jonwashburn

"I don't feel comfortable about committing to ActiveRain, or any other platform that I don't own. What if ActiveRain gets bought by Google or they change the price or terms?"

First off, thank you Harj Gill for bringing up this issue and addressing it in your own blog post today. I'd like to echo your statements, and add some of my own.

"With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are in the midst of the worst housing recessions in history. The actual job of selling real estate in today's market is extremely difficult. When I sold real estate in the late 90's and early part of this decade I viewed my job as 90% marketing to get the clients, and 10% actually representing my clients. Listings sold themselves, oftentimes just hours after they were put on the market. Buyer clients were in such a frenzy they nearly always bought on the first tour, and getting a deal closed was always a cinch. No money? No credit? No job? No problem! Now it seems that with the complications brought by REO's and short sales, the real work starts after the buyer finds the home they want. 

However, there are silver linings. One of which is the marketing revolution that blogging has brought to the industry. This is a unique time; a gold rush of sorts. A motivated real estate professional can sign up for ActiveRain at noon, write their first blog post by 1pm, and have a top ranked article on Google by 1:15pm. The reach, authority, and power afforded by this medium is immense, and yet, the percentage of RainMakers taking advantage of this opportunity is very small when compared to the number of professionals in the industry.

We know the site works; I'm constantly hearing success stories that blow my mind. ActiveRain has changed lives, and saved careers. 

Yet, we don't know what the future may bring. Today, ActiveRain is Google's golden child, but who knows what will happen tomorrow. Today, ActiveRain costs $39 per month for RainMaker access. Might we change our mind and start charging $199 for the same service tomorrow? Does it matter? 

"If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is." 

In a few years everything will change in this business, just like everything is different today than it was three years ago. Today ActiveRain represents a golden arrow for you business. Use it up. Squeeze every last drop of success from it that you can. 

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough." ~Albert Einstein

Intermixed with the daily struggle of running a company that is grasping for revenues, in what seems like a never ending attempt to bridge that last little gap to profitability, I am blessed with inspiring messages from the members of this network about how ActiveRain is impacting their lives.

My most recent inspiration came from an article authored by Russ Ravary and the accompanying comments on it. Whenever I am in a certain mood, and read one of these posts, I am reminded that ActiveRain is something greater than just a business. I am elevated above the grind-level view of daily operations, and if only for a few fleeting minutes, I recognize the incredible opportunity we have in front of us to change, and improve, the way an entire industry operates. Indeed we are doing something even more than revolutionizing an industry in need of change; we are enriching the lives of our fellow colleagues and creating one of the greatest caring communities in the world. 

We are a part of something that is quite rare, something that is both exciting and humbling at the same time.

I am often charged with answering the question, "What is ActiveRain?", and now even after years of running the company I haven't been able to articulate an answer that seems sufficient. ActiveRain is clearly more than just a business; It seems to mean something powerful and slightly different to everyone who embraces it and makes it a part of their lives. Recognizing this, I would like to turn the question over to the individual members of this community to answer in the comments below.

My hope is that in the future when someone wants to know "What is ActiveRain", I can point them here.

What does ActiveRain mean to you? How has it impacted your life. How has it helped your business?

I asked our team to come up with a mission statement today.  Although they were not very happy with the short deadline, on a Friday no less, they all pitched in and came up with some good ideas. Now I am taking these ideas to our membership to help us refine what we currently have and hopefully eventually derive at the perfect statement that crystallizes where we will take our network.

The only parameters that I established was that it must be shorter than 30 words.

Here are some of the possibilities our team came up with:

1. ActiveRain is the Leading Social Network for Real Estate Professionals whose primary goal is to provide an effective platform that allows its member to generate quality consumer-oriented content, establishing their role as a knowledgeable local expert, and connecting them with potential clients.

2. To allow real estate professionals to connect with consumers by highlighting their real estate expertise and local knowledge while learning techniques that will make them successful in today's market.

3. ActiveRain is a Social Network that enables real estate professionals to connect with consumers and exchange ideas with peers through dynamic conversations about their local markets and personal expertise.

4. As the largest and fastest growing Professional Real Estate Network in the Country, it's our mission to provide a secure and professional platform for our members, and to be the Industry Leader in the markets we serve.

5. To help real estate professionals grow their careers, connect with peers and customers, and become respected local experts.

6. ActiveRain: for when life moves you to connect, share, and grow.

Mike, one of our developer's, offered this note along with his mission statement submission. I think he is very insightful so I am passing it onto you as a bonus of sorts:

"Our members clearly believe participating in ActiveRain is good for their careers.  They're right.  When they take an active part in our service (ActiveRain), they establish relationships with others in the industry, create a body of work through their blog entries, learn occupational tips and tricks, receive encouragement, get inspired, establish a reputation, even get occasional leads.  As long as we help them to achieve these things for themselves, we'll be successful and well-regarded.

I just stumbled upon the comment above that was a part of a post where people were debating the returns on various online real estate websites.  I have heard the sentiments of the comment above numerous times since founding ActiveRain. Because of the rich professional-to-professional networking that happens everyday on ActiveRain some people dismiss the great consumer reach of the site.  This is likely our fault as we tend not to toot our own horn regarding our accomplishments. As a result we have done a poor job educating the industry as to the power inherent in ActiveRain to connect real estate professionals with consumers.

I track our traffic numbers on a daily basis. It's a borderline obsession for me. When you've built websites your whole adult life, this tends to happen. For example, I know that yesterday was our second highest number of visitors ever to the site. 88% of our visitors on a monthly basis come from search engines or referral from other sites. These are potential clients doing search queries that are leading them to your posts.

But the stat that jumps out at me that lets me know ActiveRain is MUCH MORE than 'primarily a peer-to-peer platform' is this: the number of members on our site is quite a bit less than 10% of our unique visitors per month. That means there are over 9 consumers hitting the site for every one member.........and when you factor in how many of our members are actually contributing content, that number gets even higher.

As I was getting ready to write this post, I did some additional research and found the graph below that compares ActiveRain's traffic with other "big boys" of our industry: ColdwellBanker.com, REMAX.com, Century21.com, and KW.com.  It is exciting for me to note that we started off one year ago in 5th place (out of 5) in this group and now we are ranking in 2nd place with almost a 200% yearly growth rate.