BiggerPockets Founder's Blog

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Sunday, November 15, 2009

BiggerPockets Bits

• If you've got a Facebook account and have connected to your BiggerPockets account, you've been able to post your new blog posts, forum threads, bulletins, and property listings direct to FB for a few weeks now. You can now post your status here on BP, and it will automatically be shared on FB!

  
  All you need to do it make sure you connect, and you can elect to turn on or off the various sharing features by editing your settings through the SETTINGS & PRIVACY link in the dashboard and then clicking the Facebook tab.

• Learn why greeting new BiggerPockets members is good for business.

   

• Denver Investors, Professionals, etc: Join us for the BiggerPockets Denver: November Get Together 11/19/09 downtown . . . for more information, click here OR RSVP here.

Articles and Forums of the week:

BiggerPockets Help: http://www.biggerpockets.com/help
Donate: http://www.biggerpockets.com/donate.html
Advertise: http://www.biggerpockets.com/advertise.html
Press: http://www.biggerpockets.com/press.html
Manage Your Account: http://www.biggerpockets.com/dashboard

I was just talking with a member who asked how to get more out of using BiggerPockets to build his business, and I made a suggestion that I wanted to share with the rest of you.  Of course, engaging with others is one of the mainstays of successful social networkers.  If you combine that with the need of new people to feel welcome in a community, you've got the perfect formula for success!

Greet New BiggerPockets Members to Quickly Build Your Name and Reputation

This simple activity, repeated a few times a day or week, will help drastically increase your visibility, particularly amongst new members. You will begin to be known as someone who is particularly helpful to others, and if you play your cards right, you'll be one of the first people that others think of when they are looking for someone/something.

Here's all you need to do:

• Stop by the New Member Introductions forum and scan for people who'se posts have few or no replies.
• READ the introduction post and respond to any questions or requests for help.  Let these folks know that they are welcome in the community and that you're happy to do what you can to assist them (and mean it), and then do just that.  Ask them to reveal more about themselves and take a real interest in their background, goals, etc. Of course, visiting their profile to learn more about them before responding is always helpful.
• Follow those threads that you respond to, and be sure to follow up when the initial poster jumps back on the thread.

You'll see that you quickly gain new colleagues (send colleague requests to those people who interest you), and friends here on BiggerPockets.  You'll also see that you become one of those people's go-to colleagues on the site.  This is tactic that works . . . you just need to commit to doing it (and it only takes a few minutes to welcome several newbies).

When deals and other opportunities come up, you'll be there in their memory.

Of course, beyond just helping yourself, you'll be building good karma here on BiggerPockets, and some influence to go with it!

We added yet another minor improvement tonight to BiggerPockets, and those of you with Facebook accounts should be happy!

If you've got a Facebook account and have connected to your BiggerPockets account, you've been able to post your new blog posts, forum threads, bulletins, and property listings direct to FB for a few weeks now.  You can now post your status here on BP, and it will automatically be shared on FB!

All you need to do it make sure you connect, and you can elect to turn on or off the various sharing features by editing your settings through the SETTINGS & PRIVACY link in the dashboard and then clicking the Facebook tab.

Enjoy!

BTW - We've also implemented various minor fixes around the site, including some formatting issues on member blogs, a few forum issues, and other things you will never need to worry about.

We've got more BIGGER and BETTER upgrades coming to the site soon!

Thanks for the continued support and suggestions for improvement.

Josh

We continue to get new press mentions here at BiggerPockets, and I wanted to share the latest with all of you:

I was interviewed early this morning for the KGO Morning News with anchors Ed Baxter and Jennifer Jones (ABC News Radio - San Francisco) regarding the increase in rental vacancies around the country (highest rate in 23 years).  We talked about how tenants now have more negotiating power with their landlords, various incentives being offered to attract those renters, and more.

If you haven't had the opportunity already, please do have a listen by clicking the link below.  The audio file is 1 hour long and you'll just need to fast forward to the 45 minute mark to catch my segment.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW HERE

Thanks for the continued support from our members, visitors, and of course, the press.

Josh

Earlier today we had a get together in Los Angeles for BiggerPockets members and had a great time chatting about real estate, politics, the economy - you name it!  Of course, we got to enjoy some great burgers at the In-N-Out Burger, and followed that up with a drink at El Torito (Sherman Oaks).

It was great finally getting to meet many of the fellas in real life (IRL), and I hope that you'll all use BiggerPockets to do your own real-life networking as well.

 Photo from left to right: Richard Landeros, Matty M., Will Barnard, Joshua Dorkin, Tim Wieneke, Eddie Ziv

I just got a request to close the account of a member here on BiggerPockets.  While this doesn't happen very often, when it does, there is always a common theme.  In EVERY case, the person was unsatisfied in some way with the results of their networking.  The same goes for today.  This person had three posts on the site, all of which were solicitations in a group, seeking buyers for property.  Otherwise, they were not active on the forums, blogs, or any other place on the site. qc8b4679yx

The reason they were unsatisfied is that they expected the site to magically produce for them connections without doing the work. The did nothing to build relationships, and did nothing to be seen and known by the community at large.

We can't do the work for you.  If you want to succeed at social networking for real estate, you MUST pay attention to the following information:

You Will Never Succeed in Social Networking if you Don't Build Relationships!

Almost nine out of ten people who are unhappy with the results of their efforts on our social network do nothing but solicit deals.  The other one out of ten simply create a profile and expect people to come flocking to them.

