A new study from Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science called “Who Gives a Tweet: Evaluating Microblogging Content Value” has unveiled what we like to read, and what we don’t like to read, on Twitter. I have to say, the results aren’t all that surprising.

A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and Georgia Tech launched a site asking for anonymous feedback from people like you and me in exchange for rating their tweets. Users had to sign in to their website and rate 10 tweets before getting any feedback on their own tweets.

Luckily for these researchers, their project went viral. Sites like Mashable, TechCrunch, and CNN wrote about their study. The analysis of the study was taken from data received between December 30, 2010 and January 17, 2011. They had over 43,000 responses to work with. Here’s what they found: Continue Reading

Reporters at The Washington Post are now actively engaging their readers by posting comments in streams on the paper’s news stories online, something they’ve never done in the past. The paper switched to a new website platform called Echo, which has helped them grow their online community. Reader comments at the paper have shot up 142% since March, 2011.

This is new territory for many journalists. Never before have they been urged to take part in the conversations the public is having online about their stories. This type of involvement helps reporters fend off rumors, speculation, and flame wars, according to this article published on the Nieman Journalism Lab website. It also allows reporters to share more information, as well as prove that they, too, are real people.

For freelancers, this new trend at one of America’s largest newspapers just goes to show how important it is to engage with your community.

Show You Care

I try to comment on the blog posts I write for FreelanceSwitch—especially the posts that have gotten a lot of action from the readers. I really do appreciate the time people take to share their thoughts and opinions on my blog posts. Comments help me gauge a posts’ success and help me decide what to write about in the future. The best way for me to show the readers that I am paying attention, is to tell them so. Continue Reading

Chris Brogan is the author of the new book, Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything.

As a Google+ skeptic (heck, I’m skeptical of all new social media) I was interested to learn more, so I sat down and watched this video where Michael Stelzner of Socialmediaexaminer.com interviewed Brogan about how Google+ can help small businesses.

As a freelancer, you are running a small business—a very small business that probably includes just you. And you should think of yourself as a small business when it comes to representing yourself both online and in the real world. If you are thinking about creating a page on Google+, you might want to watch the video for yourself (or check out Chris Brogan’s book)—here are some snippets and take-aways from Brogan’s interview:

“Most small businesses are approaching [Google+] thinking, ‘I just figured out Facebook, why are you doing this to me?’ First off, no one is doing this to you. Sorry, technology is always adapting, you have to adapt with it. We all don’t still have car phones, we have mobile phones, it’s the same thing.” —Chris Brogan

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I have yet to adopt the new Facebook Timeline interface. I don’t want to. I’m comfortable with using Facebook the way it is, thank-you-very-much. When I found this post on mashable about how to revert back to Facebook classic, I knew I wasn’t alone in wishing some things would just stay the same.

I know I probably sound like a curmudgeon to you, but honestly, when things I use on a constant basis—like Facebook—go through an “upgrade” it’s all I can do to not pout. They say they are making their product more user friendly, but all change has a learning curve. I’m a busy freelancer, if I don’t have to learn new things I’m fine with it.

I know that I am going to have to use Facebook Timeline in the near future—there’s no getting around it—but I’m not sure I really like the new look. For one thing, I have to scroll down just to see my friend’s status updates. I don’t really care about having a great big photo at the top, either. I think it just takes up valuable real estate.

“We want to design a place that feels like your home. Where you tell story online is very personal. You spend a lot of time curating it. We want to make timeline a place you’re proud to call your home,” Zuckerberg said of the Timeline at the f8 conference. “It’s a completely new aesthetic for Facebook. It gives you the ability to curate all your stories so you can express who you really are.” —huffingtonpost.com

I don’t want Facebook to feel like my home! I want to have an actual life that doesn’t involve a computer or Internet. I want to be able to enjoy a family meal without someone updating their status, or watch a movie without checking wikipedia for “factual”  information. I’m also not all that interested in “expressing who I really am” on Facebook. That’s not what I use it for. Continue Reading

You are a creative person and you want a new look for your business—whether it’s a website, business cards, or whatever. Sure, you could do the work yourself—but should you?

For some odd reason, there seems to be a discrepancy of sorts when it comes to doing the work for ourselves. Some designers feel like of course we should take on that Jack-of-all-trades mindset, while others just feel like it makes sense to pass the work off and let someone else do it. —webdesignerdepot.com

Before you jump in and start the project, ask yourself a couple of key questions: How creative are you? How much time do you have? What is your skill set? These might help you decided to forge ahead on your own, or hire someone else to help you. Continue Reading

I’m fairly new to the whole LinkedIn thing. I’m on it, but I haven’t really been using it to my advantage. I get updates from my Alma Mater’s LinkedIn page each week, but I usually throw that email right in the trash. Is LinkedIn just another social network I have to pay attention to? I decided to take a closer look.

