BiggerPockets

There are three ways to add colleagues:

• Go to the profile of the person you want to add as a colleague and you'll see below their profile image, a link to Follow that person. Click on that and you'll have the option to simply Follow or Also request USER add you as a colleague. Check the box next to the colleague request and you'll be able to send them a brief message letting them know why you want to connect.
• Do a people search for someone, and in the search results, click the Follow link next to the person you want to add, and do as you would above.
• Click the Follow link next to someone's post and do as you would above.

Sending a private message to your colleagues is simple. Once a member is your colleague, you'll see a Send Message link on their profile, below their profile image. If you click that link, you'll be brought to the messaging application, where you fill in the subject and body of your message and send it.

You can also just go directly to your dashboard and select the Send Private Message link on the left of the page. Once there, you'll notice a link for your Address Book. By clicking on this link, you'll be able to choose those colleagues you wish to message.

NOTE: You will only be able to send a private message to your colleagues, unless you're a BiggerPockets PRO member. PRO accounts allow members to contact others they may not be colleagues with, however, sending solicitations to anyone on the site without their permission is grounds for a PM System ban.

We don't currently have any limitations on the number of colleagues you can add, but do reserve the right to put restrictions into place in the future.

When you follow another user, it gives you the ability to see their "actions" in your Dashboard's Activity Feed. So, you'll be able to see whenever someone posts to a blog, bulletin, property directory, company directory, article directory, OR when they update their status, add a follower or colleague, comment, etc.

Followers do not have the same abilities as colleagues. The main difference is that colleagues have the ability to send private messages to one another. Additionally, if a person has their profile set to be private, followers wouldn't be able to see the information, whereas colleagues would.

Think of colleagues as firm, 2-way relationships, whereas followers are merely a 1-way relationship.

When adding someone as a colleague, you are giving them access to any contact information that you have available on your profile.

Non-colleagues will not be able to view your contact information unless you are a BiggerPockets PRO member, and have elected to show this information to either all members, or even non-members through your privacy settings.