Digital Collaborator

Digital Collaborator is a person who facilities collaboration between graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, videographers, copywriters (digital creator) with small businesses or consultants

– It’s my definition about this role

I am really not sure if there is something that exists, but when you are in the business where you keep looking for new ways fill in the gap and create business development opportunities. You can come up with these ideas.

When you see something working and more people can use the framework why not share this with rest of the world.

I got inspired by youtubers, technical nomads, Instagram influencers, remote work and growth of internet. I never knew these roles and work will start popping up here and there.

Problem statement 1: Small businesses and consultants have to constantly create content which is time-consuming, expensive and most importantly creative.

Problem statement 2: Digital creators have to keep getting more awareness on thier work and keep finding new paid gigs.

There has been a surge of a concept called free collaboration that many think could get you some big paid work.

This is how it could work for you the digital creator

• You connect with small business or consultants who are most likely your future customers (Your tribe)
• You offer them your service for free, it should take you around 1-2 hours to do
• Asking in return to tag you or put your handle/email/phone in your digital work
• You do a dozen of such free collaboration per month
• If your work is really good people will contact you
• The cumulative reach of your work in your space will be more than you can do individually

How do you know if as a digital creator this is a good 12-24 hours of your time spent?

The short answer is you don’t. The long answer is if you have Instagram/Facebook/LinkedIn account and your view per post is around 100 to 300. It’s better to collaborate with your future client and start building a relationship. You learn about thier pain points what is a good stats for them in terms of awareness, likes and share. You also connect with the people who take care about the business social media marketing. You add up some body of work in your portfolio which is used by businesses.

Yes, I know there are few people who hate doing free work. This is not for everyone. This is the for those who have big ambitions and are ready to sacrifice today for the brighter tomorrow. If you have paid work that you are happy with this is not for you. But, if you want to go to next level or big league this free work can be a leap. You can experiment with work that no one is doing in your industry.

What’s in it for the business?

You are in the year 2020. I don’t need to explain you the importance of social media in the todays business world. If you are NOT in the online world even if you are in offline business. It’s difficult to get new leads which means less new business. Content Marketing is the one which could help you in long term. If you are the one who is vocal and have ideas why customers should buy from you. The digital transformation of your idea could be very useful in telling your story.

When the only costs you pay little money to the digital collaborator to post a graphic, photo, text or video on your social media page. It’s worth the experiment. The reason it’s worth is because you don’t have to spend hours finding digital creator for free collaboration. Yes, you can also ask someone from your team but I am sure you hired them for some specific business work. A seasoned digital collaborator could have good contacts that bring you up to the speed.

Hello Digital Collaborator, if you are still reading. Congratulations!!!

Why should you be a Digital Collaborator?

• You will make good connection with digital creators in the area of your interest (networking skills)
• You will learn more about content marketing in practice without learning any digital skills. (You can choose to learn it later)
• You will get a chance to connect with small business owners and consultants. It could give you some break. (a bit of Sales skills)
• You can create your own content after sometime documenting your experiences. (personal branding skills)
• You will improve in problem solving, answering difficult questions, getting comfortable with rejections and handling objections (interpersonal skills)
• You can turn this into a full fledged scalable business model. Email me at vikramshetty.cancer@gmail.com for learning how to do that.

Who according to me is a good candidate for becoming a digital collaborator?

• College Students with free couple of hours per day
• Someone starting thier career and exploring options
• Home makers
• Retired people
• Anyone looking for some extra money

What do you have to do and how can you make your side money?

• Pick a niche in your career. Pick something you love either on the digital creator side or business side. This is very important for the long term gain
• Select 1 skills of digital creator that you believe will work for the business. Is it photography, graphic design, illustration, blog writing, video etc
• Search for as many examples in the format of the skill that do well so you can write an article like this to explain your Framework of the digital content.
• Content with 100 businesses (preferrably on LinkedIn, use the LinkedIn Opportunity section an change it according to your strategy) and send them this article to explain what you have reached out for. Once connected Send your personal article explaining why you have chosen that business and what kind of content they could do. Once they agree decide on how much they will pay for 10 free digitl content.
• Reach out to 250 digital creator via Instagram (using this method) or blog post and pick the post that you think is relatable with the free collaboration. To begin with they should have less than 500 followers and 100 to 300 likes or views. Put a comment explaining in detail what you liked about that content. Ask a question Would you like to collaborate?
• Find the right fit and communicate the requirements between the digital creators and businesses over the email.
• Once the post is live send your invoice to the business. Calculate the time you spend to connect with 100 businesses + 250 digital creators along with the total money earned.
• If you are happy with the work and money continue it.

What do you need to be a Digital Collaborator?

• Mobile Phone
• Internet connection
• 1-3 hours per day
• Social media user
• Not afraid of hearing No (embracing rejections)

How much time do you need for one collabration (Rough Estimate)?

• Connecting with creators- 1 to 5 minute
• Connecting with businesses – 1 to 5 minutes
• Understanding & documenting business requirement – Around 15-30 minutes
• Explaining it to creators by sending the email – 1 to 2 minutes
• Total time – 18 to 42 minutes

Guesstimate the time for this experiment

• Total time for connecting with 250 creators – 4 to 21 hours
• Total time for connecting with 100 businesses – 1.5 to 8 hours
• Assuming 10% conversion from businesses so requirement time – 2.5 to 5 hours
• Total time – 8 hours to 34 hours
• Average of 2 hours per day will end up into 4 days to 17 days

I hope you find this post useful. I hope this narrows the gap and create some business opportunities to Digital creators, small businesses and digital collaborators. If you have any further questions do not hesitate to ask me at vikramshetty.cancer@gmail.com

If you want a step by step guide on how this can be done you can read it here “Digital Collaborator – Job 001”

If you think that this job role is legit, leave a comment or like this post.

It would mean a world to me if you can share this article with one person who needs to make some side money and has in them to what it takes to be a Digital Collaborator. They will thank you for sharing it with them.