Connect with creative professionals via SociaBuzz | Digital Asia

INDONESIA-based SociaBuzz, is an online marketplace for creative professionals and services such as influencers for customers, writers, photographers, videographers, makeup artists, models, singers, band, musicians, DJ, speakers, MC, and stand-up comedians.

SociaBuzz chief executive officer and co-founder Rade Tampubolon (pic, right) and his friend Eddy Yansen who is chief executive officer and co-founder launched the first version of SociaBuzz.com, where anyone can work with Twitter influencers on a single platform in April 2012 and decided to operate fully as a company in early 2015.

“In late 2011, I was a digital marketing manager at an FMCG company in Jakarta, and we do a lot of marketing campaigns with Twitter influencers. It was a time-consuming task, because we have to reach out to them manually, ask for a price, create contracts, pay one by one, and more.

“So I just thought to myself, can all these processes be simplified? And then I reached out to a friend of mine and shared the idea to start SociaBuzz.”

To date, the company has more than 17,000 influencers and 30,000 registered users on its platform and growth in terms of transactions (number undisclosed) has been good. It takes up to 20% in commission from successful transactions between customers and influencers.

Rade says, “Most influencers that join our platform know us from word-of-mouth or from searching via Google. But we also reach out to influencers and invite them to join our platform.”

Influencers joining the platform can generate from US$100 to US$1500 a month, depending on the rates they charge, size of audience, and ever-changing customer demands.

Rade says that other players focus on being a marketplace or platform, as it previously did. But on Oct 5 2018, SociaBuzz released itd newest version and transformed into a “market network” for creative professionals and services.

“What we mean by ‘market network' is that for customers, we provide a marketplace where they can find and book any creative service. For creative professionals, they can create a complete online profile and portfolio, more like LinkedIn for creative professionals. We transformed SociaBuzz into a creative services market network, no longer just an influencer marketing platform.”

In early 2015, the company raised funds from an angel investor, and joined the Ideabox accelerator programme. Rade said the company might look for further funding next year.

According to Rade, finding talent with the right cultural fit remains a challenges in running the business and he decided to hire slowly and carefully.

He explains that the company's focus for 4Q418 is to receive as much feedback from users on its new platform as possible and use it to keep on improving and growing to add more value in serving customers.

“In the next one to two years, I think we want to still focus on serving Indonesia's market, because its a big enough market, and maybe start exploring opportunities to expand to other countries in Southeast Asia.”