Over the years, real estate blogging has changed from an experiment to a standard marketing tool and chosen platforms have evolved as well. Many Realtors choose to own and host their own blog on platforms like WordPress.org while others opt for community hosted blogs like ActiveRain.com.
ActiveRain’s long evolution
ActiveRain has changed through several iterations over the years ranging from its initial goal of Realtors blogging for consumers on a high ranking site, to a more internal real estate network with Realtors writing for points with other Realtors commenting (thus earning more points). Many see the network as a water cooler of sorts for the real estate industry.
The real estate network made headlines in July of 2010 for going back on its original promise to never charge founding users and was sold this May to MarketLeader and the blogosphere lit up when Jonathan Washburn, CEO and co-founder said goodbye as the company’s leader.
Format and culture changes over the years
The company has changed format over the years and the culture has shifted right along with it. As a pay-to-play network, and with the shift, some users have chosen to leave and jump ship for their own site or for a competitor like Posterous, while others have remained highly dedicated to the network.
Top bloggers in 2009 versus today
In October 2009, we profiled ActiveRain.com bloggers, outlining the 51 Top Ranking ActiveRain.com Real Estate Blogs according to the blogger in every state with the highest number of points.
While several well known real estate bloggers like Lenn Harley and Kristal Kraft have remained active in the real estate network, we took a look at the current state of the top 51 list and uncovered that 32% of the bloggers originally profiled who once were extremely competitive for the top spot in their state have not blogged in the last 30 days, with one in five having gone completely dormant.