Social Networking Requires You to Be Active and Visible.  Here are some tips:

• You will not make friends by joining a social network and immediately solicit business. 
• You will not do deals by joining a social network and immediately solicit business.
• You MUST interact and give people the opportunity to get to know you before soliciting business!  There are many ways to do that here on BP - forums, blogs, bulletins, etc.
• People will NOT just seek you out unless you are visible.  To be visible, you MUST create a complete profile.  You MUST also become part of the VISIBLE conversation happening on the site. 
• The most important key to success is to focus on establishing relationships! For more, read "Are You Wasting Your Time with Social Networking for Real Estate?"

I've talked about all of this on many occassions.  I think people have the false impression that people will just flock to you once you create a profile somewhere online.  There is nothing farther from the truth.  Being successful on a social network requires time and effort.  Those people who are generally the most successful on any network are those people who are focused; those who are a part of the visible ether. 

So . . . if you want to fail at social networking, create a profile and disapear.  You'll have no one to blame for your failure but yourself.

We're going to try and put together a series of screencasts to help demonstrate how to use the various site features of BiggerPockets. Here's the first of many to come:

How to Use the BiggerPockets Help / Knowledgebase / FAQ

Instead of fumbling around the site, trying to figure something out, why not use the built in help feature?

BiggerPockets just launched a Testimonial System that will allow our members to help us promote the site to potential new members and other visitors. These testimonials will appear on the site's main page - http://www.biggerpockets.com (which you can't see if you are logged in, but is visible to visitors), and on our registration pages.

Help Us By Writing a Testimonial for BiggerPockets!

To share a testimonial, simply go to the dashboard and click on the Write a Testimonial link on the left of the page. You'll see a box drop down where you can write about the site. You will be restricted to 180 characters, so please be concise.

Just let others know what you think about BP, how it has helped you or your business, or anything else you have to say that will let others know about your great experiences on the site. We'll then get notified of the message and can then approve it for inclusion. Once included, the testimonial will be added to the site with a link back to your profile, so people can see that there was an actual user behind the message.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you all think, and sharing it with the world.

One of the features about BiggerPockets that I'm most proud of is our official blog, Real Estate Dispatch.  Those of you who are regular readers know that we've got top notch talent, writing phenominal articles daily for real estate investors, professionals, homeowners, and others interested in the world of real estate.  Over the past few weeks, we've brought on some great new talent with diverse backgrounds and expertise;  the team is currently at 16 contributors, and we've published over 1,350 articles so far!

If you haven't had the chance to check out the blog, it is regularly mentioned as one of the tops in real estate.  In addition, our articles are syndicated by such sources as Reuters, Google News, the Palm Beach Post, and many others.

Looking to Grow Even More!

There are a few things we're looking for to help get our blog to where we need to be, and we're asking all of our members for your help!

1 - When you read an article that you like, dislike, agree with, have questions about, etc. please leave your feedback in the comments.  Our contributors thrive on the feedback of their peers, and by engaging with them, you help them better understand their audience.

2 - When you read an article that you like/love, help us promote it by sharing it with your friends and others online.  There are a few great ways to do that.  Using Email, posting to social networks like Twitter, Facebook, etc, or sharing through social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, Propeller, Tipd, etc.  All of our posts have a SHARE THIS link at the bottom, which will allow you to easily post to any of these services.

3 - New contributors.  Read below for more . . .

We're in need of contributors in the following areas:

1 - Lending and Mortgages – are you a traditional, commercial, or hard money lender? We're looking for folks in the lending business who can write about lending, rates, loans, etc.

2 - Real Estate News – we are looking for people who are enthusiastic about news involving real estate, housing, the economy, etc. If you love the news and want to write about what is happening, let us know.

3 - Real Estate Technology – we're looking for contributors who love real estate and technology.  If you're able to talk intelligably about tech tools, websites, etc., we want to talk to you.

 This is a great opportunity to get yourself seen by a vast audience, and to be part of something incredible - it is also a great way to build up your reputation.  If you want to join the team, contact us here.

We've made a minor improvement to the forums that we wanted to share with you:

See Who Voted on a Forum Post - Members can now see who voted on any given post by hovering their mouse over the vote button at the top right of any individual post.  A list of members will show up detailing those people who have voted. 

We're planning on making it easy to track the votes of any given member and should have that deployed in the next few days.

One of the places that our members like to spend their time is on our Off-Topic and Political Talk forums.  That said, these forums can often-times be a distraction and a time-killer. 

Recently, one of our members suggested that we remove these forums from the forum feed found in your dashboard.  We agreed that it would be a good idea to give our members the option to ignore these distractive, and sometimes controversial subject areas while navigating their dashboard.

Members Can Now Ignore Several Forum Areas from their Dashboard

We've made some changes in our dashboard which will allow members, by default, to ignore the Off-Topic, Political Talk, and all Marketplace forum topics.  You don't have to do ANYTHING if you want to continue to ignore these areas while looking at your dashboard forum feed.

If you want to see these areas once again, just go to your DASHBOARD and click on the Settings and Password link. Then, just click on the Dashboard tab (see above image) and you'll be able to choose which of these areas you once again want to see in your dashboard forum feed.

We appreciate all member suggestions for improving the site, and do everything in our power to make BiggerPockets a place where our members come first.

Thanks again, and don't forget to invite your friends, colleagues, and associates to join you here on BP!

You can't go very far without hearing about Twitter.  Most people I know are now on Facebook, and I quickly see those in my circle of influence moving to Twitter as well.  With that in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to share with you how you can use both Twitter and Facebook to grow your network right here on BiggerPockets.

Of course, by building your own personal network here on BP, you're also bringing new people on to the site who can both help others, and benefit themselves from the knowledge, networking opportunities, marketing opportunities and deal making opportunities that BiggerPockets provides.

