Several online platforms are collecting your personal data. Are you being fairly compensated for your information? beBee, a New York City based professional networking platform, is trying to change this by creating an ecosystem that makes transactions for personal data more transparent.

You and I do not control the information we put out online. Online media platforms, including professional networks and job portals, covertly obtain users’ permissions to collect data and go on to sell it to anyone who is ready to pay. If you have listed yourself on any of the popular job portals, you must have received several spam emails and phone calls. You end up being continuously bothered, with nothing to show for it.

PC: Toonpool

By the way, this system isn’t good for businesses who are calling you, either. The platforms charge outrageous fees to businesses that are trying to find candidates or buyers. According to the founder and CEO of beBee, Javier Cámara,

“In the current professional ecosystem, businesses are forced to pay large amounts of marketing capital to recruiting and social selling “middlemen”, who weakly target contacts but provide little-to-no direct value to the professionals. This is a lose-lose scenario for professionals and businesses.”

Camara strictly condemns this process and wants to change it. He believes that the more businesses pay to intermediaries, the fewer professionals get compensated. To counter the trend and bring back power to the user, Camara launched beBee platform for professional networking.

“The idea was born when we realized that there is a problem with social networks, which offer more and more content that users don’t care about. This is when we decided to create a noise-free network in which the development of the product revolves around user experience,”

beBee’s design puts you in control of your profile. As a user, you have the right to decide who can access your data. The company promises to eliminate middlemen and help data customers to pay the users directly, for each use of the user’s information, or content, for any purpose.

Work with ‘hives’ and ‘honey’

beBee users connect through hives, which are small communities within the network. Each hive is based on a specific interest where you can connect with other like-minded people. The interests can range from a variety of topics including marketing, sales, business operations and so forth.

Users join in as ‘bees’. Each time you submit content or engage with the platform, you’re ‘producing honey.’ The content you submit, ‘honey,’ builds your profile and connects with other users who share similar interests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxTq_OZA02Y

Can beBee keep its users ‘hooked’?

beBee is using the Other People’s Network (OPN) growth hacking strategy to increase its customer base. The company used LinkedIn extensively to attract users. For instance, an already existing user can send a connection request to his contacts on LinkedIn asking them to join beBee.

These connection requests sent via LinkedIn act as an external trigger. Such a notification encourages users to place their trust in the new platform, which is beBee in this case.

beBee’s product leverages the famous ‘Hooked’ model to collect users in hives. As Nir Eyal defines it, the hook model is designed to create habit-forming behavior in users via a looping cycle that consists of a trigger, an action, a variable reward, and investment. Gennaro from fourweekmba explains how the hook model works in beBee’s case:

PC: fourweekmba

Unlike most other social networking platforms, beBee allows an unlimited organic reach and assures you will always reach 100% of your followers. The platform runs on a machine learning based affinity algorithm. beBee’s social media model helps users build professional relationships with maximum affinity using artificial intelligence algorithms.

beBee’s innovative offers and networking opportunities helped it pick up 10M users in its very first year. As of April 2018, around 12M people have registered with beBee.

What’s in store for beBee?

The networking platform is building an ecosystem that makes payments for a professional’s data more transparent and seamless. The platform removes intermediaries to facilitate transparent interactions between professionals and businesses.

Organizations will be able to scrutinize profiles by checking an individual’s reputation on beBee and directly make customized offers. For instance, if you are a recruiter hiring for a reputed company, you can check the candidates’ complete profile on the platform. Using recommendations and engagement you can assess the person’s reputation and contact them directly on beBee’s platform.

At a time when major networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter are facing regulatory pressure to protect customers’ privacy, beBee comes as a breath of fresh air. beBee’s partnership with Profede allows it to offer you incentives in form of crypto-tokens, when you share your data. The platform protects your privacy at the same time. It runs in compliance with regulations ePrivacy Directive and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

You could be looking for a new job opportunity, or as a recruiter, for the next best employee. BeBee offers you a new and better alternative to increase your professional network and build relationships with your peers.