HARConnect.com was launched earlier this year and has seen great traction among the membership, but we wanted to inform you again about the site, why it exists and how to access it.
HARConnect was created to be the primary communication/news source site for our members. Up until earlier this year, we had the print magazine (Houston REALTOR®), the online magazine, the 5-Minute REALTOR (weekly email newsletter), The Edge, and group email broadcasts (NRG, Management Central, etc.). After assessing this setup, we felt that we needed to take all of this information and put it in one easy-to-locate spot. It just makes sense; hence, the birth of HARConnect.com. Now that we have HARConnect up and running, there is no longer a need to have all the separate electronic entities. With that said, HARConnect is the online magazine; it is the 5-minute REALTOR; it is Management Central; and so forth. Anything and everything that is in the magazine, the 5-Minute REALTOR®, Management Central’s newsletters, NRG newsletters, TREPAC, etc. is all on HARConnect. Even though we still broadcast out to each of these individual groups, the information is in one spot. So, do we still have the Houston REALTOR® online? YES! It’s HARConnect. Where is Management Central’s site? It’s on HARConnect. Where can you find the 5-Minute REALTOR®? Yep, you got it, HARConnect. Virtually everything we share with our members on a communication level is all going to be on HARConnect.
We have also integrated an improved, Google Calendar-based HAR Master Calendar on the site to post all of our events and meetings. From here on forward, this calendar is the calendar for listing all of our events. Everything will now be on HARConnect.
There is also a new Facebook component on HARConnect that is a live feed of everything that is taking place on HAR’s Facebook page. It will be located on the homepage of the site. While on HARConnect, members will be able to view all of HAR’s Facebook posts – live. If you decide that you would like to join in on a topic, all you will have to do is click on the Facebook widget, and it will take you to HAR’s Facebook page.
The weekly 5-Minute REALTOR® e-newsletter has also been automated so that it will look for any article uploaded by the HAR staff that contains a certain tag word. Then, it will automatically email out all of those tagged articles to the entire membership every Tuesday morning. This is sort of an RSS feed kind of setup that makes better usage of the HARConnect platform and reduces staff time associated with creating the email.
After reading all of this, you probably want to visit the site—hopefully. You can go there by visiting www.HARConnect.com or by clicking on any of the links in any of the emailed communications. There are also buttons/ads throughout the member side of HAR.com for your convenience.
Another plus for having HARConnect is that we are one of only two associations in the country participating in a beta test with NAR’s HouseLogic to provide local/state public affairs information. When a visitor from Texas goes to the HouseLogic site, they are now linked back to HAR-written articles on HARConnect. It is a great way to engage with a more-informed public and develop more usage out of the site.
As with everything we do, we welcome any feedback you might have about HARConnect—good or bad.
