Is Anyone Really Listening? Social Media Marketing
If you visit most freelancers’ websites these days, you’ll find a blog, links to various networking sites and other signs of social media marketing. There are freelancers who spend hours perfecting their LinkedIn profiles and blog posts (I know — I’m one of them). But at some point, we each have to ask whether social media is really bringing us new clients.
Measuring Social Media Successes & Failures
For some of us, it’s very easy to tell just how many new projects social media brings in. When you’ve got clients banging down your metaphorical door, leaving comments on your blog and connecting you through social networking sites, it’s likely that you’ve got the golden touch when it comes to social media. For the rest of us, though, measuring our successes can be a little harder. It’s not always clear how a particular client found us, or what lead that client to choose us over other freelancers.
If you can get that information, however, it can be the key to focusing your marketing efforts. If your clients aren’t on a particular network, you may not want to bother. If you are attracting clients through a blog, you may want to step that up. Something as simple as looking at where your prospective clients are active can be a good way to measure your potential for marketing. At one point, I imported my contacts into both Facebook and LinkedIn: it was very obvious that while a few of my clients were on Facebook, many more were on LinkedIn. It made sense for me to adjust the time I was spending on social media marketing away from Facebook to LinkedIn.
Considering Existing Clients
Your existing clients can tell you a lot about your marketing efforts as well, as long as you ask. Even a casual conversation with a client about how they found you and what convinced them to work with you can provide some insight into how you can improve your marketing. Observing where your clients are active can also give you more information about where to focus your efforts. Where are your clients the most active? Are they reading blogs? Asking questions on LinkedIn? Participating on an industry forum entirely separate from the big name social networking sites? Whatever the answer, that’s were you want to spend your social media time.
Finding the Right Connections
One of the biggest values in social media marketing, at least for freelancers, is the fact that you can create a direct connection to the clients you want to work with. With the high numbers of editors now working to promote their own publications on Twitter, freelance writers can get direct access to the people they’ve been trying to query. A freelance web designer can check out who’s really in charge of a company’s website with just a few minutes of searching on LinkedIn, as well as get a message to that person without having to get an email address or a phone number. That sort of access is unprecedented.
It is a more proactive approach, almost like cold calling via social media, but it’s also easier to measure. When you’re focusing on building connections, you can tell if your social media marketing plan is working by the number of those connections that offer you work.
Whether you want to learn while you work out or to make that commute useful, Freelance Radio is the place to hear all the tips, tricks and news of freelancing.
Freelance Radio
With over 100 weekly strips and counting, Freelance Freedom is an institution around here. Check out of all NC's brilliant work in the archives.
Freelance Freedom Archives
Hi Thursday!
I’ve often wondered this myself.
However, I have to say that I’ve met a few great folks (yourself included) through social media. So, yes, I think that they are listening.
However, I’ve also been bombarded by so-called friends (especially) on Twitter who have no interest in communicating with me at all.
Just yesterday I blocked a follower who was trying to sell me a service that would provide me with more followers. (I want people to follow me because their interested. No robofriends for me.)
I think the focus on numbers rather than relationships can amplify the impression that no one is listening.
Thanks for opening up this discussion.
Finally!
I thought that I was the only one who thought that social networking was a lot of time-sucking busywork. Nice to see that there are others out there.
And I’ll admit to this heretical thought:
There is much in social networking the reminds me of a lot of stores I’ve been to. You know, the ones where the sales people are so busy talking to each other that they forget to acknowledge the shoppers coming into the store. Which causes the shoppers to leave without buying anything.
Now, I’ve been writing business turnaround articles for Freelance Switch since last year. (Hi, Joe! I’m about to submit another one.) One of the things that I realized early in the turnaround process is that I had to stop chit-chatting with the networking crowd. It wasn’t doing me or my business any good.
Instead, I had to start chit-chatting with the prospects, and, yes, a lot of them said now. They still do, in fact.
