IBA.Bulgaria Platform Develops Various Functionalities to Support Business with Bulgarian Connection in Domestic and International Markets
With the start of the new business season, the www.ibaconnect.com business platform, created by International Business Alliance.Bulgaria, has developed several new functionalities aimed at business cooperation and project development of Bulgarians in Bulgaria and around the world. The network was launched in the spring and aims to provide direct contact between users to cooperate in developing projects and partnerships and expanding business in new markets and new fields. This made IBA.Bulgaria the first of its kind online business platform, which brings together the Bulgarian business diaspora globally. The networking platform has a target that the authors define as International Business with Bulgarian Connection and aims to connect Bulgarians with own business (or engaged in business) in Bulgaria and around the world.
The platform combines the most useful business features of Facebook and LinkedIn, allowing profiles to receive targeted business news in newsfeed and to conduct partnership talks through direct contact between users. What makes the IBA network different is that users have the opportunity not only to use their daily and business contacts to have mutual benefits, but also to partner in business, to consult, to jointly create projects in Bulgaria or to external audiences and markets.
The platform has a clean interface and constantly adds new functionalities and options, with focus on business cooperation. All of them will remain available for full and free access to all accounts that joined the network from the very beginning of its creation, even after switching to access under certain conditions to part of the platform’s capabilities.
Business owners can benefit from the following already active features:
- The Global Network section is the main feed of the site, where you can quickly navigate through the different Posts, Groups, Projects or Events shared by the people you are connected to. Everything you publish for your business and professional activities is visible to all of your IBA links on this page and here you can get instant feedback on your ideas and cases. The more active you are and the more contacts you create, the more interesting news you will receive and see.
- Business Directory enables direct contact, including personal messenger. It gives you the opportunity to filter users by country, sector, job title and much more in order to get in touch with the perfect targets for your business goals, to find your next business partner or client among users from 15 countries on 4 continents.
- You can create and participate in professional Groups where you can offer and search for interesting information and solutions from people with similar experience or conduct business-related discussions.
- IBA Ambassadors and Experts can be useful with their knowledge of local markets at different locations around the world. They can also provide specific guidelines and the exact sources of the exact conditions in a certain sector or market.
- The Opportunities Board section is a place to present your ideas and projects. All published projects are shared on social media channels, including the periodic newsletter of the IBA. This is one of the main ways to attract attention to your business. The section includes different categories, depending on what partnership and assistance you are looking for. You can choose between investment, joint venture, financing, sponsorship and more. The Opportunities Board section is one of the most important functionalities of the platform because it focuses on the business mission of IBA – finding and conducting direct contact with the most suitable partner for a business project or idea.
- The Careers section gives you the opportunity to find specialists among the Bulgarian diaspora around the world and to find a person with international experience or to announce an internship program and attract young Bulgarians with education abroad.
- The Blog in the platform is divided into blog for users and general for the network. At the discretion of the editorial team, your post can be posted on the user’s blog, news, newsletter, and magazine. By writing articles, you actually create your own blog. The team of the platform also gives short presentations in different formats/articles or interviews, such as the new IBA Interview section – 3 minutes with … – for interesting people and projects posted in the network by its users.
Due to the rapid growth and interest in the network, additional developments are in a process of activation:
– IBA Institute, where a number of offline and online training options will be created, with speakers from around the world, materials and events.
– The Careers section, which is a job seeking feature
– After implementation of the Payments module, Referrals for the members will be introduced to encourage members to invite new users to the network.
– The IBA Ambassadors and Experts Section will be further developed to allow specialists by country and industry to regularly provide consultation on the expansion of the business in new markets and sectors.
– Events will be organized abroad with the participation of a business with a Bulgarian connection and foreign partners. The first of them has already been announced and will be held in Zurich on September 15-16.
Five months after the launch of the platform, IBA.Bulgaria has more than 400 members – profiles of individuals and companies, their foreign partners, representatives of cultural industries, freelancers, experts, business organizations, students, cultural, charitable, educational institutions. In addition, foreign companies are also joining the network.
In support of the IBA business community, Elysium, a printed business magazine, is also published. The publication is bilingual and is distributed internationally, including to 90 Bulgarian embassies around the world.
The magazine also has a website that does not duplicate the print edition and is another marketing channel for the profiles of individuals and companies, part of IBA.Bulgaria.
The first two issues of the magazine are now available online:
Both the magazine and the platform have profiles in all social media. A regular weekly newsletter is published and distributed not only on the web but also to over 2500 companies in Bulgaria and abroad. You can check it and subscribe here.
More information about IBA.Bulgaria is available in the media publications on the platform here.
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