"Friendly Reminders" From Fiverr

[emmaki]

Look, Fiverr. This is the second email I have about this. Is this optional or not? Skip the "friendly language" and "kind requests" - do I need to do this or not? What happens if I don't do it? 

I do realize that these emails are written not to sound friendly and not menacing, but unfortunately they do sound menacing, because the simple question of "what happens if I don't" isn't answered. 

Not in the email. 

Not in the Help Center. 

Instead, what I read is "an offer I can't refuse", to borrow from the Godfather.

Is this mandatory or not? It's a simple question like "do Fiverr Enterprise sellers still pay fees" (still waiting on an answer for that one). Please advise. Ideally on both. 

[emmaki]

I see you... 

[rawque_gulia]

2 minutes ago, emmaki said:

I see you... 

Incognito Browsing Gang 😂😂

[emmaki]

...Or Fiverr staff browsing anonymously...

[emmaki]

Perhaps Fiverr would also like to know that on r/fiverr, people are asking if this email is "legit" and broadly very unhappy with the idea of Fiverr encroaching on their networks. Something for the company to ponder: now even official communications are under suspicion of not being from Fiverr. Might have something to do with the fact that people can still use the name "Fiverr Support" as their display name. 

The problem is not so much Fiverr requesting LI details, but the fact that there are no obvious benefits for users - while there is one clear one for Fiverr. Put it another way, after the initial import, it sounds very much like a lot of manual work. And just in case you thought the matchmaking was a good benefit, may I remind you how broken many people think B&M and Neo are? 

You see? The whole "your stuff is private!" part of the message falls on ears that care less about privacy than what terrible thing Fiverr will do to destroy their income with whatever they get from LinkedIn. Of course, you can't address that - yikes! - but that's the elephant in the room. Yes, its always been like that, but 2024 is the only year I can think of that 2 Fiverr millionaires publicly quit the platform.

So it is a little bit different. And of course you've lost 300,000 active buyers in the last year. I'm happy to assign part of that blame to AI, but not all of it. You are rapidly exhausting the patience of your best sellers (see the millionaire club). I see no reason to share my LinkedIn, and if that guy on Reddit is correct, very few other people do either, which is why the uptake is so cruddy you had to send out this email.

Maybe it's time for Fiverr to start thinking about the severe damage it has done to its relationship with sellers in recent months instead? Because if it's not forced on us and we're not happy with the platform, there is little reason for us to welcome Fiverr into our life outside of Fiverr. This platform has caused mental, physical, and financial distress to many of its users, and that is growing by the day.

That is why you're having the webinar, isn't it? To show you care? Too little, too late. This isn't a "user problem". It's a Fiverr problem cause entirely by the actions of Fiverr and its recent decisionmaking.  Your product teams would do well to reflect on that and start thinking about charting a new course.

Anyway, still would appreciate an answer to both of my questions. I'm not expecting them, of course, because what is there to say? 

/mic drop etc

 

[pamdemic]

Strange, I got the same email a few weeks back but I ignored it as I didn't want to share my LinkedIn profile. I haven't received it again, but since you said you are getting it for the second time, I guess I'll get it again too sooner or later. It's just annoying.

[emmaki]

Just now, pamdemic said:

Strange, I got the same email a few weeks back but I ignored it as I didn't want to share my LinkedIn profile.

Just out of interest, what would make you interested in sharing your LI profile with Fiverr? Like, in a perfect world where they made something useful that suited you perfectly?

I can't really think of one, but I use LI like, once a year, if that. I usually run away screaming after reading the first few posts on my feed. Why are people on LI like that?

[pamdemic]

1 minute ago, emmaki said:

Just out of interest, what would make you interested in sharing your LI profile with Fiverr? Like, in a perfect world where they made something useful that suited you perfectly?

I can't really think of one, but I use LI like, once a year, if that. I usually run away screaming after reading the first few posts on my feed. Why are people on LI like that?

Exactly 😂

 

I don't use LinkedIn much either. Mainly because it's interface has got quite complicated and confusing in recent years, plus some weird posts in the feed, which is what you mentioned. 

