ActiveRain moves fast. So fast that I know of only a few people who really have a clear picture of everything that ActiveRain has to offer. AR is now averaging a site upgrade at least once a week. To put that in proper context, most software companies are on a quarterly or 1/2 yearly deployment schedule.
We've done five separate deploys in the last 10 days alone, so I thought it would be beneficial to do a high level overview of the different products and services available on ActiveRain, while focusing on our core business components.
1. Blogging: There is a major shift from the traditional way real estate is marketed and blogging represents this new paradigms epicenter.
In the past advertising options included post cards and newspaper advertising with canned messages, listing magazines with latent information, nothing that provided any real testament to who the real estate professional really is. ActiveRain continues to evolve a social media publishing (or blog) platform where real estate professionals can share their expertise and knowledge while creating a conversation with potential clients.
Our blogging platform will focus on empowering our members to syndicate their data to as many consumers as possible, involving integration with other highly trafficked sites. Some of the sites I would like to see us work close with this year include: the major real estate brokerages, Zillow, Trulia, Yahoo, and Microsoft.
(This feature of ActiveRain is Free)
2. Referral Exchange: Best ActiveRain resource that you haven't heard of.
The basic premise behind the Referral Exchange is, you guessed it, a marketplace where real estate professionals can exchange referrals with ease and efficiency. We launched it over a year ago without much fanfare as a fix for the frustration I experienced when needing to personally refer business out of state. Finding a hard working and appreciative professional was a lot harder than it should have been. The Exchange recently reappeared on my radar after I heard a series of fantastic success stories.
Using the Referral Exchange is simple and free.
Once a referral is added to the system an email is sent to all members on ActiveRain that have an alert set up that matches the parameters of the referral. New members are setup with a basic referral alert at registration. To change your alert settings click here
(This feature of ActiveRain is Free)
In the next few months we plan to implement a new element to the Referral Exchange product that will require all outbound referrals to be screened before it hits the board to eliminate any spam.
3. Profile: You don't get a second chance to make a first impression...
For those who don't believe in the power of the ActiveRain profile, take a moment and Google your name. Unless it's Brad Pitt, (or you've been on ActiveRain for just a short while) you will likely find your ActiveRain profile on Page 1 of your search results. And even if it doesn't show up on page 1, it's information that consumers are highly interested in. Take time to make your profile read and look beautiful. When I practiced real estate I always considered myself unemployed and on a never-ending quest to find a new job. Your profile is your resume. Treat it with the respect it deserves.
(This feature of ActiveRain is Free)
4. Individual & Team Blogs: Almost 10 years ago I created the first Search Engine Optimized IDX website that used listing content to generate long tail search results. This innovation eventually allowed my team of real estate agents to generate over 5,000 leads a month and sell well over $100 million dollars in real estate a year.
I believe our new ActiveBlogs are as powerful today as my SEO IDX website was back when I first created it. If used correctly, ActiveBlogs have the potential to revolutionize personal, team, office, and/or niche real estate production.
The core value proposition of our blogs is an infrastructure that we call RAIndexing, or "Real Area Indexing". Simply put, your blog turns into a long tail Search Engine Optimized website. Similar in nature to the SEO IDX website, the primary difference being the IDX website uses static listing content whereas ActiveBlogs utilize much more potent unique, fresh content.
We have a giant office whiteboard full of improvements that will continuously be released for the ActiveBlog platform. For example, we just added the ability for people to add a Listing Router search widget to ActiveBlogs. In the next few weeks look for "New Theme Friday's", and a widget integration. To sign up for an ActiveBlog click here.
(ActiveBlogs cost $19/mo and $79/mo for an Individual and Team license respectively)
5. Localism: Localism is designed to be the worlds most complete Neighborpedia.
Members may sponsor communities, cities and even sub-divisions on Localism. The concept is based on a verb we call "localised", which is the process of adding location based meta-data to content, whether it be text, pictures or video. The website is designed to exclusively feature 'hyper-local' real estate information for consumers. Focused hyper-local content from an established and trusted website ranks inherently high on search engine result pages, like Google
Localism thus becomes a powerful resource for real estate professionals because it allows them to leverage their very local knowledge of a given area to potential clients that otherwise wouldn't know about unless they visited the area personally with a seasoned guide in tow.
The long overdue feature of making Localism open for consumer and local merchant contribution is scheduled on our internal project board for completion in the next 30 days. Relative content from local neighbors and businesses coupled with real estate professionals knowledge and expertise will benefit all participants, providing an engaging and comprehensive experience. I'm confident that the sponsoring professional will reap the substantial rewards Localism was meant to provide from conception.
(Localism sponsorships are less than $10/mo per sponsorship. Price breaks are available with multiple sponsorships)
6. Listing Router: Leads are dead; 2009 is all about the "click".
Early in the decade well-funded companies utilized marketing budgets and technology that was largely out of reach to individual real estate professionals to generate huge quantities of 'leads' at a much lower cost than an individual was able to. Many real estate professionals felt that they got burned by these lead generation companies as a result of excessive long term contracts and poor conversion rates. As a result the concept of buying a lead conjures up a foul taste for most practitioners in the industry.
Today, many of these lead capture technologies have become cost effective and subsequently made their way into the hands of individual practitioners. As these points have crossed, a fast growing alternative to 'lead reselling' has manifested called click marketing. Our entrance into this field is a product we call Listing Router. Foundationally Listing Router is very simple: ActiveRain members can buy clicks from ActiveRain consumer traffic and route them to specific locations (web-pages) of their choice. We've taken a novel approaches with Listing Router by sharing a portion of the click revenue with the member who's post and content drove the traffic.
In the future we hope to become the central market place where real estate professionals buy clicks, and Search Engine Marketers sell clicks. To set up your Listing Router account click here.
(Clicks range in price from $.89 to $3.89 per click. AR members with high point total are automatically given discounts on the per click price.)
Bonus: Spellcheck: This has been the cause of almost as much headache to ActiveRain members as has been the dreaded Proxy Errors. In the future we plan to add the words: blog, Localism, Raindex, and ActiveRain, to our dictionary. It irritates us as well. For some reason this is not an easy technical fix.
Next week I will be speaking to the NAR Strategic Planning Committee in Washington DC. The committee consists of all of the NAR top brass and other influential leaders. I am putting together my presentation this weekend and I want to reach out to our membership to see what types of things you would like addressed with our leadership.
