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

It’s the beginning of a new year and you have decided to get serious about marketing yourself as a freelancer. Congratulations—that’s half the battle.

You have a lot of work ahead of you, and I found some tips in this article by Steve McKee for businessweek.com that will help you avoid some pitfalls. I’ve taken these tips and turned them towards the freelancing crowd, so you can make quick use of them. Continue Reading

Search Engine Optimization—three words that can make or break your website. If you haven’t been paying attention on how to up your SEO by now, it’s time to start listening.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the visibility of your website in search engines. Go ahead and look your business up on Google. Does it appear at the top? On the first page? Second page? Anywhere? The earlier your website is listed (or higher ranked as they call it) the higher the chances are that someone will click on it to find what they are looking for.

There are some basic ways for you to increase your search engine ranking organically, to give your site better results when people search for it. No one really knows the “best” way or “right” way to increase your visibility in search engines, but there are some SEO strategies you can implement that can help.

I found three hot tips from this article that I thought made a lot of sense. These strategies are free, so why not give them a shot? Sure, they take a little time to implement, but if they bring more traffic (and more sales) to your site, what do you have to lose? Continue Reading

The term customer service reminds me of wasted time spent on the telephone with some huge conglomerate that somehow messed up something I purchased. Right now I’m dealing with customer service for both my cable/TV company and my home/auto insurance. It’s infuriating.

But customer service isn’t just for big box stores and insurance agencies. It’s important to freelancers, too.

As consumers, we’ve become disenchanted with advertising and marketing of all sorts, having being duped, tricked or made to feel foolish on more than one occasion. The last true medium that holds sway is referrals from friends, colleagues, or online reviews from the likes of Yelp, AngiesList or TripAdvisor. —Matt Mickiewicz for Forbes.com

According to an American Marketing Association survey, 90% of consumers trust peer reviews and 70% trust online reviews. The author of this post is Matt Mickiewicz, the co-founder of 99designs. He offers three rules that small businesses (and freelancers) should follow to offer their clients great customer service. Continue Reading

Dave and Carrie Kerpen started their marketing company, Likeable Media, after they created a buzz selling sponsorships to their New York wedding. They raised $100,000 for their wedding and $20,000 for a charity.

The couple, who both had marketing backgrounds, were asked by so many people “what’s next” after their wedding promotional stunt that they started their own company, which today has offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Mexico City.

Dave appears in this video on Inc.com talking about how he got started as well as sharing some tips on what makes someone good at social media marketing. While I wish there was less “wedding” and more “tips for 2012”—as the title suggests—I did like what he had to say about the kind of person who excels at social media marketing.

The most successful person in social media is the same person who is the most successful person at a cocktail party. —Dave Kerpen

Dave has a few fantastic tips that are worth considering in your freelance business…

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Note: A few times a month we revisit some of our reader’s favorite posts from throughout the history of FreelanceSwitch. This article by Martha was first published April 12th, 2009, yet is just as relevant and full of useful information today.

A few years ago, articles of this sort were all about building one’s mailing list.

And we in the design field knew the drill quite well. We’d create a list of likely prospects, design something cool to send out, and then wait for the phone to ring. Sometimes it rang, sometimes it didn’t.

A-a-a-ah, the olden days.

Back then, those spinning business card files bearing the Rolodex brand were like gold. If you are of a certain age, you may remember that strict “Don’t Take the Rolodex with You” policy if you decided to leave Company X.

While you were at Company X, the cards in your Rolodex spent a great deal of time on your desk, waiting for you to give them a spin. Occasionally, they had to be spun into a mailing list, and you may be curious as to how that would happen.

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It’s easy to think about doing good deeds during the holiday season, as giving (thanks and gifts) is pretty much society’s mantra from Thanksgiving to Christmas. But what about the rest of the year? Isn’t it good to be grateful in, say, March?

According to this recent article in Fortune, gratitude is good for business no matter the month.

As opposed to showing appreciation one day a year — at Thanksgiving or New Year’s or in an annual customer appreciation sale — some businesses are building it into their daily and weekly plans and policies. And they are seeing the benefits to this approach: Workers are often more engaged when they feel appreciated and customers are more likely to come back and give referrals.

“Gratitude motivates positive reciprocal behavior,” says Randy Raggio, a marketing professor at the University of Richmond. If a customer believes that a business has his best interests at heart, that customer is more inclined to develop a long-term relationship with the business.—Fortune

Here are some ideas on how freelancers can give thanks, no matter the time of year or season!

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A powerful way to build trust and rapport is to develop authoritative and informative white papers.

Learn what a white paper is, several techniques for marketing with white papers, and tips for getting a white paper published.

With a little work, you can connect with customers on an entirely new level than a blog or website article, even if this is only due to the perception of white papers being at a higher level of expert status.

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Facebook’s new Timeline format has already kicked off in come countries, but its U.S. launch has been slowed by a lawsuit from Timelines.com. They are claiming their service would go kaput once Facebook’s Timeline platform launches, as functionality is so similar.

A counter suit by Facebook has been filed, so instead of sitting back and twiddling your thumbs waiting for the whole mess to be sorted out, why not take advantage of some useful Facebook eBooks on the market?

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Is it just me or does it seem like everyone is rolling out new technology this time of year? Facebook has its Timeline, Twitter has a new interface, YouTube has bought a company to help license music, and LinkedIn has partnered with Cvlynk to simplify and accelerate profile sharing.

And we can’t forget Google+ Pages for businesses—one of the more talked about changes for one of the world’s most talked about businesses.

When Google+ was originally launched, it didn’t offer business pages, and people were hesitant to join. What could Google+ do that their Facebook business page couldn’t?

John Haydon, founder of Inbound Zombie, a social media strategy firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, offers these differences in his story for The Huffington Post.

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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

When I first saw this video I was confused. Sure, the jingle was catchy and the editing was swell, but, was this guy for real? Did people actually buy his terrible drawings? He doesn’t do this for a living…does he? I decided to put on my investigative journalism hat and see if I couldn’t get some answers about this crazy cat guy. I went straight to the source. Continue Reading