GeekUp is a community of web industry professionals based in the North of England (Manchester, Liverpool & Leeds). It provides a job board and regular get-togethers which helps to get freelancers out of their houses once a month. I think GeekUp is awesome but I think it can be improved and here’s how:
1. Create an online directory of members
From a GeekUp member’s prospective, being able to upload your picture, a short blurb about yourself and what your key skills are plus a link to your websites is great and being able to see other GeekUp member’s faces plus their skillset could be really useful. However, the advantages of an online directory stretch beyond the convines of the GeekUp community to those looking to hire web professionals. Being able to see all the different freelancers/agencies in one location would really give a client looking to hire someone a real advantage.
2. Promote job listings service to the wider community
GeekUp is great for seeing the a few new long-term and one-off jobs but there are more web jobs across Manchester/Liverpool/Leeds than aren’t getting posted on GeekUp. We need some way to promote GeekUp’s job board to the outside world so, instead of people spending £1000s on a small advert in the local newspaper they can advertise for free (or a small fee) with GeekUp and get quality applicants.
GeekUp’s audience consists of forward thinking web professionals – the type of people who companies desperately need in order to be successful online. Therefore, it makes sense that anyone looking for a new web designer/developer/SEO consultant/ecommerce manager should be posting on GeekUp’s job board to gain the attention of one of its talented members. GeekUp job listings could be charged for if the poster is not a GeekUp member as a way to monetise GeekUp and finance other projects.
3. Create a blog network
Another way to promote members and itself, would be to create a blog network which would allow GeekUp to route traffic through its different members and back again. The main thing is to create an aura of expertise about the GeekUp community and creating a blog network could help highlight the strength in breadth across the North of England’s web community.
9rules is a blog network that redirects a lot of traffic to its members’ sites. People trust 9rules as a brand and expect that they will find good topics from its members. Those members in turn link back to 9rules with a small badge/button on their blog.
Summary
These 3 suggestions could be dismissed as the arrogant ramblings of GeekUp newcomer but, they are not meant to diminish the achievements currently laid out by GeekUp’s founders. I think GgeekUp is a great organisation that could be pushed forward to work for the community even more than it has currently.
I’d love to hear what other GeekUp people think of my ideas.
Hmm. I’ve got two jobs from it now, There is no spam, and all the entries are decent, high quality and relevant. Word of mouth seems to be playing its part here, which is why I prefer it as it is.
Good point Anon, why reach for the stars when you can settle for the mud on the ground?
There’s no doubting the quality of the jobs posted currently but if the system is opened up and promoted perhaps you’ll get even more jobs from it in the future?
Hi Phil, thanks for your points, it’s always good to hear was people think. 1 and 2 have been on the drawing board for months it’s just about finding the time. To answer 3 we have a list of Member feeds on over at http://afeeda.com/GeekUp that might interest you.
Hello Andrew, great news about the directory and jobs listings being in the pipeline.