Blogs give you a voice, but they are also can be a large part of your social networking experience if you know what you're doing. A site like Facebook is great for social networking because people interact so much - posting on walls, sending SuperPokes, instant messaging, stalking people by looking through all of their pictures (oops, was that out loud?!). ActiveRain, a blogging platform created for Realtors, started with a brilliant points feature that rewarded you every time you wrote a post or, and here's the genius part, left a comment on another person's blog. To expand my point, Jeffrey Knott, my recent grad from Phoenix joined ActiveRain last week and almost immediately got a referral from another agent a few states over. This didn't happen because of ActiveRain per-se but becuase of all the activity (social networking) they encouraged. Realtors got addicted to earning points and moving up in their metro area rankings.
Now you can extend what ActiveRain created across multiple blogging platforms. TypePad's new and free service called TypePad Connect allows you to create a profile, complete with profile pic and links back to your blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, etc., so that whenever you leave a comment on a blog, other readers can find and interact with you. It works whether the author of the blog uses Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, all the majors.
Here's my challenge to you: Turn your time reading blogs into background lead generation by signing up for TypePad Connect. Read a post and feel inspired or have your own thought? Don't just move on, use your TypePad Connect account to leave your thoughts behind. For example: What do you think about this post? Talk back to me! Leave a comment and who knows - this blog has over 1000 readers a day - maybe your referral is just a few hours away like Jeff!