[visualstudios]

I haven't gotten anything, but if I do I don't know how to proceed. This account is not representing one person. It wouldn't make any sense to link a linkedin profile.

[texvox]

I asked the Fiverr Pro team how sharing my LinkedIn with them would help them with the matchmaking process and enhance my profile and the response I received was simply "As mentioned, we need it to better match freelancers with potential clients when we are doing manual matching, as well as to enhance your seller profile."  

Because of the risks of entangling my direct business with my Fiverr business vague responses are not comforting. Transparency builds trust, and I'd like to see more details on the specifics of how our social media will be used to achieve these objectives.

In my industry - Voiceover - Fiverr unfortunately has an extremely negative reputation, to the point where agents/agencies, casting directors and even certain production houses that could become my clients have been known to (and even publicly state that they do) blacklist voice talent if it's discovered they are working on Fiverr. For this reason many voice actors use pseudonyms here on the platform and choose to separate their Fiverr business from their primary brand off-site.

I personally feel very positive overall about Fiverr and I do enjoy working on Fiverr and am happy to tell certain people that I do, but only certain people after I have had some time to determine their position on the platform. There's a real risk to my direct business' income potential if Fiverr does something public with my social media and were to somehow parade that I am on the platform to any and everyone.

For this reason I'm going to decline to share my social media with Fiverr until someone from the Pro team can give me a very transparent answer as to how giving them this info will actually help with matching and my profile, or until one of them flat out says it will hurt me on this platform if I don't share it. If they do decide to share these details I'd be happy to consider changing my mind.

 

 

 

Edited May 22 by texvox

[catwriter]

1 hour ago, emmaki said:

What happens if I don't do it? 

You get fewer sales?

[vickiespencer]

1 hour ago, emmaki said:

This is the second email I have about this.

I am not sure I received the e-mail. If I did, I am sure I ignored it because my LinkedIn profile was incomplete. 

[emmaki]

4 minutes ago, catwriter said:

You get fewer sales?

Oh no, instead of making 1 sale every month, I'll make 1 every two months! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Edited May 22 by emmaki
I would like to make it obvious that I am being very sarcastic here

[smashradio]

2 hours ago, texvox said:

For this reason I'm going to decline to share my social media with Fiverr until someone from the Pro team can give me a very transparent answer as to how giving them this info will actually help with matching and my profile, or until one of them flat out says it will hurt me on this platform if I don't share it. If they do decide to share these details I'd be happy to consider changing my mind.

I've asked my SM. As I'm in the EU, I actually have a legal right to know how, why and what. 

[texvox]

2 minutes ago, smashradio said:

I've asked my SM. As I'm in the EU, I actually have a legal right to know how, why and what. 

I hope they clarify for you! It’s been radio silence since I emailed asking for further clarification. 

[smashradio]

31 minutes ago, texvox said:

I hope they clarify for you! It’s been radio silence since I emailed asking for further clarification. 

[emmaki]

So, just to refresh any passing Fiverr staff who might be lingering like a noble gas out of their element, here are two questions that sellers who Fiverr generally thinks are quite good would like answers to:

1) Why does Fiverr need our LinkedIn data? Your privacy policy - which your first email about this linked to - just has some very generic fluff, the type you might see at the bottom of a free app stuffed to the gills with ads while secretively mining cryptocurrency on your phone. It's a bit.... what's the word?... opaque? The opposite of see-through. It's slipped my mind.  

2) Do Fiverr sellers on Fiverr Enterprise need to pay fees or are they exempt from fees like non-Fiverr sellers on Enterprise? I think not, but the wording in your comms and help center was just unclear enough that when we talked about this a few weeks ago, nobody really knew. That's not ideal, is it, for the sellers of your new well-hiddren and top secret flagship marketplace that we can see, even to tweak our profiles and stuff? Again, just a touch opaque. Can I really be sure that Fiverr AI (which I assume is writing my profile stuff as it seems to write everything else) is doing a better job than me, a professional writer, of creating my own profile? As an example.  

