Seller to Seller Collaboration Idea

[mikecvoiceover]

EDITED BASED ON NEWER IDEAS AND FEEDBACK:

If you blatantly disagree with ANY proposed methods of seller to seller communication on the basis of marketing / self-promotion…Thank you. I would request that if you have valid these criticisms against this idea, that please at least ask questions and/or provide counter-arguments to further the conversation. I’d prefer this not turn into stalemate ideological arguments, is all. Thank you!

So here’s my idea…

Summary: What if there were a way for you to flag your Gig to show other Fiverr members “Yes, I am open to collaboration with other sellers.” or not. Basically - a quick and direct way for other prospective sellers, whether earnest intentions or not, to clearly know whether you ARE or ARE NOT okay with receiving messages specifically related to collaboration or self-promotion (“marketing”).

1.) For sellers who ARE open to the idea of ‘collaboration’ and self-promotion marketing attempts…instead of wasted time with back and forth messages…I think a simply automated message from Fiverr telling you “Hey, this other Fiverr member would like to collaborate with you.” could work very well. Then, at your own leisure…you could then choose to view their Gig and decide if you’d want to communicate further with them or not…with NO time requirements or penalties involved whatsoever.

2.) If we go with this idea, I would then recommend a LIMIT to the number of “collaboration/marketing” messages to 5 or 10 a day, to discourage/limit spammers but actually encourage the earnest attempts of people to more thoroughly research and consider WHO they send their ‘collaboration’/marketing requests to.

3.) If/when these methods are implemented, it would further justify the action of reporting spammers who are blatantly circumventing the system. The penalties could then be even more harsh, particularly for repeat offenders.

[miiila]

Have you looked at the Fiverr Studio feature? That’s something similar, and you can “flag your profile” (if you’re eligible yet) switch it on/off, depending on whether you’re open to an invitation to a Studio.
It’s in beta currently and as such not yet available to everyone, I guess it will be rolled out to more people, depending on how it will go.

There’s a forum section for that too where people who’d like to be part of a Studio can post, it doesn’t seem to get much use, though, which could be because there isn’t much demand, or because at this point too few people are eligible for the Studio feature, I don’t know.

Rather than “cluttering” gigs more with “open for collaboration” flags
(which would also/perhaps mostly attract all kinds of people, whom you wouldn’t want to spend time on and would never collaborate with, including such who ask you about stuff that violates the site’s terms, while even being forced to reply because of your response rate)
that aren’t relevant to the main purpose of the gig - attracting buyers and getting sales - perhaps there could be a forum section for that, similar to the Studio one, ideally with subcategories for the different Fiverr main site categories.

(To be clear, I don’t mean “cluttering” in a negative way about your idea, which is nice, just from the point of view that it’s not the purpose of the gigs and that it’s usually good when gigs are very clear and the least confusing and complex as possible - I’d even switched a gig back to the old system using just 1 tier instead of 3 for the same reason, the less people feel confused and distracted, the more likely they are to understand the gig (less “ordered by accident” cancellations counting against you) and to buy it.)

In short, I think it’s a nice idea for people who are interested in it, and different from the Studio feature, but I think a forum section (with different categories reflecting the Fiverr main site Gig categories) dedicated to that would be the better place.

[mikecvoiceover]

Have you looked at the Fiverr Studio feature? That’s something similar, and you can “flag your profile” (if you’re eligible yet) switch it on/off, depending on whether you’re open to an invitation to a Studio.

It’s in beta currently and as such not yet available to everyone, I guess it will be rolled out to more people, depending on how it will go.

There’s a forum section for that too where people who’d like to be part of a Studio can post, it doesn’t seem to get much use, though, which could be because there isn’t much demand, or because at this point too few people are eligible for the Studio feature, I don’t know.

