Marketing and advertising teams look less for search engine marketing (SEM) skills and focus more on search engine optimization (SEO) and traditional advertising, according to the latest figures from Freelancer.com .
The digital freelance marketplace today released its Q3 2022 Fast 50 Index highlighting the fastest growing jobs on its platform and the skills in demand right now.
Regarding marketing and advertising trends, the data revealed that projects for SEM fell 30.4% in the third quarter, or 2,300 jobs to 1,600, compared to the previous quarter. In contrast, jobs in digital marketing, traditional marketing, and YouTube attracted strong interest.
According to Freelancer.com, employers are looking for help with SEO rankings, with SEO-optimized blog writing jobs increasing by 55%. YouTube projects were also up 32.3% quarter over quarter, while TikTok jobs were up 10%.
Digital marketing also saw an increase (23.1%), with jobs ranging from hiring business consultants supporting social media strategies to SEO managers. During the third quarter, employers also turned to the Freelancer.com platform to hire community managers, digital marketing campaign managers and social media managers.
Traditional advertising was another area of interest for employers. For example, flyer design projects increased by more than a quarter (27.5 percent), as did cover and packaging design, up 27.3 percent (1,253 to 1,596 jobs). . Additionally, when comparing Q3 2022 to 2021, ad design is up 15.7% from 1,516 to 1,755 jobs.
“As new digital marketing channels emerge, companies are learning that their strategies need to diversify away from primary channels, such as SEM,” commented Freelancer.com Marketing Director Hector Perez-Nieto. “Paid advertising alone is no longer the most viable alternative. What we are seeing is a demand for freelancers with skills in social media, short video platforms, acquired and owned content , SEO, and a whole host of marketing strategies that were once reserved for large corporations.
On the sales front, lead generation and cold calling proved to be a popular type of project in the third quarter, with lead generation jobs jumping 25.3% from 1,387 to 1,738. Sales-specific jobs also increased by 18.7%, from 2,544 to 3,020 total projects.
Most in-demand technical skills
Across the index, Freelancer.com reported the largest increase in tech-related jobs in Q3 compared to Q2 2022 and Q3 2021. Most notable was app development work Android, which grew 80.5% from 1,082 jobs to 1,954. Next were website and software development skills in AJAX (up 66.4%, from 1,059 to 1,763) and in API (up 59.5%, from 1,587 to 2,532).
Overall, software development is the fastest growing skill, up 54.7%, followed by coding and back-end development.
Freelancer.com attributed the surge in tech-related freelance jobs, which first appeared in Q2 2022 earnings, to global tech layoffs and hiring freezes during what’s being called “tech winter.” “. He pointed out that more than 42,000 American tech workers lost their jobs in 2022. The online tracker, Layoffs.fyi, also reported 83,173 layoffs from 661 startups this year in October 2022, almost half of the total of 179,164 tech layoffs recorded since inception. of Covid-19.
“The macroeconomic environment, tech winter and nosebleed inflation have led to an almost daily string of layoff announcements,” said Freelancer.com CEO Matt Barrie. “The most similar event was the global financial crisis, where we saw three trends: companies looking to cut costs and turning to hiring freelancers; people looking for a job online; and many start-ups are forming to help people through tough times. However, this mainly concerned the United States. We believe that in 2023 we could revisit all of this, but on a more global scale.
The Freelancer.com Index is based on data from 296,000 jobs posted on Freelancer.com between July 1 and September 30, 2022.
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