Once a week, we feature a fantastic freelance-themed comic from the talented N.C. Winters. Why not also take a look at our comic archive? Continue Reading

If freelancers could invent our own clichés, one might be: no two jobs are the same. Each gig we take on brings with it new personalities, new challenges and new rewards. Despite these differences, most any freelancing gig will fit into one of these twenty types.

Where does the job you’re (supposed to be) working on now fit in?

Have you done each of these kinds of jobs before?

My guess is that most experienced freelancers will have encountered quite a few!

1. The magnum opus

The job you’ve always wanted, the job you’ll tell your grand-kids about. You get asked to write a book, land design work for a super-company like Coca Cola or get an article published in Business Week. The money doesn’t really matter — though it’s probably pretty good! Because this kind of opportunity doesn’t come along every day, you make this job personal, you obsess over it and make sure every single detail has been polished to a brilliant shine.

The pros:

These kinds of jobs can feel more like play than work. They’re hard to forget for all the right reasons, and can take your credibility and perceived value as a freelancer to the next level.

The cons:

Magnum opus jobs can be time vacuums. Being paid $X,000 for a project doesn’t work out to much if you spend a hundreds of hours polishing up the bells and whistles.

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Nearly every freelancer I meet seems to be starting a blog, or at least thinking about it.

But there’s a problem: Many freelancers tell me they’re posting like mad on their blog…but nothing’s happening.

No comments. No shares on Twitter or Facebook.

Even worse, no client nibbles, and especially, no firm new clients.

Blogs are a big time investment. So if you’re blogging away and not getting results, that’s not good. If you can’t get the hang of this, you might want to consider spending your marketing time another way.

But first, let’s see if we can fix this and get your blog some traction by focusing on improving your fundamentals. Continue Reading

Now that you’ve set up your Twitter account, it’s time you got some followers.

Followers are great for two reasons:

Followers provide social proof. The more followers you have, the more people will assume you’re good at what you do. Every follower is like a micro-testimonial. Think about it: if you were hiring a freelancer, would you first check out the freelancer with 10,000 Twitter followers or 10 followers? The more followers you have, the quicker you gain the trust of potential clients.

Followers help to spread your message. When you want to use Twitter to promote your blog, business or services, the more followers you have, the bigger your reach.

In previous articles, I’ve covered the basics of what it takes to grow your Twitter following. First, you must complete your Twitter profile. This includes a biography targeted at your ideal followers, and a smiling picture of your face. In your biography, give people a reason to follow you. Make sure you mention what you’ll be tweeting about. Second, write top quality tweets that are valuable and relevant to your audience.

Before taking a look at some more advanced tactics for growing your following, let’s consider what your mindset needs to be to become a Twitter authority with a tribe of loyal followers. Continue Reading

Time management is a topic that often comes up in conversations among freelancers. That’s because each of us has to take responsibility for getting everything on her plate done, without someone else nagging us about the work.

But when you establish an agency, the situation becomes harder: on top of getting the creative work done that you need to keep clients happy, you also need to assign work to everyone else at the agency, if not keep checking to ensure everything get’s done.

For some freelancers, it’s a fast way to go crazy. For others, it’s just a matter of making sure that there’s a good system in place and that you know what your priorities are. Provided you feel comfortable with a little management responsibility, getting everyone organized is very doable. Continue Reading

My personal experience as a freelancer so far has included lots of juggling kids, errands, running a household, family and friends who think you don’t need to work during the day, and – as a result – trying to get some bits of work done here and there. My iPhone has been my saving grace in the last couple of years. I can easily check and send emails, keep up with social media news, even make edits to documents in Drive using my Google mobile app.

However, I have found that one of the best ways to take advantage of my time – while waiting in the drive-thru line, waiting for an appt., or watching my kids at sports events – is to get some social media marketing done. This helps with efficiency when I am sitting down at my computer trying to get some writing done – I can easily tell myself that I do not need to get onto Twitter or Google+ because I just updated them earlier while sitting at the doctor’s office.

The following are some very cool apps for getting your social media marketing done while on the go. Continue Reading

Once a week, we feature a fantastic freelance-themed comic from the talented N.C. Winters. Why not also take a look at our comic archive? Continue Reading

Looking for a new client? The FreelanceSwitch job board is a great resource of freelance gigs and opportunities. These opportunities are in various fields, from development to writing to design, and come from a wide range of potential clients. The job board is hand-moderated by dedicated staff and volunteers from the freelance community.

Each week, we’ll feature a selection of the best job opportunities posted for the week. This week, we’re featuring jobs in Marketing Design, Web Designer, Animation and more!

To apply for any of these jobs, simply pick up a FreelanceSwitch membership for an affordable $7 a month. See something you like? Join now!

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Einstein once said something to the effect of, “you cannot solve problems by thinking within the same framework or mindset that discovered the problems.” The implication is that you need to step into another mindset, another level of thinking.

So how do we step into another mindset, as Einstein implies we should? One possible method is mind-mapping, which arguably triggers a much more natural way of thinking and problem solving. Continue Reading

Content marketing grew in popularity among marketers last year, and this year it promises to be one of the top online marketing strategies. As a freelancer, starting a blog to help promote your business is one of the best ways that you can set yourself apart, increase exposure, build relationships and trust, increase page rank, build backlinks, and boost traffic.

Even if your writing skills are slim to none, a blog as an internet marketing tool is so powerful that it’s simply one strategy that you really can’t avoid as a freelancer. The good news? You don’t have to know perfect English nor know how to put together a complete sentence with perfect grammar to establish a popular niche marketing blog.

In fact, you can actually build one of the best marketing blogs in your industry without ever writing a single sentence. You just need to know where to find the right resources and how to best take advantage of these resources to create a killer blog marketing strategy. Of course, your freelance blog won’t just grow overnight, but follow the right steps and it will steadly become one of the most valuable online marketing tools you build. Continue Reading

Have you ever wished you could blog about one of your personal interests — and that blog would attract a huge audience and allow you to earn in your living while you sleep? It’s a great way to supplement your freelance income or even replace it entirely.

It’s the dream of many bloggers. But few succeed.

Recently, however, I had a chance to talk to two bloggers who are living that dream. They built blogs about their passions and now earn hefty incomes from blog ad revenue.

First off, I saw Bill Belew present at NMX recently about how he built his six-figure business, which earns mostly from ad-clicks — sending customers to advertisers’ websites from his sites.

He operates a network of a dozen different niche websites, which together have seen more than 100 million visitors. He reports he makes a solid five-figure income from each site.

The sites cover interests of his including Asia, Christianity, and blogging. Several are on the Examiner platform, while others are independently hosted.

Belew says there were four steps to building his successful blog-based business: Continue Reading

All freelancers come to a point in their career where they have to promote their business or else slowly become non-existent.

It’s a potential problem though, when we come to this point and do not have enough capital base to spend on costly marketing campaigns. This is why social media is such a valuable tool for freelancers, it’s effective and affordable.

Social media statistics of 2012 point to this theory – that social media is a major promotional avenue for many companies within many industries, and I would add especially for freelancers. The following are just a few of the most important social media facts that I noted, including guidelines on how you can take advantage of them. Continue Reading