The true story of Bizcommunity lies in the numbers

From its early days, our B2B websites have leapt up the South African rankings to occupy the number one position online for this sector of publishing, with 376 000 online readers in addition to those who receive newsletters. The online community downloads an average of 3 500 000 pages a month (source: DMMA's Effective Measure).

Hidden story

But there is a hidden story that dramatically improves the true value to readers and advertisers on the Bizcommunity set of portals.

It is the story of comments, forums, polls, profiles and showcases, personal account management, social media ( Twitter and Facebook) and mobile access - a quiet revolution that ensured an association with Biz is far wider than the official figures reveal.

In this year alone, the introduction of a range of interactive social media opportunities has seen more than 12 000 people upload their own profiles onto Bizcommunity. This provides detailed information about major players across all of the industry sectors we cover. And there are many of them - 338 at the last count.

The active management of personal accounts in Biz has also rocketed, with 59 000 community members holding MyBiz Account status.

Granular information

Bizcommunity also called on its supporters to upload their CVs into a soon-to-be-commercialised search environment. Not only do we have granular information to support our marketing message of biggest and best in our sectors, but we have a database of 23 000 quality operators.

Further adding to their value is the fact that 85% of our total user base is over 25 years of age and 70% of them are in full-time employ.

Geographically, 60% of the Biz tribe live in Gauteng or Cape Town, with a further significant percentage in Durban - which gives us unparalleled reach.

And if it is a business you are looking for to supply your needs, there are 400 of South Africa's top suppliers of services across the range of portals in our Press Office database and a further, staggering, 20 000 in our Biz directory.

Media partnerships

As a company we deal with more than 2000 active commercial clients at any one stage. Every month Biz plays host to 1500 new job opportunities across SA seeking a multitude of skills. The power of the Biz brand is also evident in our media partnerships, most notably of late, radio:

• A partnership since June 2011 between Biz and community station Chai FM in Johannesburg for the weekly Bizcommunity/Chai FM Marketing & Media radio show, with live audio streaming, has produced a record number of downloads on Chai FM of Biz Takeouts podcasts - over 35 000 by mid-August

• Likewise, a partnership between Aegis Media and Bizcommunity - a two-hour digital debate (digibate) on "The Africa Question" in the studios of Internet radio station www.thetaxi.co.za/ TheTaxi (Soli Philander) - produced a 5000-strong audience, listening via streaming audio both locally and internationally, during the debut event. These Aegis Media Thought Leadership Digibates will happen monthly.

But all of the content has to come from somewhere, it needs to be judged and sometimes cajoled, but most importantly it has to be quality.

Here there is no substitute for journalistic experience and understanding of the online news consumer.

Core editorial team

A core editorial team of than 20 experts (both in-house and freelance) across copy-tasting and editing, reporting and analysis, plus numerous content partnerships with, for example, Daily Maverick and TechCentral, and over 265 industry contributors, make up the Bizcommunity content offering. More than 1000 news stories pass through the various categories and sectors a month, and hundreds more events, galleries, quotes of the day and the like are uploaded. Such is the allure that 125 of South Africa's best design talents have loaded showcases of their work onto the Bizcommunity websites.

On our mobisite, 330 000 pages are loaded monthly by cellphone users. In another social media environment, the phenomenon called MXit, Biz has built an online forum through its content, which has close to 80 000 followers.

While the majority of our community are in South Africa, the numbers also show strong support in all of the major African countries and some intriguing following elsewhere in the world. Pick a place and we'll have a subscriber - India, Israel, Brazil, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Somalia, Latvia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Turks and Caicos. The list is endless, with 147 countries in all - a true United Nations of content.

And, with the addition of our new portals and newsletters, we expect to grow exponentially to dominate the B2B landscape in South Africa.