Neal Bloom was gracious enough to sponsor three groups to recognize members who have achieved the 50K, 100K or 200k points milestones.
This is a copy of my "Points Summary" as of today - July 1, 2007. In this post I'm going to address the "why".
Future posts in this section will focus on the specifics of each "how". Scroll down past the "Points Summary" for the rest of the narrative.
Activity Details
| Score: | 230505 | Members Invited/Referred: | 231 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blog Posts: | 290 | ||
| Rank in Arizona: | 1 (Featured Member) | Featured Posts: | 15 |
| Rank in Maricopa County: | 1 (Featured Member) | Comments Received: | 2404 |
| Rank in Phoenix: | 1 (Featured Member) | Comments Made: | 2899 |
Score Summary
| Profile Points: | 1765 |
|---|---|
| Invite Points: | 54516 |
| Blogging Points: | 74779 |
| Blog Comment Points: | 43500 |
| Linking Points: | 2400 |
| Bonus Points: | 4050 |
| Other Points: | 49495 |
Why? Why bother doing things to accumulate points?
I came across Active Rain back in October 2006 - October 4, 2006 to be precise. I found Active Rain while googling for the term "EcoBroker" and the #1 organic Search Engine Result was an Active Rain Profile for Dena Stevens. Unfortunately for Dena - I was unaware that signing up with her as my sponsor would give her 10% of my points going forward - something I will forever regret and if the Rain Gods are so inclined I suppose they could "make it so". (It would be worth it just to get the visual on Dena noticing a 20,000+ point boost!)
I don't know the date Dena signed up for Active Rain - it looks like September 21, 2006 as that is the date of her first Comment and of her first Blog. That would be just under 2 weeks from joining that she was NUMBER 1 organically in Google for a ONE WORD SEARCH. That in and of itself should tell you something about the Power of the Rain.
So back to "Why". Simple. I have believed for a long time that the web is the place to be found (not the newsprint classifieds) to generate incremental business revenue. It was apparent that those with higher point totals on Active Rain had more visibility - and therefore one way to bring incremental business to the door was to have high visibility on Active Rain - which meant I had to find a way to generate points - and to end up with as many or more points than others in the Rain. The "Why" was that simple at the time. Over time - the vast array of benefits of being a member of Active Rain became apparent - but that's for a different post to this group.
Stay tuned for future posts in this series.....
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Homes By Marriott - Your Perfect Move! Tony Marriott, ABR, ABRM, ASP, CNHS, CRB, CRS, e-PRO, GRI, RECS, RFS, SRES, TRC, Phoenix Association of Realtors President's Award 2003 and 2005, Member of ERC.
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Tony, I couldn't agree with you more. My site was in far-off-land before I became involved here on the Rain. Now I rank on page 1 of google for a number of keyword searches as well as MSN and Yahoo. In turn I now get inquiries through my web-site. A/R works!!
Thank God it's moving away from the classifieds - it cost a small fortune to advertise in our local newspaper!
Thanks for sharing this information, I'm still learning.
Tony, Congratulations on the Gold. Can't wait to hear more. YOu sure have invited lots of people, what % are actively participating?
Wayne - It works - it really works!
Todd - Print is dead - the folks who own the newspapers either don't know it - or don't want to hear it.
Missy - I wish they gave us reports on that. All I know is if you deduct 23,100 <231 x 100 estimated points at sign up> from the 54,500 invite points that leaves 31,400 - which is 10% of the total points earned by that group. Soooo.... 231 invitees have earned 314,000 points over and above the points earned at signup - or an average of 1,360 each. That's all I know!
I didn't figure out that point benefit from having invited people sign up under my membership until it started happening. I would have surely done some things differently too. I know of one person who signed on because of me who would like to pass points on had we known. Not in the volume that would come to someone who invited a turbo-point person like you, but not chopped liver with mango.
"It was apparent that those with higher point totals on Active Rain had more visibility ..."
Tony, that's true. I constantly see comments from people who say that the 'points don't matter'. I think they're deceiving themselves. Otherwise, why be on this site? As you say, it's all about visibility.
There are some who abuse the point system by cutting and pasting, etc. That turns this whole thing into a game. And anyone who reads the blogs will be able to discern who is in this just to earn points, and who is actually contributing something of value.
You're one of the ones who are contributing something of value. Congratulations on the Gold status, and good luck.
Hey Tony,
I guess you had the Java..so I am glad you wrote this to put in the group. Congrats...dam you have a lot of points..if I knew that when I first started here.. I wouldn't have stopped for 6 months and might be close to you..You are almost ready to go into the 300K double gold..good luck and congrats! My trip to AZ was awesome. Thanks for the mention!
Tony,
AR is so much worth the time and effort. I have received so much more than I have given. What a blessing.
Fran
JudyAnn - I take it mango was the password? :-)
Leon - Thanks for the comment and the kudos - much appreciated.
Neal - Thanks for putting this group together - stand by for more "stuff" about the journey!
Fran - Beyond my wildest dreams!
I agree with Over time - the vast array of benefits of being a member of Active Rain became apparent - Friends, Business Partners, great ideas!
Tony, thanks for making me an example. I think there are so many benefits from being apart of A.R. And people like you are the best benefit!
Dena - You are the reason I found Active Rain - Thank You!
Thank you for this post. I am new to AC, about 2 - 3 weeks now. I did not know anything about the points or anything else for that matter. I just read on a forum at REW that everyone should join AC; so I did. I had no idea how addicting it was going to become. After I did our profile I noticed I had points, so then I clicked on the points link and got more points just for doing that! Then I went to my city to see what other agents in my town were doing and it was nada, nothing! So within a week of blogging and posting comments we were number one in our town. And no one posts on localism. For our county we are # 17 now. It is a little more daunting of a task for the featured county position because two of them do have tons of points that I did not understand how they could have ever gotten.Now I understand from your post it is from inviting others to AC. What a concept! We are already showing up on google for some keywords. That is boosting our website higher. Thanks AC! Katerina
Katerina - Happy this helped - and welcome to the Rain!
Tony, You must be some kind of networker, where did you find 231 people to invite?
I knew that we receive bonus points if we sponsor others, but I wasn't aware that we would receive 10% of their points. I learn something new about AR every day.
Michael - There are about 1.4 Million REALTORS out there - I've just scratched the surface! :-)
Treci - The 10% really creates leverage
Hi Tony. Yes ActiveRain is very powerful on the search engines, especially Google. As of today (7/13/07) your ActiveRain Blog appears 3rd when searching Tony Marriott in Google. Not too shabby.