The fact that you can learn anything from John Mayer might surprise you, but I learned a lot about how you can ruin your reputation through social media and interviews in this NPR interview with the musician on All Things Considered this afternoon.

I have to admit, I am not a John Mayer fan. He bothers me. I can’t stand to watch him sing. And after a couple of nitty gritty interviews in 2010—one for Rolling Stone and one for Playboy—I didn’t like what I heard, either.

In Mayer’s interview with Playboy, he made racial comments, talked about his sex life with his famous exes, and made homosexual comments—all of which made the public scream Too Much Information! Continue Reading

Are you unhappy with the amount of freelance writing income you’re bringing in? The check account is looking bare, and the bills are piling up.

You need more gigs — and you need them now.

Fortunately, there are many basic steps you can take quickly to help you land new assignments at better rates. Here are 10 strategies for growing your writing income fast:

1. Ask for referrals from existing clients. Do all your current clients know you’re looking to add another client or two? If not, be sure to let them know you would appreciate their referrals. They won’t be offended — I promise.
2. Find former clients on LinkedIn. Do you know where every former editor of yours is now? If not, reconnect, catch up…and let them know you’d be interested to work with them again, or to receive their referrals if they hear of anything. Another great way to reconnect — ask for a testimonial. You’ll be surprised how often that leads to a new assignment.

Continue Reading

Freelancers often underestimate how they can use LinkedIn to build relationships with clients and colleagues. As a global professional network, boasting over 135 million people, LinkedIn becomes a virtual Rolodex of contacts making it a great way for freelancers to exchange information, ideas, and share and explore relevant issues.

As a business networking tool, it’s a natural social network for freelancers to explore. While you may associate social networks with time wasting sessions on Facebook or Twitter, LinkedIn’s value as a business generating tool is worth exploring.

Here are four ways to tap into LinkedIn for your freelancing business:

1. Engage your “Connections” for help.

LinkedIn can be useful for freelancers looking to outsource aspects of their business or seeking collaborators for projects. If you’re seeking someone with special skills, the first place to look for experts is on LinkedIn.

The site provides a trusted way to find the right people who fit your needs– a kind of digital word-of-mouth when you’re doing a search.

The site provides a trusted way to find the right people who fit your needs– a kind of digital word-of-mouth when you’re doing a search. For example, if you’re looking for someone with social marketing skills to help you market your freelance services, run a search of profiles on LinkedIn in a zip code or location near you. Narrow down your search with keywords and professional affiliations. LinkedIn’s advance search feature lets you filter searches by group affiliations, companies, location, seniority, company size, and so forth.

LinkedIn is also an excellent way to do a quick background check of your clients and other freelancers you work with. You can track what people have done and corroborate material on resumes that cross your desk. Continue Reading

I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve been hearing about some pretty serious social media snafus that have been so bad that people have lost their jobs over them.

Whether your Facebook page is set to private or not, nothing is ever really private on the Internet. It’s not just high school and college kids who have a hard time understanding that—it’s grown ups, too.

If you are like me, you have a personal Facebook page as well as one for your business. I have a LinkedIn page and I tweet using my business handle. Keeping your personal and business lives separate on social media sites can be hard, so here are some ways to make sure you are putting your best foot forward, instead of in your mouth. Continue Reading

I’m a sucker for a good study, and a team of Asian researchers have come out with one about how your social networking sites can accurately predict your personality—something you may (or may not) want to do if you run your own business.

There is a theory out there, which emerged on the scene in 1992, called the Five Factor Model (FFM) that states that human personality can be divided into five categories: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Here’s what they mean:

• Openness: inventive and curious. This person has a strong intellectual curiosity and is likely to be able to think outside the box.
• Conscientiousness: efficient and organized. This person is disciplined, organized, and achievement-oriented. They exhibit planned rather than spontaneous behavior.
• Extraversion: outgoing and energetic. This person is social, assertive, and talkative. They seek stimulation in the company of other people.
• Agreeableness: friendly and compassionate. This is a compassionate and cooperative person. They like to be helpful.
• Neuroticism: sensitive and nervous. This person experiences unpleasant emotions, like anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability, quite easily.