Rather than “cluttering” gigs more with “open for collaboration” flags

(which would also/perhaps mostly attract all kinds of people, whom you wouldn’t want to spend time on and would never collaborate with, including such who ask you about stuff that violates the site’s terms, while even being forced to reply because of your response rate)

that aren’t relevant to the main purpose of the gig - attracting buyers and getting sales - perhaps there could be a forum section for that, similar to the Studio one, ideally with subcategories for the different Fiverr main site categories.

(To be clear, I don’t mean “cluttering” in a negative way about your idea, which is nice, just from the point of view that it’s not the purpose of the gigs and that it’s usually good when gigs are very clear and the least confusing and complex as possible - I’d even switched a gig back to the old system using just 1 tier instead of 3 for the same reason, the less people feel confused and distracted, the more likely they are to understand the gig (less “ordered by accident” cancellations counting against you) and to buy it.)

In short, I think it’s a nice idea for people who are interested in it, and different from the Studio feature, but I think a forum section (with different categories reflecting the Fiverr main site Gig categories) dedicated to that would be the better place.

Thank you for the feedback. I’m checking out the links you provided, now. I wasn’t aware of the Studio feature/function/service.

I feel pretty strongly that the core of my idea I think is solid. But absolutely, the implementation of it needs to be carefully thought out.

Perhaps simply flagging outgoing messages to other Sellers indicating “Yes, this message is an attempt to collaborate / earn your business, etc” would be enough. Again, the key there would be to NOT have the response time requirement.

Either method or both combined methods could work in my mind to resolve the problem of spamming while also still encouraging collaboration and networking.

[miiila]

Thank you for the feedback. I’m checking out the links you provided, now. I wasn’t aware of the Studio feature/function/service.

I feel pretty strongly that the core of my idea I think is solid. But absolutely, the implementation of it needs to be carefully thought out.

Perhaps simply flagging outgoing messages to other Sellers indicating “Yes, this message is an attempt to collaborate / earn your business, etc” would be enough. Again, the key there would be to NOT have the response time requirement.

Either method or both combined methods could work in my mind to resolve the problem of spamming while also still encouraging collaboration and networking.

I feel pretty strongly that the core of my idea I think is solid. But absolutely, the implementation of it needs to be carefully thought out.

Agreed, and yes, I think the devil may lay in the details.

Again, the key there would be to NOT have the response time requirement.

That seems to be very problematic, technically. There are quite a few issues with the response rate that shouldn’t be but are, for instance when you’re a seller (mainly) but also buy gigs, you can get issues with your response rate which will affect you as a seller because you didn’t realize you need to respond to a message of a seller you bought from which doesn’t need a reply (like the seller said “thank you” after you gave a tip).

I’ve made the experience that the system doesn’t make a difference between whether you respond as a seller or as a buyer, when you’re both, so I’m not so confident that there won’t be a response rate/spamming issue with the “main site solution”.

[mikecvoiceover]

I feel pretty strongly that the core of my idea I think is solid. But absolutely, the implementation of it needs to be carefully thought out.

Agreed, and yes, I think the devil may lay in the details.

Again, the key there would be to NOT have the response time requirement.

That seems to be very problematic, technically. There are quite a few issues with the response rate that shouldn’t be but are, for instance when you’re a seller (mainly) but also buy gigs, you can get issues with your response rate which will affect you as a seller because you didn’t realize you need to respond to a message of a seller you bought from which doesn’t need a reply (like the seller said “thank you” after you gave a tip).

I’ve made the experience that the system doesn’t make a difference between whether you respond as a seller or as a buyer, when you’re both, so I’m not so confident that there won’t be a response rate/spamming issue with the “main site solution”.

So, unfortunately after researching the upcoming ‘Studio’ feature…it still doesn’t address the idea/concern of how to best allow and encourage sellers who have not YET collaborated together…to network with each other.

One possible work-around would be something like a Fiverr generated message simply indicating one seller’s interest in collaboration. You could then view or ignore that request. Though I still think as sellers we definitely need the option to outright ignore ALL requests too.

