As a freelance worker the decks can seem to be stacked against you. You are fighting an uphill battle at times to get your name out there and to promote yourself. Fortunately you have one major tool that you can use to promote yourself that can potentially reach anyone around the world and that is social media. So, what are some things to keep in mind when you, an aspiring freelance worker, can do to promote yourself?
Now of course social media can be a curse as well as a blessing. There are plenty of different platforms on the Internet and in the time that it has taken you to read this another has probably started up. It is hard to keep up with at times. Some platforms will work better than others and knowing which works for you is sometimes half the battle. The amount of time you spend on social media can also be overwhelming. Finding the right balance between work and social media will be something that you will need to do.
Content
How can you establish yourself as an authority? Content. It may be writing guides or articles or it could be creating videos. Maybe you have a podcast. All of these can be posted on social media to share with the world and help to establish you as an expert or an authority on a subject.
Much of this can also be published on a website as well which can help to boost your SEO and make it easier to find you on the web. If you post it there it can be linked to easily on social media, a win-win for you.
Creating engaging content like social media stories is a great way to get noticed but it is easier said than done. The chances of you creating something that goes viral is very low so growth will be something that builds over time. Hopefully your customers will grow over that same time as well but don’t give up if you are not an instant hit. Patience is a virtue.
Separate Yourself
To stand out you will need to be creative but yet real at the same time. Keep it simple. Few people want to read pages and pages of text from someone that they were just exposed to. Let’s face it, America’s attention span just isn’t what it used to be and that is something better left to your website. On social media less can be more in both content and the number of posts that you make. People don’t want you to overload their feeds. They also want you to be yourself.
Many Americans are also visual people. At the very least a great image is a way to attract eyeballs. Keeping them there is up to you.
Share And Promote
You can hopefully get family and friends to share your work or promote it for you. That may require you to occasionally pick up the tab at the bar or a restaurant but it is a very cheap way of promoting yourself. You do have to scratch their back on occasion so they will scratch yours. Considering they will be your original customer base it makes sense to start there and more than likely they will be more than kind to you.
It also helps to promote other people as well. That may not mean promoting your direct competitors but there are plenty of other freelance workers that you may already know or come to know and could use the help themselves. Or you could promote a competitor, maybe they have more work then they can handle and send a bit of it your way. This can expose you to their followers while you do the same and if you don’t know any other freelance workers you should join a coworking space like Freelance York.
Take Pride In Your Work
When someone wants to work with you they want to see examples of your work. Show off your work with pride. It is your work and you did it. Tell your followers to simply check it out. You do need to toot your own horn on occasion and it shows that people are hiring you, which makes you more desirable.
User Engagement
When you have at least achieved an audience you want to keep them engaged with you. Ask them questions, run contests or anything that you can think of that keeps them talking. By creating a conversation it may also bring others into the conversation and expose them to what you do for the first time. It may cost you a gift card or something but the payoff of landing a new customer will more then make up for that. If it works well they will hopefully be back and continue engaging while at the same time encouraging their friends to join the conversation.
Social media is of course a great tool and it is free to use. You can potentially reach all around the world but it is not easy to do well. Considering this avenue is open to anyone else around the world at the very least it is an even playing field. Growth may not come quickly but if you devote the time and effort it will come and for a freelance worker that is what you need. Use social media to your advantage.