Why outsource work to freelancers?

There are a number of reasons why organisations typically hire freelancers, which – like any business decision – has advantages and disadvantages.

There is generally a cost benefit to employing freelancers. While a freelancer will typically charge more on a per-hour basis than a full-time employee, you will only pay for the hours you actually need, and no more. Additionally, you won’t have to pay all the overheads associated with regular employees: healthcare, holiday pay, sick pay, pension contributions, and other benefits that are part of the package of full-time employment.

Secondly, hiring freelancers is a good way to bring in specific skills and competencies that your core team does not have, often for a specific task or project. Rather than training up one of your existing team, or hiring a full-time employee, you can find the skills you need quickly.

Finally, freelancers are a good way to fill a gap – not just in skills but in time. There are only so many hours in the day, and if there are tasks that are proving a distraction from more important work for your team, then a freelancer can ease the pressure.

What type of work should you outsource?

From this summary, you can see that there are several types of work that are ideally suited to outsourcing to freelancers, and situations where this can be a good strategy.

• Skilled work that requires competencies your team does not have – especially if this is an occasional or one-off task. For example, if you’re a small business and you need someone to set up a new IT system, this is likely the kind of thing you can outsource. You can include occasional or ongoing maintenance of such systems in this category. The point is that it’s a specialist task that does not fall into the remit of any of your existing staff, and it would not be worth hiring a full-time employee to do it because there would not be enough suitable work to justify their salary the rest of the time.
• Unskilled work. At the other end of the scale, if you’re finding that you or your full-time employees are spending a lot of time on tasks that do not require particular experience or qualifications, and that would typically be relatively low-paid, this is also the kind of thing that can generally be outsourced. It’s a waste of money for your core team to carry out this work, unless there are very good reasons (for example, if it involves dealing with sensitive data).
• Sporadic tasks. If there are activities that only need doing once in a while, and that don’t require particular knowledge of your core business, then it may again be best to outsource these so they don’t become a distraction for your full-time employees.
• Out-of-hours work. The crypto world is 24/7, and there may be times when you need someone around to fly the flag for your company. Depending on how many people you employ, and where they are based, it may be unrealistic to always expect one of your core team to do that – but it’s the ideal case for bringing in one or more freelancers.

If it doesn’t matter whether someone is in your physical offices or not (assuming you even have physical offices – many Web3 companies employ a completely dispersed workforce), then that also strengthens the case for bringing in freelancers. Some businesses rely almost entirely on freelancers, and in the early days of starting a new venture, it can be a good way to keep costs low while you build your user base and seek funding.

What jobs are suitable for freelancers?

As a Web3 business, there are probably several activities you’re already undertaking that are ideally suited to outsourcing. Doing so can save you time and money, freeing you and your core team up to concentrate on more important things.

1. Content creation.

Most crypto businesses will publish a huge amount of content, of various kinds and in different formats, as part of their marketing strategy. This includes blog posts, technical white papers, ‘lite papers’, business papers, executive summaries, research reports, videos and explainers, press releases (PRs), articles for the crypto and mainstream media, pitch decks for investors, social media posts, memes, and more.

Some of this is more sensitive and specialist, and creating it should generally be kept in-house. For example, if you’re putting together a pitch deck to take to VC or other funders, you’ll probably want to do the core of the work on this yourself, even if you do ultimately collaborate with someone external to polish it. Similarly, a technical white paper requires in-depth knowledge of your software and business, and a third party cannot be expected to do this justice.

Other content, though, is less specialist and can usefully be outsourced. A lot of your day-to-day output, for example, will be designed to improve your SEO footprint as well as inform your audience. So long as a freelancer has enough information about your organisation, they should be able to create blogs and articles that serve this purpose perfectly well. Additionally, you may want to publish video posts, which may need particular multimedia skills that your existing content team does not have. Writing the script for this and turning it into a video are two separate tasks, one or both of which may be outsourced. Similarly, almost every piece of content you create will be publicised using social media posts, which will summarise them and link to the article or video. While you can do this in-house, you might choose to hand that work over to a freelancer too.