[gina_riley2]

So, unfortunately after researching the upcoming ‘Studio’ feature…it still doesn’t address the idea/concern of how to best allow and encourage sellers who have not YET collaborated together…to network with each other.

One possible work-around would be something like a Fiverr generated message simply indicating one seller’s interest in collaboration. You could then view or ignore that request. Though I still think as sellers we definitely need the option to outright ignore ALL requests too.

I’ve had situations where I needed multiple work done for a project. Instead of me being the middle(wo)man, I asked all the of my sellers if they’d mind collaborating with each other.

Of course, I paid all three in advance on a custom order of 30 days to ensure there was enough time. I’ve also worked with all of them multiple times so they knew my work and communication ethics.

They may or may not have known each other but since they all knew me, it worked out well. It saved me great deal of time.

It sounds like you want to do something similar. Some sellers may be hesitant to collaborate if they don’t know each other.

It only worked for me because I’ve worked them multiple times and they were all 99.9% sure I wouldn’t abandon them or leave them hanging if situations were to arise.

It could work, you never know. It would certainly be welcomed by the buyers. 🙂

[eoinfinnegan]

EDITED BASED ON NEWER IDEAS AND FEEDBACK:

If you blatantly disagree with ANY proposed methods of seller to seller communication on the basis of marketing / self-promotion…Thank you. I would request that if you have valid these criticisms against this idea, that please at least ask questions and/or provide counter-arguments to further the conversation. I’d prefer this not turn into stalemate ideological arguments, is all. Thank you!

So here’s my idea…

Summary: What if there were a way for you to flag your Gig to show other Fiverr members “Yes, I am open to collaboration with other sellers.” or not. Basically - a quick and direct way for other prospective sellers, whether earnest intentions or not, to clearly know whether you ARE or ARE NOT okay with receiving messages specifically related to collaboration or self-promotion (“marketing”).

1.) For sellers who ARE open to the idea of ‘collaboration’ and self-promotion marketing attempts…instead of wasted time with back and forth messages…I think a simply automated message from Fiverr telling you “Hey, this other Fiverr member would like to collaborate with you.” could work very well. Then, at your own leisure…you could then choose to view their Gig and decide if you’d want to communicate further with them or not…with NO time requirements or penalties involved whatsoever.

2.) If we go with this idea, I would then recommend a LIMIT to the number of “collaboration/marketing” messages to 5 or 10 a day, to discourage/limit spammers but actually encourage the earnest attempts of people to more thoroughly research and consider WHO they send their ‘collaboration’/marketing requests to.

3.) If/when these methods are implemented, it would further justify the action of reporting spammers who are blatantly circumventing the system. The penalties could then be even more harsh, particularly for repeat offenders.

Not knowing any better when I first started, I took an earnest approach of contacting other sellers saying “Hey, I do see that you use voices in your gig. I am new to Fiverr and was just wondering if I might be able to work with you on future projects” kind of thing.

I’m quite happy to not have to deal with this type of thing all the time. If I want to hire another seller then I hire another seller; I don’t need them to contact me or to have a flag waving saying they want to sell to me.

What I don’t want is to give all of the incompetent no-hopers out there the excuse to send me messages all day.

[cyaxrex]

EDITED BASED ON NEWER IDEAS AND FEEDBACK:

If you blatantly disagree with ANY proposed methods of seller to seller communication on the basis of marketing / self-promotion…Thank you. I would request that if you have valid these criticisms against this idea, that please at least ask questions and/or provide counter-arguments to further the conversation. I’d prefer this not turn into stalemate ideological arguments, is all. Thank you!

So here’s my idea…

Summary: What if there were a way for you to flag your Gig to show other Fiverr members “Yes, I am open to collaboration with other sellers.” or not. Basically - a quick and direct way for other prospective sellers, whether earnest intentions or not, to clearly know whether you ARE or ARE NOT okay with receiving messages specifically related to collaboration or self-promotion (“marketing”).