As a freelancer, I want to be perceived as open, conscientious, outgoing, and friendly. I do not want to be seen as neurotic. Continue Reading

Surprise, surprise! On 11^th April Google+ made a new announcement. Google+ now has more than 170 million users!

This is not the only reason why you should consider using Google+ for your freelancing business. Another very important reason is that Google+ profiles and pages can make an impact on the SEO of your website, at least in the personalized search results of Google.

The announcement also declared that Google+ will now run on a whole new interface that is a more “functional and flexible version of Google+.” The most striking feature of this new interface is that all the apps have been cornered down into the left margin, which can be moved up and down as per the requirements of the user. This means that the apps are no longer static as before.

But this is just the beginning.

The senior vice president of Google, Vic Gundotra wrote on Google’s official blog that:

We’ve also built the ribbon with the future in mind, giving us an obvious (and clutter-free) space for The Next Big Feature, and The Feature After That. So stay tuned.

Google+ is surely onto something big. Only time will tell, what? In this article we’ll discuss some of the new features of Google+. Understanding the big changes to Google+ will allow you to take advantage of them to promote your freelance business.

The Banner Image

Google Plus’s home page now hosts a large banner image. Its dimensions are 940 by 180 pixels.

Compare this to the new Facebook Timeline banner that is 851 by 315 pixels. Since Facebook rolled out its Timeline first, it suggests that Google Plus’s banner is inspired from Facebook’s. Continue Reading

Dave Copeland of ReadWriteWeb talks about what I preach to my journalism students every week in his blog post titled “Want To Save Journalism? Start At The Bottom“. It’s not enough to just be a good writer or a good photographer these days—you have to be good at everything.

“When I started out as a journalist in the early 1990′s, being a good writer or a good reporter or a good photographer was usually enough to land a good entry-level job in print. That model doesn’t cut it anymore: now students need to have all those skills, plus an ability to work in a range of content management systems. Being able to edit video and audio and being fast enough on your feet to file a broadcast from your smartphone doesn’t hurt, either. Oh, and don’t forget all those crucial social media skills that colleges are not stressing enough.” —ReadWriteWeb

My undergrad alma mater, like many other universities and colleges around the nation and around the globe, started a new media track in the 2000s to help train students for jobs in the digital world. Not solely journalism, or film, or marketing— these new media tracks focus on creating and producing video, web sites, audio files, film, and much more for an audience that gets their news and information from more than just traditional news sources.

At the recent Spring College Media Convention in New York City, college students participated in workshops that touched on many aspects of journalism. Some of them were:

• Website Revolution: Rake in Readers, Tame the Flames, Land a Hot Job
• Phone Alone: How to be a Multimedia Journalist With Whatever’s in Your Pocket
• Brand Me: Using Social Media to Brand Yourself & Your Newsroom
• Video Basics and Beyond: You Don’t Need to be a Final Cut Pro to Make Your Multimedia Amazing

Sure, all of these things are important to know for a budding multimedia journalist. But what about WRITING!? I’ve taught at two schools—one a state university and one a small, private media college. The writing that comes out of these students is usually abysmal. And if this is the way journalism is heading, we should be scared. Continue Reading

By 2016, there will be three billion Internet users across the globe, according to a new study by The Boston Consulting Group. That’s half the world’s population!

The study focused on Internet use by consumers and businesses in the G20 countries, which includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the EU, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the U.K., and the U.S. In 2010 alone, the Internet accounted for $2.3 trillion (4.1% of the GDP) and surpassed the economies of Italy and Brazil. In the U.K., the Internet’s contribution to the 2010 GDP is more than that of construction and education.

The Internet powers growth and creates jobs, and most freelancers use the Internet constantly. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to write for FreelanceSwitch!

I clearly remember in 1995 when my best friend’s family got the Internet on their home computer. We were enthralled with it, despite it’s limitations. What the heck was AOL? We thought the Internet was a place where you could talk to complete strangers on the other side of the country—which you could do then and can do now—and had no idea it would become so much more. Continue Reading

It’s coming—the Facebook pages update. March 30^th is almost here, and if you haven’t updated your page yet (like me) you’re in for some big changes.