1 - Find Your Unique BiggerPockets Referral Link

• Start on BiggerPockets by visiting the Invite link found above the search bar on all pages on our social network.
• You'll be taken to the Send an Invite page, where you can directly email an invite to any friends or colleagues, OR if you scroll down the page, you'll see the following: Alternatively, just give out the following link to your friends for them to sign up!

Which is followed by a link on the following line that looks like this:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/signup/via_account?ref=9 

• The link on YOUR invite page will be identical to the one above, except the number at the end of the link will point to your unique member number.  
• USE YOUR LINK, NOT THE LINK ABOVE.  The link above will not give you credit for those people you invite, but will give credit to me instead.

2 - Share Your BiggerPockets Referral Link on Twitter and Facebook

• Now that you've got your referral link, copy that link and open either Twitter or Facebook in a new Tab or Window of your browser.
• Some people find it easier to share links by shortening them.  I recommend using http://bit.ly/ as it will allow you to see how many people have clicked on the link.  This could come in useful, in tracking which message you use works best for you (see below).  Whether you decide to shorten the link or not, you'll then want to craft an enticing message to get your friends and colleagues interested.
• On Facebook, you'll now want to place your message and the link in the What's on Your Mind box.  On Twitter, you'll place it in the What are you doing? box.
• Here are some examples of messages you can use (of course, replace YOURLINKHERE with your referral link or the shortened URL):

Join me at BiggerPockets.com, the best real estate social network! YOURLINKHERE

 

Network with me on BiggerPockets.com and help grow your real estate business.  YOURKLINKHERE

 

Want to build your real estate contacts?  Join BiggerPockets.com today! YOURLINKHERE

 

35,000+ people are networking with me on BiggerPockets.com. Join us! YOURLINKHERE

 

Learn how to make money in real estate for free on BiggerPockets.com.  YOURLINKHERE

 

Promote your properties and real estate deals on BiggerPockets.com. YOURLINKHERE

• All that's left is to submit your update on Twitter or Facebook, and watch to see what happens.  If you find that your message isn't working, mix it up and try something different.  Of course, you don't want to annoy your friends or followers, so be careful in your approach.

3 - Watch as Your Friends and Colleagues Join You on BiggerPockets!

Once people follow your advice and join you on BiggerPockets, you'll see that the number of colleagues you have begins to grow. 

 With a larger network comes the opportunity to grow your business, and the vast amount of shared knowledge on the site will also grow in kind. Be sure to get out and engage your colleagues -- keep up with their business, and make yourself helpful to them.  You'll soon find that this approach of engagement along with participation on BiggerPockets will help you and your real estate business to thrive!

 4 - Win Awards and Influence for helping us grow BiggerPockets!

• By referring 10 new members to the site, you can win the RECRUITER award badge.
• By referring 25 new members to the site, you can win the elusive HEADHUNTER award badge.
• For each new member that you invite to the site, you'll gain 30 Influence points.

Note: Be sure to follow @BiggerPockets on Twitter to keep up with site news, announcements, and other interesting real estate information.

Attention BiggerPockets Members and Visitors:

I want to apologize for the site outage this Wednesday evening.  I am never pleased with downtime, and this would have been noticed sooner had I not gone and taken the evening off (that'll teach me!). The site should NEVER go down unexpectedly, and it is up to us to make sure you've always got BP to turn to as your real estate network.

It looks like we're once again experiencing those growing pains that come with a rapidly growing website.  We're working on analyzing what upgrades we need to make to keep up with the traffic load, and should have these in place shortly.

Thanks for the understanding and for continuing to support BiggerPockets.  We appreciate that you spend your time with us.

Regards,

Joshua Dorkin

Introducing BiggerPockets Awards

Yesterday we implemented our new, system-wide award system, designed to stimulate even more activity and participation from our members. With awards designed to reward the top participants in all areas of the site, those who help keep the site running smoothly, and more, we hope that our members will get their competitive spirit going and participate even more here on BiggerPockets. 

We're hoping to stir up your competitive spirit!

Those members who have earned an award will see it on their profile in the awards section, and will also have a tally of the total number of awards next to their forum posts. Here's a sample of some awards taken from my profile:

You can see all of the awards, what they mean, and how many have been given away on our Awards page.

What are you waiting for?  Find out what awards are available and start working to get them!

Profile Updates:

In addition to adding awards to our member profiles, we've also redesigned our profiles to make them cleaner and a more spacious. We hope you like the changes!

This post has been a long time coming . . .

One of my pet peeves in life is when people leave you a voicemail that has no information.  I hate it when my friends do it, but I find it completely rediculous when people do it when calling a business.

Tell People Why You're Calling!

Over the past several days, I've gotten voicemails at BiggerPockets that go something like this:

"This is John at 212-555-5555.  Call me back"

I'm serious. What on earth is that about?

If you can't take the time to explain why you're calling, do you really think someone on the other end is going to take the time to call you back?  In most cases and at most business, they would.

I'm taking a stand.

BiggerPockets will not return your call if you can't have the common courtesy to explain who you are and why you're calling.  It isn't that hard, people.

Be Professional When Calling Others, Folks!

Here's all you need to say:

"Hi, this is YOUR NAME HERE calling from YOUR COMPANY (if you've got one) at 212-555-5555.  I was calling because YOUR REASON HERE.  Please get back to me when you have a chance."

Not only will that get you a call back from someone at BiggerPockets, but it is just good phone etiquette.

For those of you who have left messages with us and wonder why we don't get back to you, I think you know the reason now.

Thanks for listening.

INTRODUCING INFLUENCE & FORUM VOTING

We’ve established a point system for the forums (soon to expand to our entire site), which takes into account a member’s participation.  You can gain both positive and negative influence based upon what you do on the site.

