Freelancing online is one of the best ways to generate income while in college. Not only are you generating income to sustain yourself, but you also control your own time.
This freedom allows you to work whenever you want, and to focus on your studies whenever you need to.
In this post, I would like to share with you a specific freelancing strategy: using Reddit for freelancing (from my own experience).
In my experience: with every post I shared, I got roughly 3-5 interested clients. I also got to meet and network with many interesting people that I respect and value (although this wasn’t my aim). So I got to both network, as well as generate some income using Reddit.
Assuming: that you already have a skill to monetize and market, and you chose a niche to focus on (this is not the topic of this post).
And the good news? I’m not selling you any course, the content is totally free. So let me share my strategy:
Choose a subreddit:
The first thing I did was take a walk on Reddit. It’s very important to understand how others interact using any social website.
Note: Reddit is much different than Twitter or Facebook.
So the first plan of action: consume content and visit different subreddits.
What’s a subreddit?
“a subreddit is a forum dedicated to a specific topic on the website Reddit.” – Definitions from Oxford Languages
The subreddit I chose to focus on was r/forhire.
This is a general subreddit and I would recommend checking it out.
You can also browse for subreddits from your own niche.
For example: if you’re a designer, then r/DesignJobs might be a suitable subreddit for you to pursue.
Subbredits for freelancing:
- r/forhire
- r/B2BForHire
- r/HireaWriter
- r/designjobs
- r/logorequests
- r/programmingrequests
- r/programmingtasks
- r/gameDevClassifieds
Read the terms:
Always read the terms of any subreddit you plan on marketing your services at.
Many subreddits don’t allow self-promotion (for a good reason). But that’s fine, there are still many subreddits where you can do so.
Also, subreddits usually limit how many times you can post, so be careful not to break the rules.
Create a pitch plan and experiment:
Now that you chose a subreddit to market your services through, it’s time for you to write down the pitch.
A gift:
Usually, people don’t like to share their templates either because it’s working very well for them, or because they’re insecure.
The truth is, I found moderate success with my template, and I do believe that it needs improvement.
Nothing is perfect, but I think it’s a good one for beginners to get inspiration from and to create their own versions.
This is one of my pitches at r/forhire that got me a few interested clients:
And remember to always experiment and change a few things with each new post to see if it makes your copy any better.
Bid on work:
I’m gonna be honest here, I found that bidding on work posted by clients to be an inferior tactic to writing your pitch and publishing it on the subreddit.
But if you have free time, you won’t lose much by reaching out to clients first. It’s worth a try.
Good luck!