2. Social media marketing and management

Social media will be a vital part of your outreach and communication as a Web3 business, but it can consume a lot of time. There are multiple different platforms to post on, different formats and media that work best on each, and you’ll need to maintain a degree of engagement with the conversations that arise. You’ll need to come up with strategies for attracting and holding the attention of your target audience, and you’ll want to stay up-to-date with platform policies, algorithm changes, and any other information that will impact your ability to use them to the best possible effect.

Much of this can be outsourced to one or more freelancers. For example, you might want to design and launch a social media marketing campaign for a specific product release, which will take time and capabilities you may not have in-house. Conversely, the low-skilled day-to-day scheduling and posting of content is also something you can usefully hand off to a freelancer.

3. Community management and customer service

Similarly, your Discord and Telegram channels will – fingers crossed – be thriving venues that serve as hubs for your community to meet, find out more about what you do, have their questions and concerns answered, share ideas, and just hang out.

However, it doesn’t take much for discussions to be derailed, misinformation to proliferate, negativity to spread, and for an online community to become a toxic place. Monitoring and managing large communities is a full-time job. It’s not particularly skilled work, but it requires patience and care.

Again, this is an ideal job for freelancers to do. You will often be able to find good people within the community itself: they will be the ones who are already active, helpful and positive, and who are informally carrying out the work you need someone to do. Giving them a formal, paid position as a representative of your organisation is a win/win, and it gives these community members a greater sense of ownership and pride about your project.

This will not require a high level of expertise. Much of the work is about moderating discussions and preventing unpleasantness before it starts. Arming them with some basic information is generally enough to cover the most common questions (which will be asked over and over). If there is something they can’t answer, they can bring it to your attention. By acting as a filter for questions, community managers can save you a lot of time.

4. Graphic design

Graphic design is a service you will need regularly, but probably not for any great length of time on any given occasion. Unless you’re a very large organisation, you won’t want to hire a full-time designer. A freelancer (ideally the same freelancer, who you work with on an ongoing basis) can provide what you need, when you need it.

5. Data entry

There are few jobs more frustrating and time-consuming than data entry. This is generally an unskilled activity that it’s not worth anyone in your full-time team doing – especially if there’s a lot of it. For a small fee, you can outsource this work to someone else. If you pick a freelancer in the right country, you can set things up so that the work is done overnight for your timezone, so that it’s ready when you come in the next morning.

6. Website design

From time to time you’ll want to refresh or overhaul your website, or launch a different site for a new strand of your business. Depending on what you’re after, this is definitely something it’s worth outsourcing to a freelancer. Even if you just need a simple WordPress site, if you’re not familiar with the latest version then it can take valuable time to refamiliarise yourself with everything – while someone who knows what they’re doing can set it up for you quickly and easily.

If you want something more professional-looking and bespoke, then you’re looking at using various programming languages and platforms to create what you need. There’s a good chance you won’t have that experience in-house – in which case, once again, it’s worth hiring someone who does have the right competencies, and who will do a better job in less time than any developers in your company, who will have to be taken off their existing jobs to do it.

Conclusion

Hiring freelancers is a great way to bring in skills and competencies your core team does not have, while paying only for the time you need them. Similarly, it’s a good option when faced with unskilled work that would typically be relatively low-paid, and which you’re understandably reluctant to give to your full-time employees, since it’s a distraction from the more skilled work they’re supposed to be doing. Moreover, freelancers can be based anywhere in the world, so it’s a good way to cover needs that arise at certain times of day – for example, making sure there’s someone to staff your customer service when it’s out of your regular office hours.

With a platform like LaborX, you can search a dispersed, global pool of freelancers, hiring from the largest possible labour market. If you’re uncertain what you need, or whether a given freelancer is suitable for the job, start with a short-term arrangement like a Gig. If it works out, you can continue to employ them on an ongoing basis – either by posting a custom Job for them to apply to, or by enlisting them on a full-time basis, if they are interested in the position.

Learn more about managing a freelance team