The goal of this influence system is to reward those members who not only help their fellow users, but also those who help the forums to run smoothly.  As you can see from the chart below, those who participate by posting will gain influence points.  The real points come, however, when others deem your posts as helpful (by voting – see below), or when you help us to rid the site of junk/spam. 

On the other hand, as you can see, the impact of spamming the site, not following the rules (we need to edit your posts), or worse, is severe in terms of your influence points.

Voting

Influence Point System:

Action: Net Gain/Loss

Vote Post Up: 1
Each reply to your post gets you: 1
Post New Topic: 5
Reply to topic: 4
Have your Post voted up: 10
You mark a post as spam; no gain unless removed by admin or mod. If removed: 20, if edited: 10

Have your post deleted: -50
Have your post edited -10
Banned from individual forum -200
Banned from all forums -1000

Improve Your Real Estate Marketing by Blogging on BiggerPockets

Many months ago, we launched our BiggerPockets.com blogging system as a way for real estate investors, professionals, and others in the business to share their thoughts, opinions, and knowledge. Of course, as a result of that participation, the goal was to help these bloggers get noticed.

BiggerPockets Blogs are fast and easy to set up, and now bring a new perk:

Top Bloggers and Blog Commenters are Highlighted to the Community

We felt that it was important to let everyone in the community know who those people were that contributed the most to the BiggerPockets blogging community, and have thus added the Top Participants this Month feature.

On the right side of the main blogs page, you'll see a box with the Top Participants this Month, which shows the five (5) most active bloggers and the five (5) most prolific commenters.

So What are the Perks for Being on the List?

If you're on the list (which looks back at the last 30 days, not the previous month), you'll get your name and personal avatar posted, which link back to your profile AND a link to your website will also appear in the list!

You can see that participation equals FREE PR for your profile and website link!

Are There Other Reasons to Blog on BiggerPockets?

1. BiggerPockets has a vast and captive audience.
2. SEO link back potential to help your offsite web properties.
3. Networking with others — Social Network isn't the future, it's here to stay. You have to be part of the conversation or you don't exist.
4. By providing helpful and meaningful content, members who blog actively on BiggerPockets will gain benefits including broad exposure for you and your business.
5. Do-follow links to your favorite websites
6. Make money! Our bloggers can make money by showing ads on their blog.

What Are You Waiting For? Jump on the BiggerPockets Blogs community and start posting your own blogs and engaging in conversation with others by commenting! You'll see the benefits yourself!

NOTE: If we feel that you are "gaming" the system by posting "junk" comments or blog posts to inflate your count, we will either remove your ability to participate, or we may remove you from the site completely.

Always looking to improve the user experience on BiggerPockets, we just launched a knowledgebase application to help answer your questions about using the site.

BiggerPockets Help consists of categories, questions, answers, and a search function to help you with any of your general questions about using the site.

How to Get to the Help Page:
There is a help link found above the search box towards the top right of most pages and another link can be found in the footer of all pages on the site.

You can also search the help database by looking at the dropdown next to the search bar at the top of the site's pages and navigating to help. Then, just enter a few keywords that you'd like to find out about and you should find your answers.

What if my Question isn't Answered Yet?
On the right side of the knowledgebase there is a section labeled Can't Find the Answer? Simply post your question in the box below and we'll get to it right away and respond either privately, or if the question is deemed helpful to others, we'll add it to the knowledgebase.

NOTE: The directory isn't completely filled in yet, but we're diligently working to make it as complete as possible as we speak. 

I wanted to thank everyone for their patience today.  BiggerPockets was down for close to 4 hours while we upgraded the site and moved to our new servers. This move will help in the future growth of the site and will ultimately help us to serve pages to you faster and more reliably.

 If you experience any bugs or problems in using the site, please PM me ASAP so we can fix them for you!

 Thanks,  Josh

A valuable, but little known feature of BiggerPockets.com is the ability to request Professional Trade References or Testimonials from your colleagues.

As you can see from the image below, which comes from my profile (see section below my colleagues), your references are neatly displayed on your profile for all to see:



Why References & Testimonials are Helpful

Having your partners, customers, clients, or colleagues write you a reference allows other members to see that you're someone that they should also be working with. It embeds a level of trust to your profile.

BiggerPockets is a vast network of tens of thousands of real estate investors, professionals, and consumers. If someone has the opportunity to work with someone who has no positive references/testimonials or someone with many, who do you think they'll choose?

The great thing about our references is that they are NOT anonymous! You can always contact someone's references for more information about a member, and in turn, see that they are the real deal!

How Do You Get Started Building Up Your References?

1. You can request a reference from ANY member of BiggerPockets that you are colleagues with. If there is someone that you're interested in getting a reference from who is not yet a member, just invite them to join the site using the INVITE link, which is located above the search box at the top of all pages.

2. The easiest way to add a reference is to go to the profile of your colleague and select the REQUEST REFERENCE link located below their profile image. They'll get the reference request and can, at their leisure, write it for you.

Another way to go is:

3. View the list of your colleagues from the DASHBOARD, by hovering your mouse over the Networking Link in the gray horizontal bar near the top of the page and clicking on MY COLLEAGUES.

4. You can now find those colleagues that you'd like to get a reference from. Simply click the REQUEST REFERENCE link for the people you want one from and they will be notified by email and on their dashboard that they have a PENDING Reference Request.

5. When the reference is submitted, it will appear on your profile and you'll be notified.

Writing an Effective Reference
It is important to write an effective reference if someone requests one from you. Writing a brief sentence stating that someone was good to work with is a waste of everyone's time. A good reference/testimonial will include information such as your relationship with the person you're writing about, how long you've worked together, and under what circumstances. You want to be detailed enough that people who don't know the person you're writing about get the picture.

