How Wealthy Freelancers Use Social Media
Talk to any freelancer who consistently lands great clients via social media, and five key success principles emerge.
Commit to Active Participation
Social media is not something you sign up for and forget about. If you want to generate activity, you have to become an active participant. You have to join the conversation and contribute ideas and insights—and you have to do it frequently.
Michele Smith (www.MCommunicationsinc.com), a freelance marketing and corporate communications pro who uses Facebook to generate as much as 30 percent of her new business, suggests daily activity on whatever site you use. “Keep your page fresh by letting everyone know what you’re working on, what you’ve completed, or what you’re planning,” she says. “And post links to finished projects on your page (as long as it’s OK with your clients, of course). For prospects, this will not only keep your name top of mind, it will also showcase your work and expertise.”
Offer Value First
Another key success principle—and one many freelancers new to social media fail to practice—is offering value first. Social media is no different from a local networking event. You won’t get far if all you do is overtly pitch your services to everyone you meet. Instead, provide your social network with tips, ideas, and insights that will help people do their jobs better. And do it much more often than you promote your business.
“You must absolutely offer something of value every time you tweet,” says Ruth Perryman (TheQBspecialists.com), a Roseville, California-based freelance QuickBooks consultant. “You can’t just tweet promotional information—and even when you do, it needs to be written in a way that helps people.” She credits her fast success with social media to this approach. Within just a few weeks of using Twitter in this manner, her website traffic tripled, and she was contacted via Twitter by a franchisor who has since outsourced her entire accounting department to Ruth and her team of freelancers—and is now her largest client.
Contribute Ideas Freely
When contributing ideas to forums, blogs, and other types of social media, share your ideas and advice freely. You don’t have to reveal every strategy or methodology you use, but don’t hesitate to provide useful advice to the members of your community. Sharing your expert knowledge is today’s way of building credibility, trust, and a steady stream of work.
Competitors may be able to copy some of your ideas, but no one can copy you as a multifaceted freelance professional.
Take a Steady, Long-Term Approach
You don’t earn someone’s trust overnight. Relationships take time to develop and cement—especially online relationships. That’s why freelancers who use social media successfully don’t treat it as a quick fix. They recognize that results will take time and a steady, concerted effort.
Since becoming an active participant in a number of online forums in 1995, freelance copywriter, marketer, and author Shel Horowitz (www.shelhorowitz.com) has landed close to 200 clients as a direct result of his participation in these forums. In fact, he cites online discussion forums as his single-largest source of new business. His secret: “It’s not going to happen overnight. You need about six months of active participation in a forum before you start to see results. And by ‘active’ I mean participating about three times a week by contributing good answers to participants’ questions and providing valuable feedback to the forum members.”
Develop a Community
Social media is about much more than conversations. It can also help foster online communities that are centered on a common interest or goal. By starting a group on a specific topic that’s of interest to both you and your prospects, you can help members of that community share news and ideas, stimulate relevant discussions around these topics, and get to know each other, all in one spot.
For instance, after losing her job in 2008, Deborah Corn (Ablaze.biz), a freelance project and production manager, created a LinkedIn group to bring together hundreds of professionals in the advertising production business—including agency recruiters, printers, service providers, and other print production professionals. Deborah’s group grew exponentially and has close to 5,000 members as of this writing. Through the group, she’s now connected to 11.9 million people, 3,642 of which are direct connections.
“This approach has given me tremendous visibility,” says Deborah. “When users search the term ‘project management and production’ within the LinkedIn website, my name almost always comes up. That alone has led to several paid gigs, including a large client for which I’ve been freelancing for six months now.”
..................Content has been hidden....................
You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.