I discovered BeBee the new professional social network on a feed on twitter which belonged to John White whom a friend of mine was following. I began following him too. Today I follow just about all the company's executives and they follow me too as well as the different handles of the brand. I RETWEET almost everything on my verified Facebook and Twitter platforms because it is information I pass along to the African market that could use it.
Still relatively new here in Africa, we are the continent that uses the internet the most these days because of the mobile phone explosion. Landlines have virtually disappeared in most African countries with billions of mobile devices taking over. Start ups and crowdfunding are prominent in Africa and social networks are investing heavily. I want to be part of BeBee's emergence here.
Being a US trained professional in Pharmacy, Journalism and PR, I am one of the most controversial people on the continent partly for my loud voice about social issues. Jobs for example, Africans don't fully understand the concept of "networking". They are constantly blaming their respective governments on the unemployment issue. I started HNNAfrica out of a former leading music blog in Canada HipHossip Music Blog now HipHossip News Net (HNN).
A little bit of cash and internet access, I sourced for ads and sell posts on my world news blog, Facebook and Twitter pages. I have two controversial instagram news pages @HNNAfrica and @HNNAfricanewsarchives. One personal, one work. I go deep in investigative journalism and fish out corrupt public figures bankrupting the system. Many celebrities are involved in this and their fans come attacking me. Investigative journalism is not welcome in Nigeria but it is here to stay. There is even an annual prize for it now and the President welcomes it but still many journalists are "scared". I was US trained, with no fear, no bribes and no favours.
HNNAfrica uses innovative hashtags all over the internet. Best place to explore them is on Instagram's search bar. Go there right after reading this article. Explore #HNNFood to see my food stories and awesome African cooking, #HNNMusic for my music coverage, #HNNRoyalty for some rich royal family coverage and #HNNHealth for health stories. There is #HNNMoney #HNNImpact #HNNGov #HNNPolitics #HNNShowBiz #HNNMemorial #HNNTerror #HNNRadio gives you newscasts and #HNNTV provides videos. I even have #HNNClapback which is a new form of entertainment when someone feels they've ripped a celebrity or myself and give them a hot answer back. Name your HNN hashtag and there's one.
With no staff and working independently brings a lot of work. I am hiring interns and a business manager this spring and hopefully a lifelong dream of having a small staff and some exposure on cable TV and FM/AM radio is the ultimate goal. Africa is not big on AM radio bands, something we can be using for daytime talk radio with all the issues we have here. I am a radio person of 24 years and started Soundcloud.com and Reverbnation.com both slash HNNAfrica with newscasts and podcasts.
With BeBee, this kind of networking with other African professionals could be endless. Being a brand Ambassador could enhance things on this side of the world. Being multifaceted means being an endless networking professional. I am currently planning a social media tour across Nigeria and later the continent on many things we can use to socially network professionally. BeBee has shown me love as you can see above. A massive number of retweetsand following on their handles shocked me. (I love you too BeBee) The marketing potential here could be endless. I therefore named myself the #AfricanKillaBee on my Twitter @HNNAfrica handle. Time to make some deep dark African honey darling! Tell your pals to join me here on www.BeBee.com/Bee/HNNAfrica and @HNNAfrica on all social media. My blog is at www.hnnafrica.com
--KOO #MadamHNN