What Are You Waiting For?
Get out there and start inviting your clients, partners, customers, and colleagues to the site and have them write you outstanding references to help build up your status and sellability!

Help Build the Community - Refer a Friend to BiggerPockets!

BiggerPockets attracts somewhere between 50 and 75 new members every day. In an effort to boost that number, we're asking for your help! We're putting on a little contest to motivate you to refer your friends, colleagues, clients and customers to join the site. NOTE: When someone that you invite signs up, they instantly become your colleague.

There are many ways to invite people to join the site.

Where to find the invite links:

You'll now see an INVITE A FRIEND box on the left side of the forums, right below the FEATURED PROPERTIES box. Additionally, in the DASHBOARD, you'll see an invite link in the NETWORKING dropdown. In addition, above the search form at the top of all of our social pages, you'll see an INVITE link highlighted in yellow.

How to invite people to join BiggerPockets:

• Once you've followed the invite link, you'll see that there are three ways to invite members to sign up. The quickest way to do it is to enter the person's name and email address in the form on the invite page, and press the Send Invites link. You'll note that there is an Invite Another link below the email form, where you add as many people as you'd like.
  
  
• The second way to invite people is to find the Referral Link at the bottom of the invite page and email it to your contacts. Tell them about BiggerPockets and give them the link to sign up with. If they follow the link, you'll get credit for the referrals.
  
• The final way to invite people is to IMPORT YOUR COLLEAGUES. By using the site's import my contacts page, you can easily import any contacts from AOL, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, or Mac Mail. Just enter your email address and password after selecting the icon (don't worry, our site does not retain any of this information) for the service you're interested in importing from, and then you can choose what contacts you'd like to invite to BiggerPockets.
  

Win Prizes for Being a Top Referrer

As I said earlier, we've got a big referral contest coming soon with some fantastic prizes . . . until then, we're going to be giving away some free books or t-shirts to the top 5 referrers in a mini-referral contest

Any BiggerPockets member, who refers members to the community, between now and February 23, 2009 at 5pm PST. gets an opportunity to win. Those members who invite the most people to the site will get a chance to win. Some things to note:

• Each of the new members that you refer to the site would have to activate their accounts and at least introduce themselves to the community in our New Member Introductions forum. We are looking for QUALITY members, so inviting a bunch of people who don't participate, or worse, who SPAM the site in any way, will reflect badly upon you, so be smart in your referrals.
  
• These members MUST come to the site via your REFERRAL LINK (found at the bottom of the INVITE PAGE), an email invite, or as IMPORTED from your AOL, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, Entourage, or MacMail accounts. This is how we track your referrals.
  
• You can track your and other referrals by checking our STATS page.

• The primary purpose for having this contest is to bring new, quality members to BiggerPockets, who are interested in real estate and who will begin to participate in the community! Keep in mind, if your referrals sign up and then never come here again you will not be credited with the referral.
  
• The contest is not about artificially inflating your invite count with SPAM accounts! We will be checking out those members who are in the top results to make sure that the users they invite actually participate on the site. Don't try to create fake members and don't try to cheat. If we determine that you are doing either, we will ban you from the site permanently!
  
• A minimum of at least 10 "quality" referrals is required to win. If no one reaches this number, we'll end up keeping the books and t-shirts for our staff.
  

You're a member of the premier real estate social network . . . now what?

Here are some tips for getting started here on BiggerPockets:

• Fill in your profile - If you're here to network, make deals, or market yourself or your business,  people are going to want to know more about you. We've got four main sections on our profiles where you can tell others who you are and what you're here for: About Me (general info about you), Real Estate Experience (your real estate background), Real Estate Goals (your goals), and Currently Seeking (what you're looking for. eg. partners, money, clients, etc.).  Adding your location and occupation will allow us to bring you the most appropriate services, and like everything else, help others find you.  You can also add information about your company, your contact info, other social networking profiles you want to share and more.  The more complete your profile, the easier it will be for people to find you!
• Upload a personal image / avatar - As you navigate the site, post comments, write articles, blog posts, or forum posts, your personal image will travel with you.  By uploading a personal image, people will start to recognize you and get to know you better.  You'll start to stand out more than those people using the generic avatar.  Additionally, only members with a personal avatar appear on our Networking page. Please note that we DO NOT allow members to use company logos or any other form of advertising in their personal avatar.  We've created a company directory so members can get exposure for their businesses.
• Introduce yourself to the community in our New Member Introductions forum - There's no better way to start letting people know that you've arrived to our site then to introduce yourself.  Let people know where you're from, a little about your background, your goals, and some interesting things about yourself.  Please do not use this as an opportunity to sell your product, services, or deals.  We've got other areas for that. 

Congratulations! You've Arrived!

Now that you've got your profile together, you've introduced yourself, and you've uploaded a personal image, its time to start exploring the site.  BiggerPockets is a very comprehensive site with tons of free information, tools, resources, etc.

- Read articles on our forum, article directory, official blog, member blogs

- Find properties and deals in our property directory and dealmaking forums

- Network with others through our groups, networking page, and on our forums

- Keep up with the latest real estate news on our bulletins

- Learn about real estate companies and businesses in our company directory

- And much more!  Get out there explore, and start getting involved!

UPDATES:

I know that its been a while since I've updated you with exciting site news.  Rest assured, we've got some cool new stuff on the way to enhance the experience of all members.  We'll be letting you know about these developments in the upcoming weeks.  Meanwhile, we've been fixing bugs, speeding up the site, and doing minor improvements across the board.  

CONTEST:

We're also working on a contest with some really great prize giveaways. Stay Tuned!