1.) For sellers who ARE open to the idea of ‘collaboration’ and self-promotion marketing attempts…instead of wasted time with back and forth messages…I think a simply automated message from Fiverr telling you “Hey, this other Fiverr member would like to collaborate with you.” could work very well. Then, at your own leisure…you could then choose to view their Gig and decide if you’d want to communicate further with them or not…with NO time requirements or penalties involved whatsoever.

2.) If we go with this idea, I would then recommend a LIMIT to the number of “collaboration/marketing” messages to 5 or 10 a day, to discourage/limit spammers but actually encourage the earnest attempts of people to more thoroughly research and consider WHO they send their ‘collaboration’/marketing requests to.

3.) If/when these methods are implemented, it would further justify the action of reporting spammers who are blatantly circumventing the system. The penalties could then be even more harsh, particularly for repeat offenders.

What if there were a way for you to flag your Gig as showing other Fiverr members “Yes, I am open to collaboration with other sellers.” or not.

By default, you just assume that the open to collaboration switch is set to off.

Personally, I get really ticked off about this. On several occasions, I have reached out to fellow sellers to see if they would be happy with me outsourcing work to them. - Or because I just need what they offer. Never once have I even thought about them reporting me for sending spam. Why? Because #i’m not begging for work.

Not knowing any better when I first started, I took an earnest approach of contacting other sellers saying “Hey, I do see that you use voices in your gig. I am new to Fiverr and was just wondering if I might be able to work with you on future projects” kind of thing.

I DID get reported by one person

Yes, that’s because you were sending spam. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you were, the rest of the world does.

If you want to understand why you were reported, walk down a street and walk directly into every restaurant you come across. Barge straight into the kitchen with your biggest smile and say “Hi, I’m ready to start work!”

Likely, you’ll be in prison by the end of the evening.

It doesn’t matter how earnest you are. You need qualifications to be in my kitchen, and I like to pick and chose my own cooking ingredients. You showing up so earnestly just puts me in a real stinker of a bad mood. ,

[mikecvoiceover]

What if there were a way for you to flag your Gig as showing other Fiverr members “Yes, I am open to collaboration with other sellers.” or not.

By default, you just assume that the open to collaboration switch is set to off.

Personally, I get really ticked off about this. On several occasions, I have reached out to fellow sellers to see if they would be happy with me outsourcing work to them. - Or because I just need what they offer. Never once have I even thought about them reporting me for sending spam. Why? Because #i’m not begging for work.

Not knowing any better when I first started, I took an earnest approach of contacting other sellers saying “Hey, I do see that you use voices in your gig. I am new to Fiverr and was just wondering if I might be able to work with you on future projects” kind of thing.

I DID get reported by one person

Yes, that’s because you were sending spam. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you were, the rest of the world does.

If you want to understand why you were reported, walk down a street and walk directly into every restaurant you come across. Barge straight into the kitchen with your biggest smile and say “Hi, I’m ready to start work!”

Likely, you’ll be in prison by the end of the evening.

It doesn’t matter how earnest you are. You need qualifications to be in my kitchen, and I like to pick and chose my own cooking ingredients. You showing up so earnestly just puts me in a real stinker of a bad mood. ,

I’ve already taken accountability for my actions and received the appropriate wrist slip. I learned my lessons. Not sure why you see added value in reminding me of it? Analogies are unnecessary and unproductive to the conversation. So thanks no thanks.

Did you have any ideas specific to my proposed idea of encouraging communication among sellers to the mutual end goal of increased sales, or are you just completely opposed to the idea, or at least my proposed methods of it?

It’s fine to voice your outright discontent, but if you do have some ideas that can add value to the conversation, that would be appreciated.

[mikecvoiceover]

What if there were a way for you to flag your Gig as showing other Fiverr members “Yes, I am open to collaboration with other sellers.” or not.

By default, you just assume that the open to collaboration switch is set to off.

