Can you ask anyone to be a Colleague?

Question

Hey everyone, I am curious if:

#1 Can I get in trouble for following to many people?

#2 is there a reason I would not want to follow a lot of people?

#3 Can I ask anyone to be a colleague?

#4 Is there a reason why someone would not want to be a colleague?

#5 Can I get into trouble for asking to many people to be a colleague?

I am so new to my New Career and this site and I have lots of questions but I will start with these 5. Yesterday I got blocked for spamming and it was an innocent mistake but thank goodness I am a quick learner so that won't happen again. :-) Thank you again for all of your help.

To Your Success,

Becky

Steve Babiak · Answer

#2 is a maybe - if you have too many colleagues, when you try to do the mentions using @ you will find lots more people matching the first few characters that you type so you have more to scroll through.#3 is a yes. Just provide a nice introductory message so that the potential colleague can see where you are coming from. No guarantee that your request will be acceptedl but you can always ask.#4 is a yes. There are members who have no colleagues other than @Joshua Dorkin for whatever reason that they have chosen. There are also some less scrupulous members with whom you may prefer to not have any association. And if the request you get has any type of spam in it, you would probably decline as well.

Becky Shuta · Answer

@Jean Bolger I agree with you 100% and it has to be a lot of work to keep it that way. Hats off to admin for the terrific job of keeping this site user friendly and not overwhelmed with biz opps and other annoying ads. This place is awesome and in only 2 days I have already learned a lot! Cheers, Beck

Jean Bolger · Answer

I love how spam-free Biggerpockets is. It's extraordinary for a site with this many members, especially as it's growing so quickly. I know it's a ton of work to keep it that way, so thanks!

Becky Shuta · Answer

@Jeff Smith Hey Jeff, if you look at my introduction post I also got banned after only sending out something like 4 request. I copied the same message and pasted into each and that was the signal that put the ban on. I think I said something to the effect "Hi my name is Becky and I would like to know if we can connect" That was it no promotion of any kind. However, I did copy and paste the same message into each one and that was all it took. Less then 14 minutes and I was "Spam Banned" :-) They are really awesome here and I am sure they will get you fixed back up quickly. Have an incredibly Blessed evening,Becky

Brandon Turner · Answer

Hey @Jeff Smith - to add to Steve's point, sending any sort of "this is my REIA" or "this is my company" in a colleague request is a slight form of solicitation, and not allowed on BP. Once a relationship is built, you can let people know about your business, reia, or whatever else. However, colleague requests are sacred ground :) Rather than try to read ever PM and take it up in committee to see if they "crossed the line or not" - which we could never do - we simply had to draw the line with "Absolutely no self-promotion in a colleague request, which includes talking up your company." If you were banned, it's very likely that multiple users reported it as Spam (our users are VERY sensitive to this) and as a result, there was a ban. Send an email over to Support@biggerpockets.com if you want to talk about getting "unbanned" if you still are. I'd definitely recommend checking out http://www.biggerpockets.com/biz for more tips :)

Steve Babiak · Answer

@Jeff Smith only the management of BP - @Joshua Dorkin and @Brandon Turner - can speak to the issue of being banned in that manner. I agree with you that 3 messages seems like a small number to achieve a ban.But you do have to understand the reasoning behind the ban for repeated colleague requests using the exact same text in the message - very easy for a spammer to program that kind of behavior to happen automatically.My suggestion - insert the name of the person you are contacting in your colleague requests; that would make it very hard for multiple requests to be identical. And it would be a bit more personable as well.

Jeff Smith · Answer

I disagree @Joshua Dorkin and @Steve Babiak I just sent 3 colleague request and got banned for spamming. All my message said was "Hello Im am a real estate investor looking to network. I am the President of the Lubbock REIA". - Thats it! just 3 I hardly see 3 request as bulk, does anyone else agree with that?

Joshua Dorkin · Answer

To Steve's point, if you or anyone gets a colleague request with ANY form of spam or solicitation in it, please report it. We have a ZERO tolerance for people who would spam our colleague system and we're happy to ban these folks from using the site to annoy our users.

Becky Shuta · Answer

Thanks Josh, I think I may have followed to many people. I will for now on let the people come to me. I need to learn more about everything Real Estate and I guess I get a little excited and start trying to make connections with everyone instead of taking the time to see who is willing to help me through the process. I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. Have an incredibly Blessed evening.Beck

Joshua Dorkin · Answer

Hey @Becky Shuta -1 - No, but bulk following tons of people does alert our system to track you and your actions more closely here to ensure you're not here to spam the site or our users.2 - No. I believe that building your network is important. That said, adding colleagues randomly makes no sense. You should be strategic in building your network to meet your goals/needs. 3 - Yes, but we limit the number of requests you can have outstanding at one time.4 - Yes. Some people are shy about networking and others may just not be interested in linking up for their own reasons.5 - No, however be sure you're networking and not soliciting or advertising. If you use our colleague system to sent ads or solicitations, you can lose some or all privileges here on the site.I hope that helps.