Mari Smith, a social media speaker and author, has a great marked up screen shot on her blog you should check out.

I’ve complained about this upgrade before, and I’m still reluctant about it even though I have no choice. It’s going to take some getting used to, and there’s tons of stuff I need to learn about my new business page to use it effectively. It’s this forced learning that is turning me off. There are so many other things on my to do list that I have just been pushing this off. Time’s a waistin’!

The first thing I need to do is add a cover image. The dimensions for this image are 851 pixels by 315 pixels. Already I’m annoyed. I like to use our cover image for the big “profile” picture. This still exists, albeit small, but now I need to find another photo that captures my brand. Sure, it’s prime real estate, but now I need to find a photo that I can use legally that says something important about me. This will take some thought. Continue Reading

I got a call yesterday from a publishing house in New York City. One of my former interns had given them my contact information to use as a reference for the job she was applying for. I was pleasantly surprised to get the call.

A lot of the former interns who have worked for me, or with me, go out and look for jobs. And a lot of them use me as a reference. Rarely do I ever get a call from an employer who is interviewing these students. I always wonder why.

According to researchers at Cornell University, people are more likely to lie about their work experience on a traditional resume than they are on a social media page, like LinkedIn. In fact, the study found that 92% of college students lie at least once on their resumes.

The study says that websites such as LinkedIn can lead to greater honesty when it comes to résumé claims such as experience and responsibilities. That’s because claims are more easily verified in a public, online setting, so liars are more likely to get caught. —Associated Press

Sure, many people fib on their resumes to make themselves look better. They say their hobbies include reading classical literature or writing poetry when really they spend the majority of their time watching reality television. These things are hard to verify. Which is why people have interviews—to test the legitimacy of the actual resume.

But college students, and others who are looking for work, need to be aware that employers are savvy. They are looking you up online before they call you in for an interview. And if they’re not—they should be. Continue Reading

Numbers can tell a story. As of December 2011, Facebook had 845 million monthly active users. As of September 2011, Twitter had 100 million active users. As of January 2012, Google+ had more than 90 million users.

Facebook and Twitter reached those numbers in years. Google+ reached the 90 million mark in less than 7 months despite accepting only invited members when it launched. These statistics give you a feel for how quickly Google+ has become a force in the social media sphere.

There are reasons that set Google+ apart from Facebook and Twitter. We’ll look at 8 of them in this article.

I’ve picked up on only those points that seemed most important to me, your list may differ. Please leave a comment if there is a Google+ feature that excites you. Continue Reading

I love articles and blog posts telling me what NOT to do. I always read them with a little trepidation, hoping I’m not making the mistakes the writers are warning me about. But it’s also a good way to learn.

I’d much rather learn from someone else’s mistakes than my own!

There was a recent blog post on FastCompany about five social media mistakes we should all avoid. I thought I would share with you their tips and add in a couple of my own.

Avoid the Self-Congratulatory Tweet

Self-promotion isn’t a bad thing—in moderation. You probably know someone who only talks about themselves or their kids, no matter what the conversation is about. The more times this person raves about how wonderful they are or their child is, the less likely you are to listen (and to believe them). The same thing goes for your online marketing.

If you just won a great award, or your story was published on the front page of the New York Times, by all means, shout it from the rooftops! Good news is fun to share. Just be sure you aren’t saturating your social media outlets with your good news. It’s always nice to let others speak for you.

If someone tweets about something you do or why they think you’re great, make sure that you thank them in a retweet with comment, but avoid retweeting without any humbling context or word of gratitude. —FastCompany.com

Avoid Bad Tweet Timing

About a year ago Kenneth Cole pushed “send” on an unfortunate tweet that caused a digital uproar. The fashion designer said ”Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online.” Ouch. Timing was everything (wrong) with this message, which was sent during the dawn of the Arab Spring; it came off as crass rather than triumphant. —FastCompany.com

Yikes! I’m very happy to learn this lesson from Kenneth Cole than from my own mistake. You never want to fall prey to the hashtag #toosoon. Staying sensitive to others, especially in a time of national or international crisis, is important—especially if your followers and clients are going through the turmoil. Forgetting your filter is an easy way to make enemies. Continue Reading