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One of terms you regularly hear when talking about the freelance revolution is “community.” Community is a field of importance in Sociology, giving us everything from research treatises like Redfield’s The Little Community to the principles used to create EPCOT, Disney’s “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.” But, traditional sociology never anticipated global communities of independent professionals, linked together electronically by a virtual talent marketplaces and informed by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. One of the leaders of community design in freelance-world is Eryn Peters, who was the senior community executive for Toptal and Andela. Peters is now global director of the AFW in London, and advises startups on community design. In a recent interview she shared her experience and insights on how to build great freelance communities.
Let’s start with basics. What’s a platform and why is it important? Talent platforms are skills marketplaces where companies and talent meet. Talent platforms exist for two important reasons. First, respected marketplaces operate as trusted intermediaries. Marketplaces helpfully warrant to clients that selected freelancers have the expertise and experience they claim and commit to freelancers that the client is a responsible company, and they will be paid for their work. But there is a second reason why platforms exist: the discovery of talent that companies don’t know. As platforms increasingly represent freelancers living in multiple countries, it’s difficult for companies to stay in touch with all talent pools. Platforms solve that problem.
Why do platforms invest in community versus just a talent cloud or job board? Platforms succeed or fail on the quality of their talent. Most require stringent assessments before freelancers are welcomed on their platform. But in-demand, talented, freelancers have options. They have the skill and experience to attract opportunity. And most independent professionals are likely to be part of more than one marketplace. So, if you want skilled and experienced freelancers on your marketplace, and these people are sought after and have options, what do you do? Here’s where community comes in. It’s a mechanism to recruit, retain, and engage strong independent professionals by offering them client visibility, support, and connection to others.
What does a great community provide freelancers beyond the opportunity to be discovered? Great communities provide value. The first test, of course, is whether the platform attracts interesting work at fair pay and has a solid flow of project opportunity. But most marketplaces understand that enabling and supporting freelancers as they grow professionally is an essential, additional, priority. We know new freelancers have a tough time acclimating to the freelance life, so helping them to start out strong is important; nothing builds confidence like early success. But attractive communities offer freelancers a range of help in growing their business, including guidance on pricing, online education, coaching support, professional services, even virtual or physical meetups. The best communities help freelancers grow their long-term increased earning capacity while reducing common pain points.
How varied are different kinds of communities? All communities behave differently and, yes, size matters. A strong growing community is one that naturally experiences a “positive” mitosis e.g, where big groupings naturally divide up into multiple sub-groups and cohorts. This is helpful because the depth of community connections and relationships is more important than volume. Sub-groups develop out of commonalities, for example, in geography, specialization, and often interests and goals. Most community activity takes place in these topical channels. They often define value in similar ways, and it’s less intimidating to post a question in your preferred language in a country channel than a massive common thread to people around the world. Anyone starting or growing a community should identify these subgroups and nurture their creation. Remember, the name of the community game is to deliver the most value to the greatest number. These smaller groups of commonalities help you to do that at scale.
How does a community respond to the different needs of sub-groups? To be honest it's tough to do. With fast-growing marketplaces or those offering many areas of expertise, you'll notice that subgroups often have different needs. Software developers may prefer nerding out on emerging tech, while independent marketers are more focused on new advertising trends. Community leaders naturally pop up in these places. But the true starting point in community is to fully understand your user’s journey, the common needs and wants that members share. Use this insight to understand what people need and want at various stages of their experience with you, and how subgroups differ. Once you’ve established the journey, check the volume of community members in each subgroup and tackle the biggest user groups first. You want impact: giving the right people the right help at the right time.
What are the key steps in building a community? Communication is, of course, key. The obvious first step is to set up a virtual home for your community. This is where your community will live, breathe, and interact with one another. Most importantly, it’s where they’ll tell you what they need and want. Remember, you can’t meet everyone’s needs, all the time, and all at once. So set up the community to have insight into what freelancers overall and key sub-groups are looking for from community engagement. Ultimately, you want community members to help grow the marketplace by recruiting or recommending colleagues because they’ve had a positive experience. Strong feedback loops will help platforms to stay connected to freelancers’ experience. But remember, people are here first and foremost to find interesting work at a fair rate of pay, so prioritize pain points over nice-to-haves. Nobody cares about 10% off travel partnerships if they aren’t getting paid enough to take a vacation. Be an aspirin first, then a vitamin.
What do great communities require in terms of resourcing? The best communities invest in hiring a great community manager. Remember, communities are people and benefit from having a real human that can pick up the phone or get on the keyboard to interface directly with the community and its members. Community managers wear many hats and will be the face of the company to its freelance members. A great community manager has experience with customer service, event production, content creation, public speaking, and familiarity with measuring the intangible. It's a tough profile to find and ideally, they’ll also have direct experience with the community. Think “for the community, by the community.” These roles are challenging enough to hire on their own, let alone finding them in a single person. Fortunately, there are communities of community managers, like CMX to tap into.
What does the future of “community” look like from your perspective? I think we’re entering an era in freelancing where community is no longer optional. It’s becoming the expected norm. We’re already seeing more talent marketplaces focusing on value-added products and services to recruit, retain, and engage top-quality freelancers. We’re also seeing much more specialization and more niche talent offerings to help marketplaces differentiate, for example, LifeSciHub in pharma project management or Spacely in satellites. My guess is that vertical marketplaces will have an easier time creating engaged communities. They are typically more aware of, and tuned into, their freelancer’s needs. Longer term, however, the marketplaces that prioritize the talent side of their business will come out on top.
Viva la revolution!