Personally, I get really ticked off about this. On several occasions, I have reached out to fellow sellers to see if they would be happy with me outsourcing work to them. - Or because I just need what they offer. Never once have I even thought about them reporting me for sending spam. Why? Because #i’m not begging for work.

Not knowing any better when I first started, I took an earnest approach of contacting other sellers saying “Hey, I do see that you use voices in your gig. I am new to Fiverr and was just wondering if I might be able to work with you on future projects” kind of thing.

I DID get reported by one person

Yes, that’s because you were sending spam. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you were, the rest of the world does.

If you want to understand why you were reported, walk down a street and walk directly into every restaurant you come across. Barge straight into the kitchen with your biggest smile and say “Hi, I’m ready to start work!”

Likely, you’ll be in prison by the end of the evening.

It doesn’t matter how earnest you are. You need qualifications to be in my kitchen, and I like to pick and chose my own cooking ingredients. You showing up so earnestly just puts me in a real stinker of a bad mood. ,

"Yes, that’s because you were sending spam. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you were, the rest of the world does.

If you want to understand why you were reported, walk down a street and walk directly into every restaurant you come across. Barge straight into the kitchen with your biggest smile and say “Hi, I’m ready to start work!”

You’re welcome to your opinion and thank you for sharing it…but are you aware of what direct marketing is?

https://www.google.com/search?q=what%20is%20direct%20marketing&cad=h

It’s essentially contacting a prospective client/customer and doing exactly what you accuse me of “spamming”.

“Hello sir/ma’am, I see you offer a really great product and I felt I could add value to your business with the products and services I have…”

You call it (all) “spam” but for legitimate and earnest people out there, this is exactly HOW you network and build a client-base. Not everyone’s going to like it (clearly)…but when you have a quality product or service to offer and you’re not outright annoying or disrespectful in your approach, then most mature adults and business owners will at least take the time to consider your product or service and the value it might add to them. If the product or service is no good, then you ignore it or decline.

This how the economy works, my friend. People marketing and selling products and services that add value either to your own personal life or to your own business.

[cyaxrex]

I’ve already taken accountability for my actions and received the appropriate wrist slip. I learned my lessons. Not sure why you see added value in reminding me of it? Analogies are unnecessary and unproductive to the conversation. So thanks no thanks.

Did you have any ideas specific to my proposed idea of encouraging communication among sellers to the mutual end goal of increased sales, or are you just completely opposed to the idea, or at least my proposed methods of it?

It’s fine to voice your outright discontent, but if you do have some ideas that can add value to the conversation, that would be appreciated.

Did you have any ideas specific to my proposed idea of encouraging communication among sellers to the mutual end goal of increased sales

No, because Fiverr isn’t a cooperative. You say you want to achieve a mutual end goal of increased sales. That’s begging.

If it isn’t begging, you wouldn’t be looking for inventive ways to make it easy for you to contact other sellers to get sales yourself. You would be looking at way to make your service impossible for other sellers to be able to resist purchasing.

You’re welcome to your opinion and thank you for sharing it…but are you aware of what direct marketing is?

Yes, I am. It’s as outdated and as misused as applying leeches to your ears to get rid of a head cold.

Your mistake is that you are confusing direct marketing with internal marketing. If I was selling insurance via direct marketing, I wouldn’t try and sell it on a website full of fellow insurance agents. In the case of Fiverr, it simply doesn’t make sense for your target market to be people within the market place itself.

This how the economy works, my friend.

No, I’m pretty sure this is how socialism works. However, you are more than welcome to go all out on your idea and prove me wrong.

[mikecvoiceover]

I’ve had situations where I needed multiple work done for a project. Instead of me being the middle(wo)man, I asked all the of my sellers if they’d mind collaborating with each other.

Of course, I paid all three in advance on a custom order of 30 days to ensure there was enough time. I’ve also worked with all of them multiple times so they knew my work and communication ethics.

They may or may not have known each other but since they all knew me, it worked out well. It saved me great deal of time.

