Skyword

What is Skyword?

Skyword is a content marketing company that connects Fortune 500 companies with freelance writers, photographers, videographers and designers, who can help create content for hire.

How it works

To sign up with Skyword as a freelancer, you’ll first put yourself in a category — writer, videographer, photographer or designer.

The site will then prompt you to sign in with an email and password and accept the site’s terms and privacy policy.

From there you’ll be led through a process to fill out a detailed profile, with work samples and a bio.

The site’s prompts encourage you to put in all the relevant information that would help a creative director determine whether you’d be a good match to create content for a specific client. These include your experience, educational background, areas of expertise, as well as samples of your work.

Skyword Review:

Skyword connects Fortune 1000 clients with content creators, to produce blog posts, infographics and corporate videos. The client sets the rate of pay, which can be accepted or rejected by the freelancer. Skyword charges the client, not the freelancer, a fee for the matchmaking service.

Instead of simply waiting to be randomly discovered by clients, Skyword matches freelancers with clients they believe are appropriate for each other. Creators get an email when an assignment matches their skills.

However, the site also encourages freelancers to keep their profiles current, adding new stories as they write them, and including keywords and tags, to make their profiles more visible.

Notably, this is not a site where it pays to sign up as a generalist. The vast majority of Skyword’s clients are looking for professionals in a well-defined niche. If you are vague — or too broad — about the kind of work you do, you’re unlikely to find assignments here. Even your location matters, since some clients are looking for regional experts.

And, if you’re fluent in a foreign language, be sure to include that in your profile. It could be a ticket to additional work.

Advantages

The vetting process to get work on the site is apparently extensive. However, that’s also likely to keep out less experienced freelancers, who tend to drive down rates on other platforms.

Freelancers say that the work is relatively consistent, but not constant. And it is generally well-compensated.

For writers, rates range between 25 cents to $1 per word, depending on the complexity of the project.

Additionally, writers and videographers can be added to “channels,” which open them up to assignments offered by specific clients and niches. Each talent request explains the nature of the assignment, deadlines and any details that the freelancer would need to keep in mind. The freelancer can then bid on that project.

Bids should include your story angle and what makes you the best fit for this project. Other Skyword creators are likely to be bidding against you.

Kill fee

If the client decides not to publish a piece, Skyword makes sure the freelancer collects a kill fee equal to 50% of the agreed-upon price. This insures that freelancers won’t walk away empty-handed after doing substantial work. On other sites, clients are often able to renege on job assignments after the work is complete.

Pay

Each assignment has a rate of pay associated with it. The site pays writers via PayPal completed assignments twice monthly.

Videographers are paid 50% on acceptance of an assignment and 50% at the completion. These payments are available almost immediately.

Recommendations

If you’re an experienced writer or videographer with a defined niche, this can be a great place to find additional clients.

Other sites to consider if you’re a writer are Contently and Cracked.

If you’re a photographer or videographer, you may want to look at Creatively or WorkingNotWorking. For those who do graphic design and web development, check out FreeUp and OnwardSearch.

What their users say: (From G2Crowd)

The editorial teams are great to work with and Skyword pays very market-competitive prices. I’ve loved working with Skyword so much over the past several years that I’ve referred them to several other freelancers. There are few content platforms that really stand out as offering good pay and good management, but Skyword is at the top.

I am creating content for several small, midsize, and large businesses. I might have overlooked these businesses in my job searches previously. So the biggest benefit from the Skyword platform has been the chance to connect with businesses who share my values to create content I’m proud of.