Q. "Fran, I’m really intrigued by the Discussion groups that you’ve added to your web site.  This is a great way to take a static site and make it interactive.  Will you share the mechanics of how to establish a Discussion group?  Is there a website I can go to?  Do you offer classes on how to do this?  Thanks for any assistance you can give me."

First, let me clarify that the online discussion forums are not community blogs, per se. They are blog-like in terms of engaging the web visitor in a highly interactive format, but we will refer to them as RealTown Groups to match the descriptors at RealTown.com, where these Groups (forums) are hosted. There is an example of a RealTown Group on the Foreclosure Resources page of my web site titled, "Helping Americans KEEP Their Homes." There is another Group on the web site and I expect that I will have several niche discussion groups in short order.

Here are the steps to set up and install a RealTown Group on a web site:

1.  Log in to RealTown.com. If you have a RealTown Blog, you are already a member of RealTown. Use your e-mail and password to log in. You will land on your My RealTown page.
2. Click on My Groups on the My RealTown menu on the right.
   
3. Click on Create a Group on the menu on the right.
   
4. Set up the Group following instructions on the screen.
   
5. Write a post or two explaining the mission of the Group and scroll to the bottom of the list and click on the RSS Feed icon.  Copy the URL that appears in the browser.
   
6. Paste this code in the appropriate place in your web site. If you have a Professional or Premium Point2 Agent web site, go to Edit, select a page, select a Center Column Add Content link, write a headline and brief introduction for your discussion group, and then replace the default Yahoo! RSS feed with your own RSS Group Feed.