beBee, the new social network that goes beyond Linkedin

by AMALIA LÓPEZ ACERA

TRANSLATED BY: NETTA HELENA VIRTANEN |

ORIGINAL POST

One of the main elements of any job search strategy is to have a wide network of contacts to help get new career opportunities. Since the birth of the internet the possibilities of extending the number of people with whom we interact with has grown exponentially mainly thanks to social networks.

One of the most well known and popular networks is LinkedIn, with about 7 million profiles in Spain, whereas in France Viadeo has more influence and in Germany Xing. The latter is important to consider when focusing one’s business or employment search in these countries, and that is where one should direct one’s efforts to find potential contacts.

In an article this year Alberto Iglesias Fraga pointed out that although LinkedIn surpassed 400 million users worldwide, only 1 in 4 users are active, which puts this network in the lowest ranking in terms of user interactions and use

Among the reasons pointed out by Iglesias  to justify the network’s low activity may be ¨its professional character, or it’s lower interaction capacity in comparison to other social networks."

In light of this situation, in February of this year beBee, a new Spanish social network was created. It is defined as a social affinity network (Affinity Networking) with a  professional component that is an important factor in the project and is known as the ¨Spanish LinkedIn.¨

Everyday there are more than 35,000 new users registered at beBee and all together there are over 9 million profiles, of which 3.7 million are in Spain. There are also 200,000 companies registered and 46,000 job vacancies, as professional opportunities can be found through collaborations, internships and job offers. Also to mention is that all professionals can also offer their services, which makes it a good place to showcase one’s work as a freelancer.

beBee has features that definitely make it more attractive than LinkedIn, because it goes a step further by encouraging not only professional contacts, but also allows users to connect with people through their hives (or groups), depending on one’s personal interests.

The design is more attractive and "user friendly" than LinkedIn resembling in its functions and appearance to that of Facebook.

beBee’s growth is unstoppable and has surprised even its creators. It was launched in Spain but now has 1.1. million users in Brazil, 700,000 in Mexico and 600,000 in India, and next expects rapid expansion in Canada, Australia and USA.

Also there is a group of influencers such as Olympic champion Ona Carbonell, chef Rodrigo de la Calle, fashion blogger Helena Rebeca Labara Cave, businessman Eduardo Diez-Hotchleitner and social media influencer Záncara Alfredo Vela.

The most interesting part by far about beBee is definitely that you can join hives (groups) and connect with others according to your professional interests (as such we found the group ¨trades and professions," one of the largest with 1,300,000 members of "administrative" or "plumbers") and others with more personal interests such as fashion, gastronomy or travel, if we find no hive that interests us (which would be somewhat difficult as there are over 18,000 hives) then one can create their own hive (group).

Undoubtedly, beBee appears to take us further than existing professional social networks in a market until now LinkedIn dominated. For all who seek to increase their network of contacts to generate new job opportunities it is undoubtedly a new tool to keep in mind.