If you're interested in getting some PR for youself and giving away a prize, please contact me ASAP.

BLOG:

We're looking to add new bloggers to the BiggerPockets Blog Team.  If you're interested in contributing to the Blog, please get in touch

GROWTH:

The site has been seeing fantastic growth in all metrics.  We're adding new members at a great pace, and activity in all areas of the site is at or near all-time highs. Thanks foryour participation on the site, and we look forward to adding more great features to get you even more excited about BiggerPockets.

Meanwhile, please continue to invite your friends, colleagues, and clients to join the site!

Until next time . . .

One of the nice things about BiggerPockets, in my opinion, is that we try to focus on people interacting with one another. We don't allow members to travel the site using a company avatar because it is just plain impersonal. The internet is impersonal enough, and we're work very hard to change that, particularly in the real estate space.

That said, we felt that there was a need for people to be able to share information about their companies, and in the vain of helping companies market themselves, (can companies market themselves?), we just launched the latest feature to BiggerPockets:

The BiggerPockets Real Estate Company Index

This new directory allows companies to gain FREE publicity in front of our vast and growing audience of real estate professionals, investors, and consumers.

Adding a company is simple. Just visit the directory and click the Add a Company link. After filling out the information about your company and submitting it, an admin will approve it (providing you create a neutral profile without all the sales copy), at which point you can join that company by clicking the "Click here to add yourself" link.

We encourage you to Invite your co-workers and colleagues to join BiggerPockets so they can also add themselves to your company.

This is a great way to get FREE PR for your company!

Once you're added to a company, you'll note that the company's name in your personal profile links back to your company's profile. In the next few days, we'll additionally make it so your company's logo appears on your personal profile.

So . . . what are you waiting for? Create your company's profile today and start getting some free PR!

The good press keeps coming for me and BiggerPockets in 2009.

I was again interviewed by US News & World Report, this time before the new year for an article that just came out today called "5 Top Blunders of Internet Home Buying".  Its a great article and I've got quite a few quotes in it (be sure to check page 2 of the piece as well).

Please check it out and be sure to pass it on to everyone!

Some more updates to BiggerPockets for everyone to know about:

• Member Status Updates will now also appear at the bottom of your forum posts (below your signature).  Visit the following link for more on status updates.
• Your company's name will now appear more prominently on your profile, just below your occupation.  We've had requests from members to make their company more visible, and we hope this change satisfies.
• We're working on making it easier for members with a lot of colleagues to organize them all.  We should launch these updates in the next day or so.

We've been working on some important updates lately on BiggerPockets and I want to point them out to you:

Share Your Status on your Profile and for your Colleagues:

As the micro-blogging trend online continues to grow, we've added capabilities for our members to keep their colleagues up to speed on their activities. 

Members can now UPDATE their STATUS, by posting in 100 characters or less what's new with them.  These updates will show up at the top of your PROFILE, and in the FRIENDS ACTIVITY LOG of your colleagues in the DASHBOARD.

Here's how:

a) On all of our social networking pages below the BiggerPockets logo, you'll see "Logged in as: Your Name" with a little blue icon to the right of it.  Click that icon and you'll see a text box and Update Status button appear. Simply post your status and hit the button and you'll be redirected to your profile, where you'll see your new status update.

b) Click the UPDATE STATUS link at the left of the DASHBOARD (right above the Updates section).  Then, enter your update and click the Update Status button.  You'll be redirected to your profile, where you'll see your status below your name and occupation.

Below: An example of a status message on a profile:

We hope our members find this improvement to be a helpful way to communicate with their colleagues, and to share their ongoing real estate activities with one another.

Front Page Redirection to Dashboard:

Any member who is logged in to BiggerPockets will now be redirected to their DASHBOARD when they try to go to our homepage.  We're making the Dash into your own personal hub on the site, and have placed all of the links and resources that were on the homepage in the dash.

You'll also note that the three main tabs in the DASHBOARD are listed below.  Whenever you return to the dash, you'll see the most recent tab that you viewed open up.

- Friends Activity - Shows you what your colleagues on BiggerPockets are doing.  You can see when your colleagues: update their status, join a group, post a blog article or comment, post a property or comment, post a bulletin or comment, change their profile picture, upload a photo or gallery, etc.

- Latest Forum Activity - Shows you the last 15 posts in the forums.

- BiggerPockets Blog -  Shows you the last 5 articles on the BiggerPockets blog, written by our panel of experts in all areas of real estate.

We've Made it Easier to Invite Your Friends and Colleagues to BiggerPockets

There are two new ways to invite people to join the site. You'll now see an INVITE A FRIEND box on the left side of the forums, right below the FEATURED PROPERTIES box. Additionally, in the DASHBOARD, you'll see an invite link in the NETWORKING dropdown.

Part of what makes BiggerPockets special is the amount of shared knowledge on the site.  We hope that you'll all take some time to invite people you know to join you here on the site and help us expand the knowledge base even more!

Additional Changes and Fixes

- We've moved all site stats from the front page of the site to our official STATS PAGE. (Note: you'll find the link to the stats page at the bottom of all site pages)

- We've fixed the recent colleague request issue. If you got an error or blank page after following a link in a colleague request email, that link will now work.  Additionally, you'll see colleague requests in the notifications section of the top right of the dashboard.

BiggerPockets has undergone tremendous growth over the last year, and we're excited to let you know that the best is yet to come!  We've got many plans for the site, both large and small, for 2009. 

One of the big goals for BiggerPockets for this year is to reach the 100,000 member plateau.  I think we can easily achieve this number and more, if our current and future members help put the word out and let everyone know why BiggerPockets is the best real estate social network around.

