IT’S NO LONGER WHO YOU KNOW, IT’S HOW ARE YOU GOING TO CONNECT! NEW SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM beBEE CREATING BUZZ IN U.S. JOB MARKET

For Immediate Release

                                   IT’S NO LONGER WHO YOU KNOW, IT’S HOW ARE YOU GOING TO CONNECT!

                                   NEW SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM beBEE CREATING BUZZ IN U.S. JOB MARKET

NEW YORK, NY --- With 65% of employers using social media to source new hires, it’s not just about making connections in today’s economy but building relationships.

And while LinkedIn has been the business network giant over the past decade, there’s a new player that’s enjoying phenomenal growth and swarming the U.S. job market.

Madrid-based beBee has attracted more than 10 million users in its first year and has more than doubled its user base in the past six months. With 4.5 million users in Spain (compared to LinkedIn’s eight million) and 3.6 million users in South America, the start-up platform is creating buzz in the United States and is on target to add 40,000 new users each day in the United States.

“What sets beBee apart from other networking sites is that it builds business relationships, not just contacts, by connecting people based on their shared interests or hobbies,” said social media expert Matt Sweetwood, who is the 11th most followed Chief Marketing Officer on twitter and a contributor to widely-read sites such as Entrepreneur and The Huffington Post.

“It’s a changed world and job seekers, especially the baby boomer generation, have to adapt to it if they want to be successful in their job search,” added Sweetwood. “While it’s been said ‘it’s not what you know but who you know,’ it’s now a case of how are you going to connect with them!”

beBee was founded a little over a year ago by Javier Cãmara and Juan Imaz, a pair of digital marketing experts who have enjoyed great success on the net with Mixmail, the first free email based website in Spanish which was sold to Ya.com (currently Orange); and the email marketing company Canalmail, which they sold in 2008 for $66 million.

Their goal is to exceed 40 million users by 2017.

“Being able to interact with people one does not know but who have the same interests is something new and it works,” said Cãmara, who along with Imaz invested $11 million to create and launch the social network in February 2015.

User groups, called Hives, are a key part of the beBee user profile. The company has a more robust blogging platform than other networking sites, allowing users to find and display content that is actually relevant to them.

This sharing of common personal and professional experiences with others (i.e. “engineers who are into running”) --- what beBee calls “affinity marketing” --- allows for relationships to be developed rather than just adding layers of connections.

beBee is appealing to younger audiences, which are used to living their lives online, and more than half of users to date (55%) are women. And unlike LinkedIn, beBee is completely free to use for individuals looking to find jobs and organizations looking to hire top candidates.

“People have to understand the critical role their personal brand, as it appears on social media, plays in today’s job market,” said Sweetwood. “Employers are using it to not only find you but to see how well you represent yourself. If you’re not on these sites or if your profile doesn’t look good, it can affect whether or not a hiring company will pursue you.”

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MEDIA CONTACT/INTERVIEWS:

Russ Mensch

Mensch & Company, Inc.

Public Relations & Event Marketing

phone: 201-797-2448

email: russ@menschpr.com