It sounds like you want to do something similar. Some sellers may be hesitant to collaborate if they don’t know each other.

It only worked for me because I’ve worked them multiple times and they were all 99.9% sure I wouldn’t abandon them or leave them hanging if situations were to arise.

It could work, you never know. It would certainly be welcomed by the buyers. 🙂

Your situation sounds like you’ll benefit greatly from the “Studio” feature that Fiverr is rolling out.

For me and others who aren’t necessarily as established and/or simply trying to continue growing our network, my focus is on ‘How to best go about a method for sellers to contact other sellers.’

1.) I think we’ve established the need for sellers to outright disable/block ANY communication attempts.

2.) For sellers who ARE open to the idea of ‘collaboration’ and marketing attempts…instead of wasted time with back and forth messages…I think a simply automated message from Fiverr telling you “Hey, this other Fiverr member would like to collaborate with you.” would work very well. Then, at your own leisure…you can then choose to view their Gig and decide if you’d want to communicate further with them or not…with NO time requirements or penalties involved whatsoever.

3.) A third option might be to LIMIT the number of “collaboration/marketing” messages to 5 or 10 a day, to discourage spammers messaging mass numbers of people. This will also encourage the person to more heavily consider WHO they send their ‘collaboration’ requests to.

Anyone have any thoughts on these three key points?

[mikecvoiceover]

Did you have any ideas specific to my proposed idea of encouraging communication among sellers to the mutual end goal of increased sales

No, because Fiverr isn’t a cooperative. You say you want to achieve a mutual end goal of increased sales. That’s begging.

If it isn’t begging, you wouldn’t be looking for inventive ways to make it easy for you to contact other sellers to get sales yourself. You would be looking at way to make your service impossible for other sellers to be able to resist purchasing.

You’re welcome to your opinion and thank you for sharing it…but are you aware of what direct marketing is?

Yes, I am. It’s as outdated and as misused as applying leeches to your ears to get rid of a head cold.

Your mistake is that you are confusing direct marketing with internal marketing. If I was selling insurance via direct marketing, I wouldn’t try and sell it on a website full of fellow insurance agents. In the case of Fiverr, it simply doesn’t make sense for your target market to be people within the market place itself.

This how the economy works, my friend.

No, I’m pretty sure this is how socialism works. However, you are more than welcome to go all out on your idea and prove me wrong.

This is getting way off the rails.

Socialism is where everyone gets paid the same amount regardless of effort. That has NOTHING to do with what I’m suggesting.

I may have my “marketing” terminologies confused, sure. Apologies, not an economics major. However, the very concept of ‘marketing’ as I’ve stated is true. One person attempting to ‘market’ their product or service to another person. And yes, in the case of Fiverr it makes a HUGE amount of sense again when you consider the applicability of it all…Example: Explainer Video people needing voice actors. Maybe they don’t have the time to listen to dozens of people…so getting an occasional (“spam”) message from a prospective talent means they don’t have to go searching for the talent themselves. There IS value in the concept…it’s just a matter of ironing out the method, was the intent of this entire thread.

There’s always going to be a ratio of rejection vs. acceptance when it comes to marketing. But if it didn’t work, companies wouldn’t waste their time on email and paper flyers. The fact is, they’ve done the research and assessed the ROI…that for every X number of people…Y people will actually respond. That’s how it works, man. I’m trying to apply that concept here. ****While still ensuring that people who simply do NOT want to receive any messages can mark themselves as such.

Again, you’re welcome to blatantly disagree with the concept or the methods…but if that’s all you have to say at this point, you’re not adding any further value to this conversation.

I haven’t enjoyed our little tit-for-tat, but I certainly respect your position and do sincerely wish you the best either way in your methods of success. Thank you.