We just want to thank everyone who has been been supportive of the site over the past few years, and we hope that you'll all stick by us as we introduce great new tools and features to help you all with your real estate investing and professional careers.

Coming This Week - Post Your Status to Your Profile and Friend's Activity in the Dashboard!

Micro-blogging through websites like Twitter has become incredibly popular recently and we've decided to make it possible for our members to share their latest activites with their colleagues and others with a new Status feature.  Members will be able to post in 100 characters or less, what they're up to at any given moment.

This minor improvement will hopefully allow our users to give others a small glimpse into their daily real estate lives.

Coming This Week - Dashboard Redirection

As our members have come to rely on their Dashboard to help them to create and navigate their profiles, and the rest of the site, we're planning on redirecting members who are logged in to the site from the current front page directly to the Dashboard.  We know that this will make the daily activities for our members easier to accomplish, but we didn't want to surprise you.  

Other New Features Coming Soon

You didn't think I'd let the rabbit out of the hat, did you?

Happy Holidays everyone!  We launched a few changes to the BiggerPockets site this afternoon that I thought worth sharing.

• Members can now share their real estate wants and needs on their profiles in the Currently Seeking section.  Whether you're looking for properties, partners, money, clients, etc. you can share these so others on the site can more easily connect and work with you.
• We've drastically sped up the Dashboard and other areas of the site!  Regular members will see a big change!
• We've upgraded the recent forum posts section of the Dashboard to make it easier to navigate.
• Corrected several problems in the BiggerPockets Blogging platform.  Users will no longer see blank trackbacks on their articles;  we've also fixed a few bugs in the comments.
• Improved pagination issues throughout the site.
• Fixed several bugs in the member password reset system.  

We've got more great BiggerPockets upgrades for you today!

 We've launched an upgrade to the PM Conversation system, including the following features:

• New styling - we've cleaned up the design of the system
• Increased speed - We've sped up the system considerably and are working onother speed improvements.
• Message archive - members can archive old posts that they want to save. 
• Address Book - Members now have an address book that they can use to locate their colleagues with when sending a new message.  The address book link can be found on the send a message page.
• The ability to report a message - you can report SPAM messages that have been sent to you to an administrator.  This will help us to kick out people who abuse the site.
• The ability to mark multiple messages as read or unread.

• The ability to opt-out of a conversation that you don't want to be a part of.  If you're a part of a conversation with multiple people, you can use the "Remove Entire Conversation" link to stop being a part of it.

In addition to the changes in our PM conversation system, we've also made a change to the Dashboard.  Members can now see the latest informative news articles from the BiggerPockets blog right in their Dash!

In the very near future, we're planning on redirecting all logged in members to the Dashboard instead of the front page of the site.  Please be prepared for this change soon.

 Got questions, comments, etc, post a comment!

One of the core components of BiggerPockets is the dealmaking that happens on the site.  These deals take place through our Property Directory and on our forums.

Making it Easier to Make Deals

We've gone ahead and created a new area in the forums called Real Estate Dealmaking, and included in it the following forums:

• Make Deals, Find Partners, Mentors & BirdDogs, etc.
• Property Wanted 
• Seeking Financing, Money, or Loans
• Bulk REO Discussion and REO Dealmaking Forum
• Tax Liens, Notes, Paper, & Cash Flows Dealmaking
• Dealmaking Success Stories

In an effort to further stimulate dealmaking, we've removed all minimum post restrictions on posting in these forums (except Bulk REO).

We hope that you'll continue to use BiggerPockets to share your deals and we want to thank all of you for continuing to make suggestions that lead to an improved BiggerPockets community.

Share Your Success with Us

As you can see from the list of forums above, the last one it called Dealmaking Success Stories.  We created this forum so our members can share all of their successes with one another. We feel that this is an important forum, because by seeing the successes we all have, we can further inspire one another. 

Please do take some time and share your recent success stories with the rest of us

BTW - We also want to hear any successes you've had thanks to BiggerPockets.  Whether you just met an important contact, or you closed on a HUGE deal, we want to know.

Best, 

Joshua Dorkin, Founder/CEO

Speed, Style, and Incentives

You may have noticed that we just rebuilt the front page of BiggerPockets. This redesign came about for several reasons.

 Here's a few things of note:

1 - The old front page took almost 6 seconds to load on a broadband connection -- that was not acceptable! The new front is much faster!
2 - The old front page had little information for possible new members. The current front page is designed to get possible new members excited about signing up!  It is important to focus on recruitment, and we believe the new page will greatly help.
3 - Instead of just showing random members on the front, we're now showing members, others who live in their area. If you log in from Los Angeles, you'll see members in LA, while New Yorkers will see their fellow New York City residents. If your city doesn't have a lot of BP members, you'll see others in your state.
4 - We're still showing the latest 6 forum posts and have added the most recent 4 articles from our blog. After polling a group of current members, we determined that these were the two things that they used the most on the old front.
5 - We updated our registration page to include more info why members should sign up.

We hope that these moves help to drive new signups to the site, while satisfying the needs of our current membership.

Thanks for listening . . . we've got more great improvements coming to other parts of the site soon.

Notice Anything Different About the Dashboard?

We just launched the first incarnation of the All New BiggerPockets Dashboard!

Some of the most important improvements of the Dash Include:

• The most used functions on the site are now found easily on the left of the Dashboard in an easy to use toolbar.
• Important website news and updates are all easily visible below the important functions
• Logging: Members can now track the activity of their colleagues on the site. See what your colleagues are commenting on, posting to the site, etc!
• Latest forum posts: Members can see the most recent forum activity directly from the DASHBOARD to help you find interesting topics more easily.
• A New Function Bar: The gray dropdown function bar at the top of the DASHBOARD makes finding what you want on BiggerPockets easier then ever!
• Notifications Box: At the top right of the DASHBOARD will appear all NOTIFICATIONS that require your attention, including Reference Requests, Colleague Requests and Private Messages.

