In my first month back at freelancing, I had to find ways in which to market my skills, and obviously turned to the Internet for this. Since the last time I freelanced (about 3 years ago) a lot has changed in the online marketing world, and social networking has really become a science - one that I am just beginning to look into.
My first attempt at re-marketing lead me along the traditional trails of contacting recruiters, lisiting with sites such as bizcommunity and sending my digital portfolio out to previous clients and agencies. I also looked at online directory websites such as freelancecentral..
Then I heard about ideabounty, a recenlty launched South African crowdsourcing website, which offers hefty monthly bounties for a great idea.
This site lead me to think about the crowdsourcing situation in South Africa. This is not a new idea; in fact I came into contact with it about 10 years ago, while lecturing in Cape Town, when the AntsNest introduced themselves to my students. Obvioulsy the term "crowdsourcing" hadn't been coined yet, and I was intrigued by the whole concept. I even signed up and did a few pitches. Alas, this didn't sit well with me as I felt that the time I spent, wasn't being rewarded properly, and I removed my portfolio form their site. The AntsNest has evolved since then, from being just a crowdsourcing site to an online community, with different options, such as portfolio directories and outsourcing options, but still uses crowd sourcing to meet their client's needs.
I decided to look into the crowdsourcing scene in South Africa and drafted a basic questionairre to determine why designers find them so alluring, and whether they offer a viable income alternative to freelancers. I can see the huge benefit that it holds for a client, getting loads of ideas for a small price, but how does it benefit the designer?
I decided to contact 100 freelance designers to gain some insight. Unfortunately I have not managed to reach that amount yet, so I am still busy with the research, and will post my findings soon. If you are interested in participating, please send me your details, and I'll be happy to forward the questionairre to you.
If you're just interested in the results let me know too!
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Hi Carike,
ReplyDeleteWe'd love to hear the results and it would be good if we could participate somehow. Its really important that we are listening to needs and adapting to meet them if at all possible.
Matt @ ideabounty.com
Hi Mark,
ReplyDeletegreat to hear from you. I am finding it more difficult that anticipated to actually find designers willing to participate. Most portfolio directories have strict privacy policies - understandably, but this makes it more tricky to contact designers.
If you are willing to spread the word around to ideabounty's subcribees, I would really appreciate it. I wouldn't ask you to send them the questionnaire, but only get them to contact me, if they are interested in participating. Maybe a paragraph and link in your newsletter? I would really like to gain some insight from the "creative's side" as to why crowdsourcing and SPEC work is so alluring, and if South Africans are taking the bait, or sticking to the NO SPEC movement.
Hi Carike,
ReplyDeleteI have been trying to get clients to do some freelance work in the evenings. So like you I tried joining networking communities.
I can't remember how many communities I have signed up but it hasn't worked out for me.
I however am still working full-time I am simply looking for small projects for now to assist in building up a portfolio as I started working as a designer about 5 years ago. I am still working for the same company so you can understand I haven't have much opportunities to design other than for the company where I currently work and they a corporate which makes it even more difficult.
Audrey