Is your community of professionals really a marketplace of talent?

Photo by Thomas Lipke on Unsplash

Not too long ago, Vimeo, a professional video platform, launched its own marketplace of talent. It was a super-smart move that allowed the platform to provide huge value to the community of professional video creators who used it as a tool.

It added another layer that boosted engagement and even provided business opportunities to the users.

You’ll probably ask how a video platform has anything to do with a freelance marketplace. The answer is simple: it’s just a smart use of the community that is already there anyway. The value is clear, the market is huge, and the money involved is low-hanging fruit. Just pick it.

Now, if you are the intended reader this article is for, you probably lead a community of professionals, just like I did (I even wrote about it in my last piece How I made $1.5M from my community and how you can do the same).

I’d like to convince you to turn your community into a marketplace of talent, and I’ve created the perfect tool for you to do it with.

A marketplace of talents based on Comonetize platform

Why should you do it?

1. Take a look at your community. Does it have marketplace characteristics? Are people getting business opportunities because they are a part of it?

2. When recruiters or businesses discover your community, do they feel they’ve hit the talent jackpot and start publishing job offers?

3. Are people complimenting you on the amazing professional space you’ve created?

4. Are you getting any payback for the effort you’ve put into your community?

If the answers are yes, yes, yes and no, you might want to consider making things more official.

We are all aware of the fact that the gig market is here to stay and is actually on its way to become 50% of the workforce in America.

What you probably weren’t aware of is the fact that the job board industry is a $12BN market, and it’s steadily growing.

Creating a community board for your talents to be found on and for opportunities to be posted is the most reasonable thing for you to do, and here are some of the reasons:

1. Your community is meaningful and people are proud to be a part of it. Let them create a beautiful profile for themselves and decide what kind of info and notifications they want to receive from you.

2. When recruiters and community members realize the value they’re getting from the board, they’ll be more than happy to pay for this service. I drilled down on this scenario in a previous article: Specific methods of monetizing your community’s recruiting activity.

3. Engaging this kind of membership subscription will give you peace of mind and encourage you to invest more in your community, knowing that it’s now also lucrative for you.

So, whether you run a community of beauticians, nurses, programmers or designers, it’s time to make things “official” with your audience.

Check Comonetize for more info.