These are just some of the many improvements.  Of course, we've got a bunch of great new features that we'll be adding to the dashboard in the next few days.

 Stick around and check back often!

I thought I'd let everyone know that we're currently working on rebuilding the entire DASHBOARD to help members easily find the most commonly used items, and to enhance the user experience on the site.  The new layout should improve usability, big time!

Additionally, we're adding some features to the DASH so you can better keep up with what your colleagues are doing on the site. 

Thanks for all of the suggestions and we hope you're also excited by the changes to come.

 Stay tuned . . . we're close to launch!

Many of you may not know that BiggerPockets has a system to allow members to take private notes on other members and on property listings.

That's right, Your Notes are PRIVATE!

Your notes are viewable ONLY BY YOU!

Taking notes on other members is a great way to stay organized, to remind yourself of conversations or discussions, etc.  Essentially, notes allow members to keep a virtual file on those people that they come into contact with on BiggerPockets!

Here's how BiggerPockets Notes Works:

1 - Find Notes Tab on a member's profile and click on ADD NOTE

 2 - A dialogue box will ope, allowing you to create a note.  Write your note and then save it, or cancel if you don't want to.  Notes can be deleted at any time.

3 - After saving the note, you'll see it every time you open the user's profile and view the NOTES tab.  Additionally, notes can be viewed from within the DASHBOARD by clicking on the NOTES tab on the sidebar.

See View from the DASHBOARD below.

That's it!  As you can see, creating notes is an easy way to remember things about other members on the site.

BTW - You can also take notes on ANY property listing on the site.

Questions?

Over the past 2 days we've rolled out a set of AWARD BADGES for those members who are amongst the top contributors to our forums, blogs, blog comments, bulletins, referrals, etc. 

Here are a few of the badges you could qualify for:

Top Poster

Top Poster this Week

Top Poster This Month

And here's how it would look on your profile:

So, get active and you can end up being one of the top contributors to BiggerPockets and get your profile blinged out with awards!

BiggerPockets is not only a community for sharing knowledge, for networking, and making deals, but it is also a marketing platform for people in the real estate space.

Here are several easy ways to use BiggerPockets to market yourself and your business:

• Create a Detailed, Professional Profile with Photo - BiggerPockets profiles have been designed to give you the opportunity to share information about yourself and your business with the rest of the community and the world.  Our profiles are search engine optimized and can be found on all the major search engines.  They give people a way to find out about your contact information, experience, goals, and of course, your activity on BiggerPockets.  Profiles that are not completely filled in do not appear in our networking page or site's front page.  A complete profile means one that includes an avatar or image.  If you don't want to share a photo of yourself, find a picture that matches and use it. Remember, profiles with photos get a TON more traffic!

• Create a signature and get active on the forums - Our forums are visited by thousands of people every day.  If you're an active forum participant, you can easily start building a good reputation among the community.  Those people who prove to be knowledgeable and helpful to others often get a TON of business from their participation on the forums. I know some people who became so flooded with business that sadly, they could no longer participate!

  Part of getting noticed is having a signature at the bottom of all of your posts.  You'll want to edit your profile and select the signature tab to create your sig.  Make sure your company name is accurate in your profile, and select the "Use my name and company in my forum signature" button.   Then use the blank space next to "Forum Signature" to enter your website URL, phone number, or email address (if you want people reading your posts to see this info).

• Create a Blog - BiggerPockets Blogs are easy to set up and use and require no programming knowledge.  We've essentailly created our own proprietary blogging platform that not only allows you to communicate with the world, but helps promote you.  BiggerPockets has implemented many search engine optimizing features to help you get your name out there by blogging.  The key to successful blogging, however, is not just having a blog, but having one that shares Quality content.  If your blog is just full of spammy crap, no one is going to visit your profile, website, or anything else.  Check out some more of the blog's features.

• Write some Articles - BiggerPockets has built a phenominal article directory for the benefit of both the average real estate consumer or investor and for the benefit of the articles' authors.  Since we're talking about marketing benefits here, we'll focus on the authors.  All articles on BiggerPockets give the author a place to create a byline/signature.  This is the perfect place to market yourself:  share links to your website, tell folks what you're up to, promote your latest book.  Our articles are viewed by tens of thousands of people every month both on site and through our articles feed.  Why wouldn't you want some added exposure?

• Participate in BiggerPockets Bulletin - BiggerPockets Bulletin is a real estate social bookmarking tool that allows members to post interesting real estate related news and other links to share.  Our members can then make comments on these articles or vote on those that they find most interesting.  Got an interesting article or story that you wrote?  Share it on the bulletin!  With participation comes visibility . . . with visibility comes just what you're looking for - free marketing.

• Join or Create a Group - Groups are a great way for people of similar interest to come together.  Being part of a group on BiggerPockets allows you to be seen by those people, and bring renewed exposure within your own, mini-community.

• Just Get Involved! - We've created an incentive system for those members who get involved on the site.  Our stats page highlights the most active members of the day, week, month, and all-time.  This page is visited my tons of members, and the search engines alike.  Show up on the stats page because you're active, and you're going to see more traffic to your profile!

BiggerPockets has established a blogging system so our users can communicate with one another and the rest of the world!

Posting is Fast and EASY!

 Formatting is a SNAP and so is inserting photos and movies.

 See!

So . . . jump in and create your own blog on BiggerPockets Today!