With all the buzz about the recent Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco, I found myself spending a bit of time on the Inman News website.  As you probably know, Inman hosted the conference.  

I found some interesting ways to get involved in the Inman community while I was on the site, and I’d recommend that anyone in the real estate industry take advantage of the opportunity to join a community hosted by such a well-respected name in the real estate industry.  Take a look at my profile entry to the Real Estate Directory, and Blog Directory listing. 

ADD YOUR INSIGHT TO THE INMANBLOG

The InmanBlog addresses a wide range of topics, including technology, lead generation, the real estate market, real estate marketing, new business models and social media among others.  There’s a lot to learn and an opportunity to get involved.

THE INMANWIKI

The InmanWiki is billed as “the world’s largest real estate encyclopedia. You can add: Your Video, Your Blog, Your Profile, or Your Market Snapshot.” You can also contribute articles on a variety of real estate topics.

Inman’s Blog and Real Estate Directories

On Inman’s home page, separate links are shown for the Blog and Real Estate Directories.  However, if you want to join the community, keep in mind that the directories are part of the Wiki, so you add to all of them in exactly the same way – by setting up an account and adding pages to the site under your user name.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you wouldn’t join the community to increase the number of incoming links to your website.  There are “nofollow” tags on all links to your Inman pages and to your website.  But, if you’re looking for another way to increase your overall Internet presence, participating on the Inman site is about as good as it gets. 

HOW TO GET STARTED

I found the process of setting up an account, listing a blog, setting up a profile and adding an entry to the Real Estate Directory a bit confusing.  So, to help out, I’ll give you the benefit of what I discovered and help you avoid the mistakes I made.  With this insight, you can quickly and easily get yourself set up at the Inman site!

1.  Register at the InmanWiki

First, go to  http://www.inmanwiki.com and click on the link to create an account.  The most important thing to know about creating an account is that your user name is used as attribution for anything you create on the site.  In that way, it’s the same as the ActiveRain username, if you’re familiar with that.   So, don’t do what I did the first time around – I used a cryptic user name, then ended up trying to delete that user and create one that would be understandable for human beings other than myself.

2.  Add Your Profile to the Real Estate Directory

Once you have registered, click on the link on the Wiki menu labeled Profile.  It should be a relatively blank page.  Then, click on the EDIT tab along the top of the screen.  The next screen will contain an editor where you can add a brief introduction of yourself and your services.  Below that, you can choose the categories you want to be included in.  Once you are finished, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on the SAVE PAGE button.

3.  Add Your Blog to the Directory

To add a blog, you’d create a new page where your blog will live, using the WRITE AN ARTICLE link on the Wiki menu.  Use the name of your blog as the Title of the article.

Here are the instructions for adding a blog.  Basically, you want to write a brief introduction to your blog.  If you want to add your blog’s RSS feed, just put the following code after your introduction:

 <feed items=”5″>http://example.com/feed.xml</feed>

The “5″ indicates that the first five entries of your blog should appear.  You’d naturally replace the URL shown above with the comments RSS URL from your own blog.

4.  Contribute Articles to the InmanWiki

Now that you’re visible on the site, you can also add articles to the InmanWiki.  The process is the same as before – just use the Write an Article link to create a new page on the site.  You might want to check out the Guidelines for InmanWiki contributions to make sure you’re on the right track.

5.  Miscellaneous

If you want to display an InmanWiki logo like the one shown above, use the Link To button on the Wiki Menu called InmanWiki.  You’ll find several sizes of logos for your use. 

You can also add a search of the InmanWiki to your site or your blog.  You’ll see that search at the bottom of the left column of this blog.  Just use the Link To button on the Wiki Menu called Wiki Search Feature for instructions and the required code.

Take a moment to participate in the InmanWiki Poll in the left column of this blog!  And, let me know if these instructions help, and what your experience is on the InmanWiki!