So far, so good; but I need to do more

[bruce_penning]

I joined Fiverr about a week ago and so far I have made four sales- all of them 5-star rated. I know I have to promote my gigs and indeed I want to. The problem is that I don’t know how.



Now I am not a dumb brick (at least I don’t think I am) so I have researched ways of spreading the word on my gigs using social media, and all the usual paths people point you to when you ask something like that. However, I still can’t get the exact method of doing it. Maybe I am just a dumb brick, but before I sign the declaration, I was wondering if I could get any last advice.

[belengarcia]

Some (most?) people consider “using social media” just spamming Twitter, Facebook groups, blogs and forums with their gig URL. That’s easy, but has almost no effect.

A real and effective promotion is not that easy, and it requires time and dedication. You have to build a community. Make a blog, a Facebook page and a twitter account, and find REAL followers, interested in your services. It’d be easier if you had an stablished blog or social network audience already.

If you choose to promote in a forum, you have to choose one where users are interested in your services, and then become an authority in that forum posting and helping people. That way, they’ll find you a reliable user and might buy your services.

In my opinion, making a real effective promotion is too difficult to “waste” your audience bringing them to Fiverr (where some of them will choose another seller, and even if they choose you, there’s the 20% cut). If I had the time and will to do so, I’d set my own website and concentrate efforts on making sales from it.

Besides, Fiverr has lots of potential buyers who are ready to buy services like yours. If you offer something in demand and are really good at what you do, you’ll be having lots of sales without any promotion.

EDIT: I forgot to mention another way of promotion: paid advertisement (Google Adsense, Facebook Ads…). That can have immediate effect if you know what you’re doing, or be a waste of money if you don’t.

[bruce_penning]

Thanks belengarcia. That’s what I did actually. I spammed Facebook but didn’t even consider it spamming. Facebook did, though, and my account has been suspended until. . . I don’t know.

I will try to build authentic relationships and maybe start a Blogger blog and see where that takes me.

I am glad you had to edit. Because that last part has particularly thrown some fitting pieces onto my puzzle.