Marketers turn to freelancers for social media help

Marketing departments are more likely to turn to freelancers for help with social media than for other areas of corporate communications, including public relations, design, or copywriting services, a new poll shows.

The 2023 Fiverr Workforce Index looked at the most common areas where freelancers are commissioned, based on surveys conducted with 502 UK decision-makers. The poll was conducted by market research agency Sapio in May 2023.

Demand for freelancers was highest in the field of social media, where 34% of respondents said they were most likely to hire a freelancer for this skillset. Web development was the second most popular area (32%), followed by public relations (32%).

“Freelancers are increasingly engaged to support an understaffed workforce,” a Fiverr spokesperson said.

“Nearly four in ten businesses said that they worked with freelancers to support staff workloads. A similar number said freelancers were used to increase the productivity of the organisation.”

Companies said they were more inclined to use freelancers to fill skills gaps because finding the right people for the available salaries has become more difficult in the current market environment.

For larger companies, researchers found that high competition for skilled candidates and higher salary demands from prospective employees had become the main barrier to making new hires.

Smaller companies said budgetary constraints and inadequately skilled applicants were the most significant obstacles they faced.