Soon, you may be able to hire freelancers on LinkedIn and get your work done on the platform, similar to how Fivver and UpWork marketplaces work. Once the job is complete, you’ll get the opportunity to evaluate it and pay the worker(s) through a new payment integration solution. This is the new LinkedIn freelancer market feature.
It’s the latest move by the top decision-makers at the Microsoft company and one that’s bound to have a huge impact across the board. Wondering how exactly the new feature will work? Here’s what we know so far.
LinkedIn is developing a new service known as Marketplaces to allow its 740 million users to find and work with freelancers. This development would pit LinkedIn against publicly traded freelance marketplaces such as UpWork and Fivver.
The news was first broken by The Information, who go on to say that the professional networking site is also considering the development of “a digital wallet to facilitate payments on the new marketplace.”
The Information credits “two people with direct knowledge of the matter” and provides additional details about the potential Marketplace feature. If sources are correct, this service could be up and running by September 2021.
Lately, more and more people are requesting freelance services, both on LinkedIn and other platforms. There is also an even higher number of users openly seeking work on the LinkedIn platform. There’s a particularly strong demand within coaching, marketing, design, and software development services.
In a recent statement, the network’s spokesperson Suzi Owens said the number of LinkedIn users who’ve added “open for business” to their profiles has risen sharply. This is due in part to the onset of the covid-19 pandemic. According to Ms. Owens, LinkedIn’s interpretation is that these people are actively looking for work.
LinkedIn Marketplaces would effectively offer potential employers and service providers a platform to start conversations for the necessary projects.
“We want to build new ways to share more about the services you (can) offer directly through your LinkedIn profile,” Ms. Owens says.
Unfortunately, LinkedIn’s current silence on the matter makes it difficult to find more details.
However, sources say it will blend features from the two most successful freelancer marketplaces – Fivver and Upwork. Businesses will be able to shop for freelancers and compare rates, similar to Fivver. Additionally, they will be able to post job proposals for freelancers, similar to UpWork.
Prospective service providers must optimize their profiles to show up for relevant job offers by activating the Showcase Services feature on their LinkedIn profile. Only relevant user profiles will show up for the various freelancer queries.
An employer impressed by a service provider’s qualifications can then directly contact that user, similar to how Fivver works. Simultaneously, service providers can scroll through job listings and apply for postings that best match their abilities, similar to UpWork. Freelancers will also have the opportunity to pay for ads to help get their name and services noticed.
As with most freelancer marketplaces, payment from the employer is held in escrow and will only be released to the service provider once the job is completed to the employer’s satisfaction. It is speculated that payments will be made via a unique LinkedIn digital wallet, also under development.
Aside from the paid freelancer ads, LinkedIn will profit by charging employers and service providers a small fee.
The marketplace service could be a genius move from LinkedIn. The world is quickly moving to be more remote work over traditional office positions. Fivver and UpWork alone generated nearly $550 million in revenues in 2020, a 37% increase from 2019. As the shift to telework intensifies, freelancer marketplaces will become priceless. Microsoft is likely banking on LinkedIn’s reputation as a professional networking platform to profit off this new lucrative market.
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It’s time to give you the latest updates in social media for Facebook and beyond! We’ve been on a roll this year with some pretty significant shifts and this period was no less eventful!
You’ve been able to receive a payment from a single person for the past couple of years. But now Facebook has made payments through the messenger app more like using Venmo.
Venmo is popular with Millennials splitting dinner checks and the rent. Now Facebook users don’t have to leave the Messenger app. They can make a date with a group of friend, arrive at the destination and split the bill all from one app. Convenient!
If you’re a restaurant, you may want to give a large party this payment option … you’ll get the payers Facebook account/email info for future use.
Want a cool sticker or gif to really express your emotions in Facebook Messenger? Now M will give you suggestions. This is the beginning of bots in chat or Chatbots. Here are a few of the options she’ll suggest to you within Messenger.
https://www.facebook.com/facebook/videos/10155681693016729/
Now communicating with a client one to one on Facebook Messenger can be easy and productive! With these AI suggestions, adding features is just a click away. More visuals equal more engagement with your clients.
Facebook is taking a stand against fake news. They’re employing 3 initiatives to help curb the spread of false news.
First, because most of the time false news is financially motivated, they’re disrupting economic incentives.
Second, Facebook is building new products to help reduce the spread of false news
When people encounter false news they are implementing measures that will help people make more informed decisions about the news.
Finally, there will be a new tool on the top of a mobile newsfeed that will help people recognize false news when they see it. People who click on the tool will see more info and resources at Facebook help. These resources will cover how to check the URL of the website the news is from, investigating the source of the news and how to look for other reports on the topic.
This is Facebook’s competitor for Slack to be used by businesses. The free version will be called Workplace Standard and will not have the analytics capability of the paid version of Workplace Premium. All in all Workplace Premium is really affordable at $3 per person for the first 1000 users, $2 up to 10,000 and $1 per person after that.
This Slack competitor by Facebook allows your employees to collaborate online with live Facebook Live Video sessions. Slack doesn’t have this capability at the present.
It’s a competitor to the fading Google Hangouts as well and an interesting concept.
Now with the Windows10 Instagram app, you can send photo and video as direct messages from your desktop!
You still can’t upload posts to your profile though. Hopefully, that’s coming soon!
This new addition should be helpful with customer service for businesses. It’s a “next step” in Instagram “growing up” into a full-service social network with broad business use.
Instagram has disappearing content in Stories but they went further and have now added it to Direct Messages. This is convenient for users and another way businesses can engage in the “here and gone” preferences of a younger demographic.
It’s a direct attack on SnapChat and is really a user game-changer. It also is another move forward in Instagram creating its own messaging platform, Direct.
If you’re in a B2B business then LinkedIn Ads could be your ad sweet spot. Now LinkedIn to make these ads even more enticing for advertisers has introduced Lead Generation forms.
These types of forms are popular on Facebook and Twitter so I’ve been wondering when LinkedIn would follow their lead.
These new forms will make it easy for advertisers to collect leads, measure the ROI of the ad and also manage the leads you’ve gotten with the form.
If you’re B2B this may be an excellent option for limited budgets.
Whew! Is your head spinning? The changes keep coming. I’ll try to keep you updated!