[eoinfinnegan]

So, if sellers were able to say I can be approached for “collaborations”, here is what would happen:
The million or so sellers who haven’t sold very much on the platform would spend their time contacting all of those people. Their inbox would blow up.
They would have so many messages that if they actually wanted to hire someone it would be easier to just go and use the search functions where they can check sellers side by side, filter out the types/levels/languages/etc and then make their choice.
The reason why you or some who break the rules might get some results in doing this is because most people obey the rules. If the rules allowed it then the amount of marketing/networking/spamming would be impossible to manage or be useful.

[mikecvoiceover]

So, if sellers were able to say I can be approached for “collaborations”, here is what would happen:

The million or so sellers who haven’t sold very much on the platform would spend their time contacting all of those people. Their inbox would blow up.

They would have so many messages that if they actually wanted to hire someone it would be easier to just go and use the search functions where they can check sellers side by side, filter out the types/levels/languages/etc and then make their choice.

The reason why you or some who break the rules might get some results in doing this is because most people obey the rules. If the rules allowed it then the amount of marketing/networking/spamming would be impossible to manage or be useful.

I hear you. Here’s my response to your concerns.

1.) If you implement an approved and mutually-agreed upon method that encourages seller to seller marketing, you inherently further discourage unapproved methods that circumvent that system. See # 4.

2.) If you limit the number of dedicated ‘collaboration / marketing’ messages to 5-10 a day, this limits the reach of a potential spammer while also encouraging earnest folks to more thoroughly consider who they market themselves to.

3.) You say it’s easier to surf other gigs. And while to some that may be true, as an opinion…based on my own success I would argue there are still those who don’t mind and/or even like the idea of people contacting them directly with a proposed product or service that could in fact benefit them. In a lot of cases, I consider it like this: “Wow, I never even considered how this person’s product or service could benefit me but it certainly would! I’m GLAD they contacted me.” A lot of high-volume sellers on Fiverr don’t have the time to search for other collaborative Gigs…But if they intentionally choose to make themselves available to marketing attempts, it saves them time and they can more-easily pick and choose who to even listen to, respond to, etc.

4.) Sure. Most people clearly obey the existing rules. It’s my opinion and intent of this thread however to suggest that there IS a method to at least control and mitigate marketing attempts to A.) Encourage legitimate attempts by providing an authorized and mutually-approved method of marketing and B.) It would further discourage spam attempts with rewarding potentially heavier consequences for people who are clearly circumventing the system and ignoring a person’s desire to NOT be contacted with ‘collaboration/marketing’ attempts.

[mariashtelle1]

EDITED BASED ON NEWER IDEAS AND FEEDBACK:

If you blatantly disagree with ANY proposed methods of seller to seller communication on the basis of marketing / self-promotion…Thank you. I would request that if you have valid these criticisms against this idea, that please at least ask questions and/or provide counter-arguments to further the conversation. I’d prefer this not turn into stalemate ideological arguments, is all. Thank you!

So here’s my idea…

Summary: What if there were a way for you to flag your Gig to show other Fiverr members “Yes, I am open to collaboration with other sellers.” or not. Basically - a quick and direct way for other prospective sellers, whether earnest intentions or not, to clearly know whether you ARE or ARE NOT okay with receiving messages specifically related to collaboration or self-promotion (“marketing”).

1.) For sellers who ARE open to the idea of ‘collaboration’ and self-promotion marketing attempts…instead of wasted time with back and forth messages…I think a simply automated message from Fiverr telling you “Hey, this other Fiverr member would like to collaborate with you.” could work very well. Then, at your own leisure…you could then choose to view their Gig and decide if you’d want to communicate further with them or not…with NO time requirements or penalties involved whatsoever.

2.) If we go with this idea, I would then recommend a LIMIT to the number of “collaboration/marketing” messages to 5 or 10 a day, to discourage/limit spammers but actually encourage the earnest attempts of people to more thoroughly research and consider WHO they send their ‘collaboration’/marketing requests to.

3.) If/when these methods are implemented, it would further justify the action of reporting spammers who are blatantly circumventing the system. The penalties could then be even more harsh, particularly for repeat offenders.

please keep your opinions to yourself.