My freelancing business is well on the way to recovery, but I can’t say that it’s *there* yet. Which means that I need to keep making those cold/warm calls and e-mails. It also means that I can’t get distracted by seemingly interesting, but not very productive, things like social networking.
I wondered about this a lot but after about a year on Twitter I started to get other freelancers asking me to do development work for them so they just did design. It took a long time but social media has started to pay off for me with business but I honestly keep at the regular social media sites (Twitter, Blellow) because I enjoy them not because of the financial benefits. If you use them purely for $$ it’s work not any fun.
I’m curious on anyone’s thoughts on using Facebook for job leads and I’m assuming this is a good article to ask about it.
When I was recently laid off I immediately created a profile there (as well as linkedin) in hopes that it would create another outlet for my job search. However, I noticed that generally everyone says to set your profile to private. How does Facebook work in the fulltime or freelance job market if you have to “friend” a potential job lead first so they can even view your profile? As I’m still unfamiliar with these kinds of sites my best solution was to make myself viewable to all.
I’ve been hired since the lay off but am still wanting to understand this concept better.
I think having a facebook profile is fine but the problem is when you don’t have one then suddenly you create one and expect instant returns. It took a year for me to start seeing returns from social media.
It’s not a quick fix but a long term investment.
Excellent post.
I entered social media cautiously pondering many of the questions and issues you raise. After lurking around copywriting blogs, I wondered how–and even IF–prolific bloggers actually worked for clients.
As it is, I don’t have enough hours in my day to finish client work. How do some copywriters manage to meet multiple client deadlines and still find time to craft thoughtful, “value-added” posts?
So, as you note, measuring ROI–the “I” being your time–is key. But measurement is difficult and requires brutal honesty.
Regarding your point on existing clients: Many of my clients–in healthcare & pharma–don’t read blogs or hang out on Twitter. Aside from filling in basic LinkedIn profiles they don’t participate in social media at all.
That said, I think SM can be useful in positioning oneself as a thought leader and in repositioning oneself–in a new niche or medium, for example.
I’ve wonder this myself, but Twitter has helped me tremendously. Like curtismichael, I too get coding requests from designers who don’t want to hassle with HTML/CSS and they found me by my blog or Twitter mostly.
I often wonder if Social Media and SEM is worth it. Most people find me through my ad on Craigslist. I haven’t had any clients find me on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook. I still participate on these sites, but sometimes I wonder if my time would be more wisely spent elsewhere.
These tools can work in different ways for different types of businesses, but for me – in design. I’m not trying to sell anything on Twitter or my blog, those outlets aren’t catered to my clients, that’s what my studios portfolio site it for. The social media stuff is about establishing my personal brand, connecting with the design community and growing my name within the industry, which directly effects how I am perceived by clients.
We have found one of the best benefits from Social Media is brand protection or brand management. I agree that it can be hard to “get” clients from these types of sites. But they are good for allowing users to find out more information about your company, a more personal side that otherwise may not be seen with the corporate site.
Cool article! Me personally, having not even jumped into freelancing much yet, because of school, thinks that social media can help in a variety of ways but you REALLY have to know how to do it right.
Since i’m 19, Facebook is primarily my way of communicating with friends. I don’t see that as an outlet for work to be honest because it is just a huge social interaction tool for me. It’s great to keep in touch with old friends. Twitter on the other hand is just the opposite. I’m still learning the techniques of Twitter but i’ve at least interacted with several new contacts. No work yet but i’m not spending much time trying to get work through it. I could see Twitter being beneficial for that at some point.
LinkedIn I haven’t even figured out. I’ve made a profile but it is a weird site for me so I haven’t found the benefits of it.
I do think the best social media outlet out there simply for networking and gaining contacts is Twitter but I think maintaining those contacts is easier with something like Facebook. I don’t find communication on Twitter to be efficient. I’d much rather just share messages on FB.
