For those of you that are new to Upwork:

It’s essentially a marketplace where businesses and individuals can find and hire freelancers for a wide range of projects.

My Journey on Upwork:

I have officially made $100,000 on Upwork as a social media marketer. I’m also a Top-Rated Plus freelancer on the platform with a 100% job success score. Today, I’m going to share with you my top 10 crucial tips that have led me this far—from writing your portfolio, applying to jobs, and crafting killer cover letters. I’ll also be sharing some hacks that I’ve learned along the way that will have a huge impact on your results.

My Upwork Beginning:

I opened my Upwork account in September of 2021. I had just gotten married and moved to Jordan to be with my husband. Before that, my only experience as a social media marketer was working with about three very small and local businesses in my area. I was still just getting my feet wet in the world of social media and had very little experience.

A Shift in My Approach Due to Circumstances:

Being in Jordan, I had to think of new ways to get clients. I needed a process that would allow me to do everything online because, beforehand, I would obviously go in-store and meet these brands in person, which of course was no longer possible. One of the benefits of COVID, if you could even call it a benefit, was that working online and meeting people through Zoom and Google Meets had become more socially acceptable.

Discovering Upwork:

After some YouTube videos and Google searches, I discovered Upwork. It was truly a platform I didn’t expect to have much success on because of all the contradictory reviews. Some people were saying it’s a great platform to work on, and then there were others saying it’s so difficult to get clients on Upwork and it was a complete waste of time. But being newly married, unemployed, and without clients, I didn’t really have a choice—that was my superpower, I guess. I was desperate. I created an account and got to applying for jobs straight away.

Top Tip 1: Take Inspiration from Successful Freelancers:

If you’re beginning your journey on Upwork, I would highly recommend you take a look at other successful freelancers in your niche on the platform and take some inspiration from their accounts. What kind of things are they seeing, and how are they presenting themselves and their work on the platform? Of course, it’s important that you’re not copying them, but take note of their layout and their tone. This really helped me at the start because Upwork was a platform I was completely new to and had no idea how to use. I was able to balance off the success of other freelancers and have a more informed strategy when creating an attractive and interesting profile.

Top Tip 2: Be Friendly and Approachable:

An approach I took early on as well was to be more friendly and chill rather than formal and professional. It’s always been my motto that friendliness and being approachable is 10 times more effective than trying to come across as professional. At the end of the day, they are just normal people on the other side of that screen, no matter how well-established and esteemed their business is. Coming across as more friendly could mean using emojis in your cover letters or even your profile, adding light jokes, or being super positive and encouraging, or talking with more passion—saying “hey” instead of “hello.” Those are just some examples.

Top Tip 3: Offer a Wider Range of Services:

The next few tips were what really generated a lot of success for me personally in my beginning stages on the platform. The first being, I offered a much wider range of services within my profession. Of course, as a social media marketer, we offered copywriting, video editing, graphic design, social media strategy plans, hashtag research, and a few others. My husband and I both worked on the platform together from the same account, so we had a wider range of skills between us. The way I thought about it was, the more things I could offer at that stage, the more jobs I could apply for. So if you’re a copywriter, for example, try to be more broad in your services—you can offer copy for blog writing, copy for websites, copy for social media content, and so on.

Top Tip 4: Apply for a Ton of Jobs:

Another thing that I did, which was apply for a ton of jobs in the beginning. I bought a bunch of connects for around £50. Connects are basically like points you need to apply for jobs. Then I applied for loads and loads of jobs. I’m talking about hours and hours applying for different roles. You really have to grind in those beginning stages to get noticed on Upwork. You need to put yourself in front of more people’s eyes. I think in my first week alone, I applied for like 50 different jobs.

Top Tip 5: Apply to Beginner Jobs:

Another really important tip for you when you’re applying to these jobs is, if you’re a beginner in your profession, please only apply for jobs that are for beginners. If you’re a beginner copywriter and you’re applying for copywriting jobs that are for experts, you are going to be no match for the competition, and more than likely, your proposal is not even going to be considered. The experts that are also applying for those jobs will outdo you by far, so please don’t waste your connects on jobs that are way out of your league.

Top Tip 6: Price Smartly in the Beginning:

And probably one of the most important ones that you’re not going to want to hear, but you need to, is to grow on the platform pretty fast in those beginning stages—you need to be cheap. Not too cheap, but cheap enough. Most of the time when businesses are looking for freelancers, they’re looking for freelancers with experience. They’re looking at your reviews, your success score, and your credibility because a lot of the time it’s pretty easy to get scammed on Upwork. So businesses are quite wary when looking for these types of freelancers, and obviously when you’re starting out, you’re not going to have that. If you do want a chance to win over these clients, you have to offer affordability instead. Because there are businesses out there willing to risk a lack of all the other things for an affordable service. It may not feel nice in the beginning—it didn’t for me—but it’s worth it in the long run. I started out by charging around $15 an hour for the first couple of months, and now I’m charging $40 per hour, which is probably due for an increase, if I’m being completely honest.