Wooaah… I didn’t even read the topic yet, but this is quite rude.

You are proposing changes to the website and people are allowed to criticise idea if they don’t want it implemented.

For me and others who aren’t necessarily as established and/or simply trying to continue growing our network, my focus is on ‘How to best go about a method for sellers to contact other sellers.’

I think you are concentrating on the wrong thing.

You need to think on how to get your clients yourself but to to get a price of pie from more established people. None of established sellers would want to receive a message that you were sending out. There is simply no benefit for us. Zero. Nada.

And to be honest fiverr studio is covering it all.

Fiverr studio is basically what your idea would’ve become after proper consideration, taking into account many things like seniority, not creating spam opportunities, avoid beggars sending out messages to get more orders and creating a filter.

[eoinfinnegan]

I hear you. Here’s my response to your concerns.

1.) If you implement an approved and mutually-agreed upon method that encourages seller to seller marketing, you inherently further discourage unapproved methods that circumvent that system. See # 4.

2.) If you limit the number of dedicated ‘collaboration / marketing’ messages to 5-10 a day, this limits the reach of a potential spammer while also encouraging earnest folks to more thoroughly consider who they market themselves to.

3.) You say it’s easier to surf other gigs. And while to some that may be true, as an opinion…based on my own success I would argue there are still those who don’t mind and/or even like the idea of people contacting them directly with a proposed product or service that could in fact benefit them. In a lot of cases, I consider it like this: “Wow, I never even considered how this person’s product or service could benefit me but it certainly would! I’m GLAD they contacted me.” A lot of high-volume sellers on Fiverr don’t have the time to search for other collaborative Gigs…But if they intentionally choose to make themselves available to marketing attempts, it saves them time and they can more-easily pick and choose who to even listen to, respond to, etc.

4.) Sure. Most people clearly obey the existing rules. It’s my opinion and intent of this thread however to suggest that there IS a method to at least control and mitigate marketing attempts to A.) Encourage legitimate attempts by providing an authorized and mutually-approved method of marketing and B.) It would further discourage spam attempts with rewarding potentially heavier consequences for people who are clearly circumventing the system and ignoring a person’s desire to NOT be contacted with ‘collaboration/marketing’ attempts.

1. If you make the unapproved methods into approved methods it doesn’t make them any less of a waste of time. It just takes the spam label off them, it doesn’t improve the quality of the method.

2. Buyer requests has a limited number of offers allowed. To circumvent this, the desperados make 10 accounts and send from all of them. I have encountered this first hand as a buyer posting a request. 5-10 each is still 5-10 million potential messages-formerly-known-as-spam going around.

3. The perhaps .1% of offers from someone you would actually consider hiring from would be difficult to find among the rubbish. That’s why it would be easy to use the search with filters.

   I can assure you, the high volume sellers do not want to get hundreds of messages from people looking to work with them and when they want collaborations they are happy enough to go looking or use people they know.

4. See number 1 again.

I think part of the issue with why you think this is a good idea that could work is because you are underestimating the number of messages that would be involved. When I say a million, it isn’t hyperbole. There were approx 1,000,000 sellers about 2 years ago. That number will not have gone down.

If I could tick a box to say I would accept 10 messages per week from people like you, I might even tick it to see how it went. However, to open myself up to the people I know would use this - no chance.

[imagination7413]

The ONLY way I would consider this is a limit on how many (Fiverr-generated)
messages I could recieve in a day (or week, or even day of week) and from which categories.

Rough example:
1 - Graphics & Design
0 - Digital Marketing
1 - Writing & Translation
2 - Video & Animation
3 - Music & Audio
0 - Programming & Tech
1 - Business
0 - Lifestyle
0 - Industries

This, however, seems like a complicated method of limiting, and I have no clue how hard it would be to program. For now I’ll keep an eye on Studio feedback.