Social Lives | Choose your own adventure
When you go freelance, you should be allowed to make your own rules
CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
I was procrastinating on LinkedIn earlier this week when I saw an interesting post, from someone well-known in digital, about freelancing. I don’t always agree with this person’s point of view, but I do enjoy reading what they have to say and they often share good (and, more importantly, free) resources.
In the post, they bemoaned freelancers who worked in what they perceived as an ‘archaic’ way - committing themselves to long-term projects and charging a day rate. In their opinion, freelancers should be looking to create a portfolio of services they offer to clients and layering their offering. So, for example, at any one time you could be delivering a workshop for one brand, creating a content strategy deck for another and providing out of hours community management support to another. As freelancers, they went on to say, we should be looking at how we can evolve and shape our careers around ourselves, our needs and our preferred ways of working rather than the other way around.
While I agree with a lot of what they had to say, there were bits I balked at. After all, one person’s ‘archaic’ is another’s ‘doing what they have to do to keep paying the mortgage’. As anyone who is freelance knows, it’s difficult out there right now. I’ve been doing this for (counts on fingers) seven years and I’ve never known it to be so difficult to win - and then keep - work. Budgets are being cut all over the place. Day rates are decreasing. Clients are determined to make people come into the office, even when there’s absolutely no need for them to be there. Layering your work is great, but if someone is offering you a remote agency gig for £400 a day for six months, you’d be silly not to grab it with both hands.
For better or worse, I’ve always layered my projects. I like to have a number of clients under my belt at any time, because it means that, if a budget is cut or someone suddenly has a change of heart about bringing in a freelancer, I always have some income coming in. Most freelancers I know are the same. Relying on one client is far too risky, even if they’re the best client in the world. I’m not going to lie and say that it hasn’t led to me burning out sometimes, or taking on more work than I can handle, but I also know that I need to protect myself in case shit hits the fan.
However, the thought of running ten different projects concurrently makes my brain short circuit like a laptop that’s just had a pint of water poured onto it. My hilariously unmedicated ADHD mind could not cope with having to juggle ten different competing deadlines, feedback and demands. I would have to take to my bed like a Victorian lady suffering from an attack of the vapours. I’m sure that many people reading this would feel the same. If you’re about to go freelance, you should ask yourself honestly if you could handle more than one client at once. If you’ve ever worked in an agency, you’ve probably got more than adequate experience of this, and kudos to you. An aside - at one time, I was doing community management for brands where I had to take on the personas of a talking Carrot, the Green Giant and a teenage boy. My therapist saw a lot of me during that period. If you’ve been used to working in-house, you should think hard about whether this is something you can handle.
At the end of the day, freelancing is what you make of it. One person’s ‘archaic’ is another’s ‘working four days a week and getting Fridays off to sit around writing a silly little newsletter’. People have lives and commitments and things that are much much bigger than making sure an Instagram post about washing powder goes out on time.
Instead of telling people what kind of freelancers they should be, we should be working together to make it fairer and easier for those of us who have chosen this career path. I’m much more concerned with falling day rates and demands to return to the office than how you make your money. You have to make your career work for you, not anyone else. Truly, the most modern way to be a freelancer is to make your own rules.
JOBS BOARD
Freelance: Monty are hiring a freelance Social Media Manager
Full Time: Manchester-based Faith in Nature are recruiting a Social Media & Community Manager
Full Time: National Theatre are looking for a Social Media and Content Coordinator
Full Time: Fancy stationery company Papier need a Social Media and Influencer Executive
Part Time: The Health Association are recruiting a Social Media Assistant
INTERESTING THING OF THE WEEK: REDDIT’S APPROACH TO CONTENT MODERATION
If you’ve been reading Social Lives for as long as I’ve been writing it, you will know that community management is my first social media love. I truly believe that a community can’t thrive without someone putting some guardrails in place before it turns into a seething mass of clout chasers and Nazis. Or, as it’s more commonly known nowadays, X.
One platform that is really nailing it right now is Reddit, which recently launched an I.P.O with a $6.4 billion valuation. Seeing Reddit go from toxic cesspit to one of the most vital resources on the modern internet has been quite the journey, as the New York Times discusses. It attributes this to it having robust content moderators who aren’t afraid to sanction bad actors.
Whatever you think of Reddit, this article is definitely worth a read. Which reminds me, I really need to go and do my daily read of r/realhousewives.
IN THE NEWS
Facebook is trying to make ‘poking’ cool again. Good luck with that (TechCrunch)
In more ‘Good luck with that,’ news - LinkedIn is adding Games to the platform (TechCrunch)
Instagram is testing longer reels to maximise engagement (Social Media Today)
Instagram is also launching ads with promo codes to entice purchase activity (Social Media Today)
Threads is testing a new side-swiping feature to help users finetune the algorithm that shows content on their ‘For You’ feeds. (Engadget)
THINGS I LIKE
Can LinkedIn do for news what Meta and Twitter couldn’t? (Fast Company)
X wants to ‘pivot to video.’ Because that worked so well the first time. (Intelligencer)
‘If Books Could Kill’ leans in (If Books Could Kill podcast)
Anna Jones’s Lemon, Green Chilli and Cheddar tart would make a perfect spring lunch (House & Garden)
A GOOD TIKTOK
I am in love with this man who looks like someone’s dentist and makes minimal techno bangers you’d hear in Berghain at 4am.
No Social Lives next week as I’ll be on a plane to Dublin. See you in a fortnight! x