Recently I have been logging in more to my LinkedIn page. Some of the most interesting articles I write about for this blog I have found through LinkedIn. And this article, about connecting on LinkedIn, I found…wait for it…on Linkedin.com! Here are some tips from that article to consider before connecting on LinkedIn…

Connect Wisely

Like any new thing I try, I like to follow the rules—or at least try to figure out what they are. Seems the rules for connecting on LinkedIn are a lot like the rules for connecting on Facebook—only connect with people you actually know. Many people who use LinkedIn to broaden their professional network are connecting to people they have never talked to. Why? Continue Reading

My husband gave me an iPad as a wedding gift. I thought it was pretty cool. I had no idea how much I would use it for my job.

I take my iPad with me everywhere. I do not have an iPhone, or even a smartphone. The thought of reading emails (and sending them) from something that fits in your jeans pocket makes my eyes hurt. My husband reads the news on his iPhone in bed, holding it so close to his eyes that the phone practically touches the tip of his nose. This is ridiculous to me.

But the iPad—now that’s different. I work on an iMac at home. I’m glued to my desk without a laptop. My iPad is less than a laptop and more than a phone. I love it. And when I read this post by Jason Falls on social media explorer on what mobile optimization does for your website, I listened. Continue Reading

Engagement From Scratch! is a classic tale of learning from other peoples’ mistakes. Thirty professional bloggers prove that hindsight really is 20/20. And you can benefit from their advice thanks to Danny Iny.

I was pretty pumped that I was asked by FreelanceSwitch to preview this book. I had previously written a review for this site on Danny Iny’s online marketing course through his business, Firepole Marketing. I thought Iny’s product was really interesting and provided a lot of great tools, so I was interested to delve into Engagement From Scratch!

The premise is simple. Iny asked 30 bloggers from the very big (Brian Clark of copyblogger.com and Guy Kawasaki) to the up-and-coming (Onibalusi Bamidele from youngprepro.com) what they would do if they had to build a following all over again.

The overarching themes these bloggers shared were pretty straightforward, and nothing you probably don’t already know, such as:

• Be yourself.
• Comment on other blogs thoughtfully.
• Create great content.
• Know who your audience is.
• Find or create your niche.
• It’s not the size of your audience that matters, it’s how engaged they are.
• Write guest posts for other bloggers and have them write for you.

As I read through each essay, I’d nod my head, take some notes for this blog post, and read on. And I listened. I finally listened. Continue Reading

Having a strong brand can be a game-changer for your freelance business.

Good brands command respect and establish a reputation. They establish your presence in the marketplace. When questions arise like “where can I find a good freelance writer” or “where do I go to get my website redesigned” … strong brands immediately come to mind.

So how do you build your brand? What rules of branding should you follow?

It takes time and effort, of course, but here are 5 often overlooked rules to remember when branding your freelance business… Continue Reading

Credit: Jeff Turner on Flickr

One of the amazing things with Twitter, Facebook and Google+ slowly gaining maturity is the power coming through it to build my personal brand. What I found most crucial when doing so is that I don’t waste all of my day doing this.

The best part here is that this can become very powerful for many aspects of your life. If you develop a fairly large and engaged Twitter following these are only a few of the great aspects you can leverage:

• Amplify your voice for distributing your knowledge and content
• Find new jobs and projects by interacting with like-minds in your field
• Get feedback on ideas and projects from your followers
• Have quality conversations with people interested in the same fields

Here are tips to build your personal brand on Twitter on the side, without wasting hours each day on it. In fact, I believe these things can be done within 30 minutes of effort each day.

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Editor’s Note: Skellie is the director for the Envato Tuts+ network and drives the social media promotion for nine brands with over 100,000 Facebook fans. This article is an excerpt from her newest book, Successful Facebook Marketing, sold by Rockable Press.

Your goals with Facebook should not only be to get more Likes and more traffic. One of the first things people learn at Business School is that it costs much more time, energy, and often money to add a new customer than it does to retain an existing customer. Keeping your fans loyal and happy is just as important, if not more important, than finding new fans. For this reason, it’s important to use your Facebook Page to build more loyalty among your existing fans, and to gain a better understanding of them.

As I mentioned earlier, comments are one of the most useful ways fans can interact with your Facebook posts. Every time a fan leaves a comment it is shared on their profile and in their friends’ News Feeds. While you’re building brand loyalty and interacting directly with your audience, you’re also creating pathways for new fans to find your Page. For this reason, content that encourages discussion will be one of the best possible additions to your Facebook Page. Continue Reading

Credit: feverpitch on Photodune

So you want to start a blog. You’ve decided on WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, or whatever, which is a good first step. Before you start blogging you need to think about how you’re going to differentiate your blog from the thousands of blogs out there in the blogosphere.

Many writers spend their day writing copy for their clients that isn’t particularly interesting to them—sometimes it’s downright boring. A blog allows them creative freedom to write about whatever they want. But sometimes, it’s that overwhelming freedom that dooms their blog from the start.

What you need to do is find your niche and blog about it. Creating a niche blog allows you to hone into your expertise, your passion, and write about it. As a freelancer, your blog should be another way to market yourself to potential clients. That doesn’t mean you can’t write about what you love—be it knitting, parenting, or shopping local—it just means you need to have a plan.

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