awarded bonus points - these are issued by the ActiveRain staff
  (Member Humanitarian, Paying It Forward, Helping Others, etc.)
  

Weekly Point Scenario: The potential of points available per week, per member would be as follows: 1750 for max comments, 2000 for max blog posts, 700 for logging in daily, 250 for adding to Channels/Topics, and 250 for max reBlogged posts.  The weekly potential of points would be 4950 (this does not include Featured Posts, comments received, invitation and percentage points, contests, and staff-awarded bonus points.)

Point Disclaimer: The Points System created by the ActiveRain Network was developed and implemented to motivate, inspire, and reward members for their participation and involvement within the community. These points are subject to change at the discretion of the ActiveRain Mgmt. Team, with or without cause, warning, or notice.

Tips about Your ActiveRain "Settings" Page

So much has changed since my initial post from 10/07 regarding the ActiveRain "settings" page.  I'm creating an updated post for our new members joining the network.  To access your settings, make sure you're logged into AR, then go to your "MY HOME" link located at the top of any page.  Next, click on the "Settings" link located on the left hand side of the page.  I'll explain each section of the "settings" page below.

  This is your Blogs Title.  Be sure to give this one some thought, it is the theme of your entire Blog.  

  Your Blog Description.  This is an important area of your "Settings Page."  This is where you can add Widgets and their HTML codes to your Blog.  This includes any ActiveRain Approved Widgets that are available.

  This is your Blogs Description.  (Text Only - NO HTML Allowed Here)  This is where you should describe your Blog, it's content, and it's value to your readers, but remember the SEO opportunity.  You are limited to 100 words, so focus your description and keywords.  This is often times the most overlooked area by new and existing AR members.  Maximize your SEO (Search Engine Optimization)  

  Allow Non-Member comments.  Be sure you have this box checked, otherwise readers who are not members of Active Rain will be unable to comment on your post.  Unless all your posts on your Blog are members only, I would make sure it's checked!

  Sharing your comments.  Your comments are already shared in the posts where you've made them.  If you want other members and readers to access "All" your comments in one easy access location, you can check this box and allow them, it's your preference.

  Twitter Settings.  Enter your user name.  Be sure it's the one you have setup on Twitter.  Detailed Post Here

  Add your password for automatic Twitter updates.  You may also wish to tweet your "Members Only" posts.  By checking the box, you are allowing your "members only" posts to be broadcast over the twitter network.  If you don't currently have a twitter account, you can get one here at  Twitter.com

  Your Email Settings.  This is a very important part of your settings page.  You have to decide how you want your email notifications to work and be managed here.  Do you want to get emailed every time someone adds you as an associate?  What about the comments you'll receive on your Blog Posts?  How about the groups you've joined, the founder or administrator can do mass emails to the group, do you want to be notified?  There is even manual score and point adjustment email notifications.  This is really up to each members own discretion. 

Under the General Settings, the option to allow others to see when you are on-line is no longer available.  This feature will be removed in a future update and release.  It was available when the member count used to appear in the upper right corner of AR pages. 

  Reblogging Option.  Reblogging allows others to "ReBlog" your posts on ActiveRain.  If you check this box, other members will have to option to Reblog your content on their ActiveRain Blog posts.  To find out more about Reblogging and how it works.  Click Here.

  Hit Router Settings.  This is one of the Super-Power features on ActiveRain.  Over 100,000 consumers use this per month on average.  The Hit Router allows consumers to search specific geographic areas for homes from nearly every Blog post and AR profile.  Be sure to setup your Hit Router,  maximize Hit Router and create your Market Area Campaigns when you leave this post.  This is a great lead generation tool for directing traffic and visitors to your IDX sites and listings.  Here's some important information about Hit Router you'll want to know about.
The Final and MOST IMPORTANT TIP HERE:  Don't forget to click on the after making changes.

A--------C---------T---------I---------V-----------E-----------R------------A------------I-------------N

This next section is actually part of your "My Home" page, but let's cover it while we're here. 

My Comments.  Here's where you can go back and track every comment you have ever made on Active Rain.  Use the "My Comments" link to go directly to any post you have ever made a comment on.

Notifications.  This is a new feature that allows you to review comments made when you've checked the "Notify Me Of Comments" on another members post. They can also be deleted from the list here.

Points Summary.  This is a breakdown of points earned.  It shows your total points on Featured Posts, comments, regular points, inviting new members etc.  ONLY YOU can see the breakdown of your individual points.

Statistics.  How many comments do you receive?  How many views do you get on your post?  How many clicks are your posts getting?  It's all on this page.  Another great feature of the Statistics page is that you can see every post you've ever submitted on AR.  Using the stats page will help you determine many things about your Blog and posts.

Associations.  These are other members that have added "YOU" as an associate.  When you add someone as an associate, don't forget to put a comment in the box at the bottom of the page.  When someone adds you as an associate, hopefully, you'll reciprocate.  In my opinion, this is one of the best reference and referral here.

