There are several new features on our website that make it easier than ever to join the conversation on THE LANDING, the Missouri REALTORS® professional networking and business information tool. THE LANDING is a member resource that can now easily be accessed from missourirealtor.org. Over 8,000 discussions have already taken place on THE LANDING. Follow these written instructions to learn how to take advantage of these new features and join the conversation or if you prefer video instructions, click here.
THE LANDING is made up of many communities where members can connect around a topic. A community is essentially a group and each community has a discussions feature where you send messages or discussion posts as well as keep up on the latest community conversations.
Communities can have any number of members, depending on the number of people interested in the topic. So when you send a message through the community discussion it will go to all the members of that community and will be delivered to their email inbox.
Replying to a Message you Receive
When you receive a message from a community in your email inbox, it will look like this…Notice the new email templates and new reply by email options:
There are multiple actions you can take in response to this message. The ones you will most commonly use are Reply All Online and Reply All Email. Reply All Online takes you to THE LANDING community where you can send a reply to all members of this community. Reply All Email allows you to reply all without leaving your email inbox. Your other options are to Post New Message – either online or via email. This will create a new message within this community. You should only do this if you are creating a message around a new topic. If you want to respond about this topic, then you want to reply. You can also send a private message to the sender by clicking on Reply to Sender. It is important to note the difference between Reply to Sender and Reply All. Apply proper email etiquette and send messages appropriately. Hitting Reply All when the message is only intended for the sender dilutes the value of the discussions. Alternatively, selecting Reply to Sender when the content of your message could benefit all members causes others to miss out on valuable information.
Now let’s look at a discussion post when viewed within THE LANDING.
When multiple people reply to a discussion, a thread is created. This message is part of a thread and is the sixth response to the original post. You can click on Show Original Message to view the original post. Here is another etiquette tip, it is important that you respond to the most recent post to reduce confusion among members. Again you can Reply to Discussion (same function as Reply All) or Reply to Sender. You can also click Make Best Answer if you found this answer to be helpful.
Creating a New Message
That is how to respond to discussion posts, but let’s say you want to create and send your own message via a community. First, select the proper community for your intended message. Who do you want to receive your discussion post? Once you know which community you want to post in, there are three ways to easily create a new message.
1) From THE LANDING homepage you can click on Engage and then Post a Message.
From here you just select which community you want to post in (only the community in which you are a member of will populate).
2) Navigate to the community you want to post in and then create a new message by clicking Add on the Community Home tab.
3) Navigate to the community you want to post in and then create a new message by clicking on Post New Message within the Discussion tab.
Compose Your Message
In your message be sure to use a descriptive and compelling subject and then compose your message. There are several formatting options to select from. Like an email message, you can Attach a document to your post. This attachment will automatically be added to the community library. Once you are ready, hit Send and your message will be sent to the members of this community and will also appear within the Community Discussion on THE LANDING.
So now that you know how to use the community discussion feature, go join the conversation. Ask questions of your peers or share helpful and relevant information.
Also feel free to watch this helpful How to Join the Conversation video.