Very timely indeed. Just yesterday brainstorming how to ramp up my bootstrap. Made changes to Linkedin and begin offering free Mac support via Twitter (yes just like Rhone but I swear I had the idea quite sometime ago). Then craiglisting as well as other classified postings announcing it. We’ll see how it all turns out or burns out.
I like the targeted social media marketing idea a lot, but know that sooner or later I’m gonna have to pound the pavement and make some human contact, reminding past clients of the successes I brought them in the past and Introducing myself to NKOTB.
But isn’t patience a virtue?
@ Rafie, its not just a virtue. it’s vital to a businesses long-term survival, IMO.
But how long? Or maybe social media is just another lucky draw. The more you participate in it, the higher the chances your number appears.
Make sense?
I have found that Twitter has helped me a lot in my freelance business. I have used that as a place to let people know a little about how I do business, come up with ideas for my games and that type of thing. I also list my updates to my site on Twitter.
But, the main way it helped me get business was by who I followed. I went onto Mr. Tweet and looked for people who were my target customers,… for me it is homeschool parents and teachers. By following them, I get to see what types of things they need and want. Many will follow back after they read that I create educational games.
This start helped me to create an automatic group of testers who I can bounce ideas off of. I have also been contacted by several companies to create educational games for them… some who need them now and some who are just looking into it for the future.
So, I have found that social media is an easy way for me to stay in contact both with my clients and my market. I love the feedback I get on my Twitter account!
Thursday, I believe they are listening. There are some publications I queried and never received a response from (sometimes I had queried several times) and now the editors from those pubs are sending me messages on the various social networks asking me if I have any ideas for them, if/when I can write for them. It’s crazy.
I totally believe social media works!
Hi Thursday
This is a good topic.
I have found Social Media very overwhelming and rather disillusioning in some ways but if I keep it small and focussed it is much more “me” and more successful.
Juliet
Very helpful and timely comments. I feel as if I’m planting so seeds now to get my name and business out there. It takes a prospective customer 7-9 times to remember your company and products, so persistence and patience are important.
I think it’s worthwhile but overrated. Twitter is indexed by Google so that alone will help small blogs. But in terms of building a community and gaining active followers via social media – forget it. It’s nice to have the buttons on the page but largely I think the spoils are saved for the big players – Tech Crunch etc…
Yes this is a good topic – yet I am not a hard core advocate of all SM.
It is refreshing to hear that some of you are getting some positive results from the likes of Twitter etc and you are reaping the rewards of your time investment. But force-feeding SM down peoples throat as the definitive way that your business will succeed or fail creates a tremendous amount of unnecessary angst – nor is it is true.
I have also noticed how defensive people become with regards to their SM practices. They go into this protective overdrive and it kind of boggles my mind? I suppose everything in moderation and recognizing what works for you and what doesn’t.
While I really do enjoy several blogs and participating in them, I stand firm on the fact that I feel no need to Tweet – nor being anyone’s “Fan”. Too many mindless followers rather than mindful individuals – imho.
Great discussion.
Key learning for me is that social media integration into your blog | site is an incredibly potent ignition mechanism for extending the reach and value of your content.
It also ensures that you enhance interaction with your community while continually raising your search results rankings.
The downside is that it does take an incredible amount of time to learn, integrate, participate and measure. But without question it does deliver on raising your online visibilty.
Finding The Right Connections
This is also great to research who you’re really dealing with on projects. I’ve been using this technique when I interview for full time design gig as well.
There are many Social Media sites where you can promote a business or service the hard part is to promote the business in the right way so that there service will be noticed. Zip per de doo da!
Excellent post, Thursday! One of the first things I ask prospective clients when they call me is, “How did you find out about me?” The answers tell me a LOT about them — what their expectations might be, the quality of the lead, my chances of landing the work, etc.
Also, you know you’re probably doing a good job with social media when a client or prospect tells you, “I’m seeing your name everywhere!”
I know a few freelancers who have been told that many times. That’s a great place to be.