Which brings me to...

3) someone on r/fiverr has suggested this LI thing is reasonable because you need to be verified in order to be a Pro. That's a good point, except isn't the verification meant to happen before becoming a Pro? I happen to remember that before the big August Product Release in 2023, you had to jump through a bunch of hoops. Yet as a part of that product release, which launched a whole new marketplace, hundreds of sellers were made Pro overnight. 

I suppose you could say that 3) is an extension of question 1, because if this is (one of) the reason(s) that Fiverr wants to hook up with our LI data, what does that say about the Pro quality of the marketplace today? And what does that say about Fiverr's Product Launches? 

I can go on, but you get the gist. Alas, if only I had some work to keep my idle hands and mind busy (I'm OOO rn, that was a joke - makes no difference, except I don't have to answer random inbox messages from people who aren't going to buy my services, so it works for me). 

[rabihumakhan]

I'm not a pro and don't have any plan to apply for the program. 

However, just out of interest, asking, I don't exist on any social media site, consider I become a pro and they make it mandatory to share your LinkedIn or whatever site's profile. Would I be removed from the program? 

[emmaki]

4 minutes ago, rabihumakhan said:

I'm not a pro and don't have any plan to apply for the program. 

However, just out of interest, asking, I don't exist on any social media site, consider I become a pro and they make it mandatory to share your LinkedIn or whatever site's profile. Would I be removed from the program? 

You're already in it. Just go to your pro profile, scroll down, and you can add your work experience manually without LI. It can't be verified of course.

But then again, neither can the LI stuff, since LI only verifies that stuff if you have the email of the company you worked for, which freelancers don't typically get.

Far be it from me to point out the glaring flaw in this whole exercise.

EDIT: I mean like if you were formerly employed at Microsoft, you might have an email like john.smith at microsoft dot com. I wrote it like that because IDK what the rules are on that sort of writing here. 

EDIT 2: I misread what you said! 

Edited May 22 by emmaki

[rabihumakhan]

Well, I don't want the pro badge right now honestly. I keep Fiverr as a smaller side hustle. My main focus is another marketplace where I'm a 'top-rated plus' freelancer. (no, they don't have pro programs) and I don't want to shift my focus from there. 

Moreover, most of the social media platforms that I ever used are toxic, misogynistic, where random people either harass you or need your 'nukes'. 

[visualstudios]

14 minutes ago, emmaki said:

But then again, neither can the LI stuff, since LI only verifies that stuff if you have the email of the company you worked for, which freelancers don't typically get.

Lol, I have like 10 employees working for Visual Studios on linkedin. Can't remove them. Never met any of them.

[emmaki]

Wise! Although tbh you don't really get to choose whether to keep Fiverr as a side-hustle or your main chick. It decides. And vice-versa. And sometimes life helps by throwing a spanner in the works. 

My social media is limited to browsing short videos on TikTok before falling asleep and dribbling all over my tablet (sometimes).

That's how you know I'm a real Pro. 

[emmaki]

Just now, visualstudios said:

Lol, I have like 10 employees working for Visual Studios on linkedin. Can't remove them. Never met any of them.

Do they have the little verified check though? I was looking at LinkedIns (awful) help center and it was saying that for "employees", you can now verify that you worked at X and this was all done by sending them your email at that company. I further understand that this has been done to stop people from presenting themselves as "Bill Gates" and sending DMs to people saying "Hi, itsa me, Bill Gates and I want to give you ONE MILLION DOLLARS!"

And so on. Apparently there were like 10 Gary Vees at one point. 

[visualstudios]

No idea, I wasn't even notified. Visual Studios has a company page, and there's a ton of people saying they work there, it's all I know. They don't - it's two of us.

[emmaki]

Surely you can boot them off thought? Like Fiverr has LOADS of "employees", I just figured they didn't delete them because ya know, it's like cleaning the Augean stables.

I am sadly unable to think of a herculean task to analogize to Fiverr's mercurial swiftness when asking Y/N questions, so I will just mix up my mythologies instead. Because I can.