Invite Others.  Use this link to send an invitation to someone who is NOT currently a member.  When you invite other Real Estate Professionals, and they accept, you will be credited for their membership and get a percentage of points for everything they do on AR.  You can also send an invitation outside of AR, just be sure to use the proper link so you can get credit for inviting them.

Blog Bookmarks.  This will take you to ALL the posts you have bookmarked on AR.  We all get the comments from members that say "I've Bookmarked Your Post!"  This is so they can be referred back to at a later time.

Link To ActiveRain.  This page will give you the options and graphics to place links and images on other websites and Blogs.  It allows you to promote your Blog and membership here at AR.  You can use these HTML codes on most outside websites and Blogs.

Review Pending Outside Blog Posts.  Another new feature, this allows you to deny or approve other members posts to your Outside ActiveBlogs.  Depending on how you setup the admin rights will determine how you end up using this feature.  You can find out more about Multi-Authored Outside Blogs here.

Feel free to modify your AR settings anytime.  Hopefully, you have a better understanding of what each of these areas and links covers.  If you have any questions on how to do ANYTHING here on ActiveRain, there are hundreds of instructional posts available that I can point you to, or you can just ask me, and I'll find you the answer.  Thanks and Enjoy!

I've been out doing office presentations these past few weeks, and sharing with Brokers and Agents what ActiveRain is all about.  In my travels, I have found that as new members join ActiveRain, it can seem a bit overwhelming because there are so many members, tools, great posts, and let's face it, there's a ton of information here. 

So Where do you go and what do you do once you hear about ActiveRain? 

The first step is to just sign up, the second step is to setup and create your ActiveRain profile, and the third step is to write that first post.  To help new members with these steps and to try and simplify the process, there is a "Getting Started" post that helps minimize the frustration some experience their first few visits here. 

The most common question I get is "What tools does ActiveRain offer to help my Business?"

Having useful tools in your "Toolbox" is great, but if you don't know where they are, you're not using them, you don't know how, or you never open the toolbox, then none of them will present much value?  Hopefully this wil help some of you that are new to the community.

Here's the "TOP 10 ActiveRain Tools" and in no particular order:

10.  Advertising on Activerain can get you some great exposure.  Nearly 150,000 members, and over 2,000,000 visitors each month.  We have numerous options available through channels, Activerain pages, the Daily Newsletter and the Top Spot on the Feature Board.

9.  Go Hyper-Local using Localism.com  Creating content on ActiveRain for your Localism Blog can be a huge resource for your local communities and neighborhoods.  The worlds most complete neighborpedia.  Sponsoring a community is easy and inexpensive.

8.  Building a Profile is more than just your picture, company name and phone number.  Member profiles CAN generate Subscribers, Traffic, Associates and Business.  Take the time to make your profile your masterpiece.  Your Profile can be just as powerful as a website.

7.  Outside Blogs have become one of ActiveRains leading tools for members.  There's No need to learn a new Blogging platform.  It's easy to set one up and there are plenty of tools and widgets to help make your custom outside Blogs successful.

6.  Vision - Do you know what your prospects are thinking?  ActiveRain presents a new vision for success.  IDX and Leads are great to have, but you'll need the tools, a plan, and the follow-up / follow thru to make any lead generation tool become a success.

5.  Hit Router - With over 100,000 City searches on ActiveRain recently, you could generate some great leads via your IDX.  Set up your FREE Markets, create City Search Campaigns, you can watch a webinar how to do it all.  There's over 1,000,000 posts on ActiveRain which means one million plus opportunities for visitors to search for homes in your area and find YOU.

4.  The ActiveRain Referral Exchange.  Be sure to setup some alerts in your area immediately.  This training webinar will help.  There's even a rating system in place that can be used at the close of referral transactions.  A tool every referral exchange should have.

3.  Networking, Connecting, and building Associations with other Real Estate Industry Professionals on ActiveRain will increase your knowledge and resources faster than any other website or Social Network out there.  Your Associates are a great reference and endorsement.  You can Build your National and International Associates all in one place.

2.  It's good to find Blogging mentors who have been successful.  There are thousands of great Bloggers and successful members here on ActiveRain, you can see the Top 100 most subscribed to get some great ideas and to see what works for them.

1.  Becoming a Rainmaker member does have it's obvious privileges.  Why?  (see all the above)  There are many more tools, services and benefits you'll discover on ActiveRain, but these 10 are the most valuable and powerful in my opinion.  Remember that joining ActiveRain and using these tools is not a "Sprint To The Win" it's a "Marathon To The Victory!"

Sometimes finding support and answers to your questions can seem like a daunting task, but there are some easy ways and "tools" available to help you get anything you need on ActiveRain. You can Contact ActiveRain, use the SEARCH tool, check the HELP/FAQ Group, visit the ActiveRainGuide.com for "how-to" posts and tutorials, use my profile, or you can contact our staff on-line anytime.  You'll find our staff Blog at ActiveRainTeam.com. 

Specific Tools are created to get certain jobs done, I hope these tools help you "Get Your Job Done!"