Top Tip 7: Personalize Your Cover Letters:

One thing that I found really affable—and it’s a little bit of a secret, but I’m going to tell you anyway—is that I would start off all of my cover letters with the client’s name. When applying for a job, you’re often going to be able to see reviews given by other freelancers that have worked with this client, and a lot of the time, these freelancers will mention their client’s name in the review. For example, a freelancer might say, “John was a great client to work with. He was super straightforward, easy, and fair.” If you see that same name pop up in a few of the reviews, it’s a pretty solid sign that that account owner’s name is John. So what I would do to start off my cover letter would be something like, “Hey, John.” Using someone’s name adds a personal touch to your communication. It shows that you’ve taken the time to address them specifically rather than just using a generic approach, which a lot of people on Upwork do—they just copy and paste cover letters onto different jobs.

Top Tip 8: Read and Respond to Every Job Detail:

Another practice that I found super effective when I’m sending out cover letters is that I will have super personalized responses. It’s important to make the client feel that you’re really passionate and super interested in that specific role. More than likely, they’re a business owner that is super passionate themselves about their business, so to also show that same passion and excitement for their business will almost always have a really positive response. For example, let’s say there’s a client that has a clean beauty brand and they’re looking for a blog writer. And let’s say that you like clean beauty yourself—you could really go in and say something along the lines, “This job post really stuck out to me because I’ve been an advocate for clean beauty for a really long time. I’ve converted my entire family to clean beauty products, and I would love to work with a brand that I’m super passionate about myself.” You can even give them a compliment, “I love how your brand uses minimal ingredients because I’ve always been of the opinion that less is more.” Throwing in a little compliment always goes a long way.

Top Tip 9: Follow Up with Clients:

Let’s say you’ve had a response from a business after you’ve sent out a cover letter. Let’s say you get talking to them, and there’s a little bit of back and forth. Maybe you even go as far as having a Zoom call with them, but then suddenly, after the Zoom meeting or after some conversation, they go dark, and you don’t hear from them again. You’re often left wondering if they like you or maybe they just found someone else for the role. What I’d highly suggest for you to do is follow up with them. Just drop another message like, “Hey, [client’s name], it’s been a while since I’ve heard back. Are you still looking to fill this role? If so, I’m super interested.” A lot of the time, it’s not that they’re not interested in you; it’s that running a business takes a lot of time. Take it from me, and sometimes these potential clients get sidetracked and busy. A lot of the time, they will circle back when they get a chance. But the best part is, when they do decide to come back to Upwork, your message is going to be at the top of the inbox list, and your enthusiasm is going to shine through because you’re still showing interest and you’re super keen and eager. I have signed a good five to six clients just by chasing them up weekly until they respond. Trust me, this hack is golden.

Top Tip 10: Include Your Personal Touch:

And now to show you my cover letter that landed me my first client on Upwork, which made me exactly $978. It was a social media design job for a very small skincare brand. This is what I said in my cover letter: Hi [Client’s Name], I hope you’re doing well and are in the best of health. My name is Nyla, and I’m a social media manager and content creator. Firstly, I would like to say good luck on starting your business. I wish you the best. On the job post, this particular client did mention that they’re a new business owner. I believe I am the most suitable candidate for this job role as I have the skills required and more. I am able to create great content on Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Illustrator. I have been using these softwares for over 3 years. I can do graphic content and video editing. You can check out my portfolio for my previous work. I’m a native English speaker—I remember they did also ask that they wanted a native English speaker—and also have a BA degree in English and creative writing, so I can be counted on for any writing task. I always throw my degree in there; it’s just a little bit of icing on the cake. I look forward to hearing from you, and thank you for your consideration, Nyla. At the end of my cover letter, I always say something like, “I’m more than happy to answer any more questions you may have,” and then I’ll say something like, “I really look forward to hearing back from you.” I feel like it makes clients feel more inclined to reply. Could be in my head; I don’t know, but it works for me. And then this client had a few follow-up questions that they wanted to ask, so they asked me, “Do you have access to Adobe Illustrator and do you have experience using it?” I said yes. “Do you have suggestions to make this project run successfully?” My response was, “To keep it creative and unique.” I believe a well-thought-out strategy and execution are necessary for a startup business. Content needs to be well-thought-out and organized to fit the brand’s image. Content should also vary from information posts, engagement posts, sales posts, and entertainment. And then the next question was, “What past project or job have you had that is most like this one, and why?” I responded with, “I have experience working for an eye contact lens company. I believe the role was similar as the target audience was women interested in beauty products. I was in charge of running ad campaigns for this business and targeting a specific audience.” Do you have any questions about the job description? No. So I did actually work for a contact lens company. It was my cousin’s company, and I did some work experience there. But you see how I just slid that in there—not bad. Looking at this now, it does feel like I’m answering in a very exam-style. I definitely would do this completely differently now if I had the chance, but it still got me the job. So not bad. It just proves you can be a beginner and still get clients. Ever since then, I’ve worked with now over 31 brands on Upwork, and I’ve made over $100,000 on the platform. One brand I’m still working with at the moment, I’ve made over $40,000 with them, and the other brands are in the tens of thousands and thousands. I really hope you found this blog useful.