Project Social celebrated its one-year anniversary about one month ago, and I must say that I couldn’t have survived without all of the great gigs I’ve purchased on Fiverr.com.  I have already written one blog post telling you about this incredible website where you can find people willing to do all kinds of things for $5 (you can read it here).  You may ask, “How good can it be for $5?”  Let me tell you, most of the work has been amazing.

Of course those people who work with me regularly know that I found Roger (my landing page and logo designer) and Manny (my WordPress technical guru – @MannyStudios) on Fiverr, and both are invaluable players on my virtual team!  I’ve also found plenty of other great people to help with various projects.  

The Good

Here are my top gigs that those in my profession may want to purchase from Fiverr:

(1) Twitter and YouTube custom backgrounds – Have you seen those companies that will make you custom backgrounds for $50 to $100?  Fuggedaboutit!  There are plenty of good designers on Fiverr who will design what you want for $5 each.

(2)  eBook Covers – Looking for a way to make your book look really cool on your website, email or other digital marketing pursuits?  Here’s an example of what you can do…

But eBook cover designers can also create other formats of your covers.  In addition to getting a paperback 3D version, this particular gig also provided me with these formats too… all for $5!!!

But this is just an example of taking a real book cover and making it into different formats.  Below, you can see the cover to an eBook which I wrote and my Fiverr seller created an original cover.

Click the image above to get my eBook!

(3) Fanbuilding – One of the biggest social media challenges for businesses setting up new Facebook pages is building their fanbase.  After all, who wants to be one of the first people to click “Like” on a page?  Yes, this is a dirty little social media secret, but if your goal is to quickly build your fanbase (and if you don’t care who your fans are… at least initially), there are plenty of Fiverr sellers who will “Share” your page with their fans.  I admit, this goes against every rule of building an honest fanbase for your Facebook page, but if you do it once at the beginning, it really doesn’t hurt. Same with Twitter followers, and even YouTube subscribers!

(4) Create a Squeeze Page – One of my clients needed a quick sales/squeeze page designed, with few bells & whistles.  Fiverr to the rescue!  There are several Fiverr sellers who can make a fantastic page for you.

(5) Create a short video – Another client wanted to do some quick videos about characters in her book.  She later showed them to me and I said, “Cool, who did those?” and she said, “Somebody on Fiverr!”  Amazing what people will do for $5, isn’t it?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb8Ymdbl_XE[/youtube]

(6) Photoshopping – There are people on Fiverr who will fix photos for you, and quickly. Is there an unsightly pimple on your face in a photo? How about an ex you want removed from a shot (although you love how YOU look in this photo)?  Did a relative violate the dress code in your most recent family portrait when you just want everybody to look the same?  There are lots of Fiverr sellers who can fix that and other problems.

The Bad

Here are a couple of gigs I’ve purchased that I didn’t think were worth it:

(1) Video Testimonials – A client wanted to build up his video testimonial library and asked me to order him one of these Fiverr gigs.  Ugggh.  It really wasn’t good.  The Fiverr guy tried hard but it just didn’t sound real.  You might be able to find better Fiverr sellers than I did, but you’d do better to get testimonials from your real clients.

(2) Backlink Building – A few of my clients (and myself) ordered some gigs where we ordered backlinks which would help improve SEO.  The sellers did what they said they would (and also sent proof) but even after 2 weeks, it was impossible to determine how much this impacted our Google rankings.

So there you have it… if you want recommendations from me as to whom I’ve used in the past, go ahead and ask!