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sqldoug
Community Member

Any success with "Popular Projects" feature?

Have any freelancers had success attracting clients with the new "Popular Projects" feature? I added several projects a few weeks ago and I haven't had any interest. I don't know if clients aren't seeing them or if I need to make some changes to their description or price.

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gilbert-phyllis
Community Member

I was shanghaied into that program. I find it impossible to tell whether it's helping, hurting, or having no effect at all. The reason is that UW tinkers with multiple variables at the same time. We can't conduct our own controlled experiments and we can't rely on theirs.

 

A few months ago, I raised the hourly rate on my profile, not realizing that UW was about to make changes to the client plans and benefits; introduce paid connects; start putting silly icon stickers on our profiles; test direct messaging from clients; 'beta test' spamming our former clients about our current feedback; and 'beta test' Popular Profiles, all within the space of a few months. How can anybody get a sense of the impact (or lack thereof) of any one factor when multiple things are being modified all at the same time?

The Popular Projects feature has just come up on my profile.... it looks interesting and I would like to know more about it.... but I don't. There isn't even any little questionmarks next to anything like there is on everything else.

 

I've tried googling it to see if they've written an article explaining what it is and how it works, but I just keep getting brought back to angry posts in the community...Smiley Frustrated

 

It looks like we get to choose one of the project areas (for example content writing) and offer an article, let's say. We choose a price range, the related skills we can offer and write a description of what we can do for a client (like descriptive content writing for webpages.... i do research....proofread... and whatever else you do when writing an article). But this is just a guess from what I can see on my profile....

-I would like to know if that's actually what it is,

-why there is a minimun start price preset (to higher than I would charge for a 1000W article),

-how does this reach our clients? Like do they search for "article" or "content writing" and it comes up as a service offer to them? Like their job offers appear to us, but the other way round?

 

That's my best guess but I don't know for sure because I haven't found an actual explaination yet.... but if that's what it is then I think it might be useful. As long as our profiles still appear the way they do and there's a separate way for clients to search for "popular projects".

 

I'm gonna test it out anyway and see what happens. If anyone wants to look in a bit and see if it actually appears? I'll try and look too...

tomzilla1
Community Member

Nope, Upwork team had a 1 hour video chat with me. I provided feedback, nothing improved in my opinion sadly.

I had their terrible suggested products and pricing up for a while because I didn't have time to change it. Then I finally did switch to my own costomized listing. I don't think it's helped in the slightest, and I don't think I like it. It's pigeonholing. Think I will dump it if I can find some time to spare during the holidays.


Kelly B wrote:

I had their terrible suggested products and pricing up for a while because I didn't have time to change it. Then I finally did switch to my own costomized listing. I don't think it's helped in the slightest, and I don't think I like it. It's pigeonholing. Think I will dump it if I can find some time to spare during the holidays.



In a way, I think ithe whole notion of Popular Projects runs completely counter to what I need to do, i.e., customized bids for individual projects. 

Even though most people aren't normally aware of them, there are a lot of variables that mean that one 20K-word project isn't the same as any another 20K-word project. Or maybe I can just use the popular projects area as a space to suggest that there are no one-size-fits-all projects, and that clients really need to send me their documents so I can assess their them on an individual basis?

I think I might have finally found something I can use this for, although I won't be using it in the way UpWork intended.  

I think as long as it's useful to you they'll be happy!
researchediting
Community Member

I use Popular [sic] Projects as a price list. It likely drives away some tirekickers, which could be counted as a kind of success. It may attract some more serious buyers—there's no way to know. I have noticed lately that some invitations and offers I get from new clients start with my baseline rate, which may be a function of that rate being contextualized by a price list.

The only possible benefit I've seen from it is that it seemed (with so many variables, though, who knows?) to have possibly cut down on lowball invitations.

 

I can't figure out how to edit it anymore, though. I could originally (thank goodness, since Upworks items were things like, "Articles starting at $3,400"), but now it seems that I can neither edit nor remove them. I've eliminated some offerings and my pricing has changed, so it's all wrong now, but I have either misplaced the edit button or it's no longer possible.

I removed mine.

I think I have a couple of quiet weeks coming up workwise, so I might take it as an opportunity to tinker with it. Although I might take the opportunity to drink gin instead. 

Tiffany - try mousing over the individual rows.  When I do that a pencil pops up in the box. I think you can just click on the individual listings as well.

 

I think I've gotten one hit from this feature, and that was last week from a previous client with some new work.

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