Hello Sonja Adams I just came back to AR after being away from 9 years. I paid and found that my blogs gained me marked improvement with my SEO within a month. But at the very least become an active member of the community and have a great network to learn from here.

Right now, I am here for the water cooler, for friendship, and to read the Q&A.  

At the end of the day, what another member is doing, and getting (referrals) is not a measure of the experience you may have. 

This community is all about engagement ... how we interact with others, how we communicate, how we help and support, etc.  

I get that you are gathering information to make a business decision yet underlying the question I cannot help but think the focus may be misaligned with the business and other potentials here in the Rain. 

In any event, I wish you all the best! 

I've received referrals from ActiveRainers in the past, yes. I've never been contacted by a buyer or seller through my ActiveRain account per se. But the really great thing about AR is about the relationships and the learning experiences. Also, the platform is in the process of being improved, so we should have more public eyeballs soon. 

You do have a few choices. You can participate without paying, and your posts won't be seen by public until you reach 500K points. OR you can pay a monthly fee to get seen by public now.

Good luck!

pay to play? You've had to pay to go to google for a long time now.

Next day, local post on Google.

I'm not a cheerleader & it seems you want me to hype AR for you. It's valuable & you have to make it so. You get what you give.

I think the value here now is in interacting with the membership.  I have been contacted by Rainers for possible referrals recently and definitely sent my share of referrals out last year.  

Not sure the Google juice is still there.  But you can always start your own wordpress blog and do hyper local farming there.  That's where the majority of my online business comes from.

AR is a valuable part of our marketing mix.

You do need to keep on posting to make it work though.

Sonja,

You have to decide for yourself.  A

While here mostly for the social aspects, when active received and made referrals that would not have been possible without a presence here.

Hi Sonja! Welcome back! 

I guess the best thing that I can say is that AR is what you make it!

I use it to post market reports and send links to the reports to clients who live in the specific communites. I will also write a post here and link back to my main website to boost web presence THERE (not so much here).

The social part of AR is by far, better than other 'social' sites. Many of those commenting here are active agents, actually selling real estate. There may be more boots on the ground here than we see on Facebook or other social sites! We learn a LOT from others here - primarily in the Q&A and especially on our weekly ZOOM calls. 

The friendships are priceless here - again, it's what you make of it!

Oh, and the referrals are fantastic too! I just Closed another buyer referral from AR! I have gotten quite a few from AR members and I've sent several out as well.

I do hope you choose to dive back in!

Welcome back.  I, too, was missing for sometime but I'm back now. You need to pay until you reach 500,000 points.  To me, I love interacting with fellow realtors.  I can learn from them by asking questions, other time I just vetted.  

I would say in the past 12 years I've been here my office has had no less than 100 buyers/sellers come from following/finding my posts.

Do not expect to have calls on your 2012 posts which are for members only. Post some current blogs and see what happens.

Good luck.

Today, AR remains more of a social "touch" with some Real Estate data bits

I use the site primarily for my own purposes. Glad to see you back Sonja Adams BTW my son lives in your town