When a new freelancer sets off to join a freelance platform, the first thing happens is the chaos because of the abundance of so many options. There are literally so many freelance platforms that it becomes harder to choose the right freelance platform more than it should be. To help solve this problem, I thought to come up with a blog post that could help you solve this issue forever.
In this blog post, you’ll learn:
- How to cash in on your talent
- How to pick the best freelance platform
- What makes a freelance platform right for you
- Why joining every freelance platform is a disastrous strategy
Without any further delay, let’s get right into it. Here are some essentials of choosing the right freelance platform for you:
Essentials of Choosing the right freelance platforms :
Find the Suitable Category
Before even creating your account on any freelance platform, take a look at the categories they’re offering for freelance jobs. A lot of freelance platforms start off with a few categories with a plan to expand the categories over time.
Find the right category for yourself. For example, if you’re a graphic designer and there is no category related to ‘graphic designing’ in particular, don’t pick up the ‘web designing’. Instead, look out for a platform that has graphic designing category. It’s just an example to make you understand that you have to be offering the right service as a freelancer.
Choose the Best Freelance Platform
It’s necessary to join a well-established or a growing freelance platform. There could be many ways to see the growth of a freelance platform. Check out that whether new jobs are being posted every week or not. Similarly, take a look at their social media engagement. If the platform is engaging with the followers on Facebook and Twitter, consider it a positive behaviour.
There are a dozen things that need to be seen before opting any platform. One of those things is payout methods. A lot of platforms offer a single payout option like PayPal, that some freelancers don’t have it. Make sure that the chosen freelance platform has multiple payout options for freelancers.
Opting the Right Platform
Every growing platform won’t be the best for you. For instance, if you’re a freelance writer then 99designs won’t be helpful for you because that’s better for a graphic designer or an illustrator that could get graphic designing jobs on that platform. Joining a freelance platform because a friend has been very successful on it, won’t be a great strategy to adopt either.
Your fields might be different, so would be the exposure. Select the platform that is right for you. It’s true that the experience teaches you a lot of lessons when you actually jump into that, but a good advice can save you time and energy.
The point is that it depends a lot on the nature of your talent or passion. If you’re open to do a diversified things in your specific niche, then Fiverr could be a viable option to try out. The reason for this is that it allows you to create gigs that interest you. You may enjoy the liberty of creating offers that people might need.
Similarly, PeoplePerHour usually has the jobs that may not take days to get it done, that’s why it promotes the hourly jobs. The idea is a little bit different but it does the same thing.
Going for Multiple Platforms
One of the biggest mistakes a lot of freelancing starters do is that they try to join every freelance platform they come across. This is a huge mistake because it makes them desperate to win at any platform. Plus, this brings in unclarity in the process. Every platform might not be for everyone.
What if the specific category you’re interested in, isn’t available on a platform that you joined? It may deviate you toward something else or you may desperately apply for a different kind of job that you think you can do.
In short, the multiple platforms strategy isn’t the great idea to adopt. If you want to win at freelancing on the platforms, then you better stick to one platform that seems more suitable than the others.
Wrapping up
The purpose of this blog post wasn’t to introduce you to the freelance platforms. You may also know the popular freelance platforms anyway. The idea was to help guide you in choosing the right freelancing platform for you.
The best platform may not be right for you and the right one may not be the best among all.
That was the punch line.
I hope that you’ll understand the MESSAGE in this blog post and the next time you would think to place the bid on a freelancing site, you may think once that either it’s the right platform for you or not.
