Photo by Noël Zia Lee.

Since freelancers tend to spend long hours hunched in front of a computer, it makes sense that many of them have also congregated on Twitter. Think of it as a virtual watercolor where you can chat about new projects, catch up on industry news, or just take a quick break. Some freelancers are also using the microblogging platform to find new clients and promote their business.

For those who are new to Twitter or just need some new follows, we’ve rounded up 50 users who often tweet about freelance-related topics. Not surprisingly, writers are very well represented on Twitter, but we’ve also uncovered some designers, developers, and other freelance folks. Obviously, there are many more than 50 freelancers on Twitter, so feel to leave your username in the comments.

Continue Reading

Photo by CarrotCreative.

While I love the social aspects of Twitter, I also love the simple platform for self-promotion—especially for authors.

That’s why I’m also using the power of 140 characters or less to help promote my books, Ramen Noodles, Rent and Resumes and Creatively Self-Employed. Here are some tips to help you do the same for your book.

Make Nice With Your Competitors

It may sound counter-active, but teaming up with authors who have written books similar to yours is a great way to network and stay on top of what they’re doing—and what’s going on in your book niche industry that you may have missed. Many of the authors I know who have written career books take time to research statistics, for example. Because I don’t do that too much, I find their tweets (and blog posts) very valuable.

Continue Reading

Twitter Illustration by ProductiveDreams

As you probably know we’ve had the FreelanceSwitch feed available via Twitter for some time (setup kindly by @moep), and it was getting so popular that we decided it’s time to do a little more with Twitter.

You can now find our new Twitter account @Freelancesw with daily updates not just from the blog, but also interesting freelance links from around the web, news and chatter.

Roger that!

If you’re wondering who the man behind the account is, it’s the super Roger Byrne – who you might know better as @styletime. Roger also runs our popular design news, tips and chatter feed @creattica.

If you have something you’d like shared, just DM Roger @freelancesw and let him know!

Those of you who converse with strangers daily or who work from home will probably “get it”: there’s more to social media than just voting for an online friend’s article or broadcasting something on Twitter. What is that “more”? Social media conversation, thanks to web applications such as Plurk. Plurk takes Twitter’s communications paradigm in a more complex direction, adding in a host of features, an interesting interface, and the opportunity to build professional relationships.

So much has already been written about Twitter and its value to freelancers, marketers, artists and more. But Plurk is a new addition to the growing number of “my day in 140 characters” web communications applications such as Pownce, Jaiku, and Hictu. (Though Hictu differs from the group by offering the choice of text, audio or video messages and responses.)

Some people have likened Plurk to the MySpace of microblogging. While there seems to be a far more casual atmosphere in Plurk (at least in my stream), there is still much professional value to most people who utilize Twitter on a daily basis. It’s a matter of deciding what you need from Plurk and finding it.

Continue Reading

Image by carrotcreative.

Twitter is some kind a strange marriage between a blogging platform and an instant messaging client.

You post updates that are made public (known as “tweets”) and people are able to respond to you directly, should they feel the need to comment. Keeping the platform “micro” is the 140 character limit on anything you post.

Posting can also be done in a variety of ways: through the Twitter web site, through integration with some IM clients like Google Talk, by text messaging a number from your cell phone or through a desktop client like Twirl.

Like almost every web-based service these days, it has a social aspect as well. You can make a list of people to “follow” so you’re given a list of all their updates.

Now, like many, when Twitter first hit the scene I raised an eyebrow and said “Why?” At first it seemed to be people posting instant updates and updating the world on how fast the line at the grocery store was moving.

But as I’ve slowly adopted the service, as a freelancer writer, I’m beginning to find more and more uses for it. Continue Reading

Photo by Torchondo.

If you’re a web-working freelancer of any sort, you’re probably following umpteen RSS feeds in your favorite feed reader (Feed Demon, Google Reader, etc.), with your subscription list growing by the day. Are you overwhelmed by the number of RSS feed items in your feed reader that you haven’t read? Are you tired of the “same” items appearing over and over in your subscriptions, even though you’ve read them already? Is using an RSS feed reader becoming counterproductive, even with a structured folder system?

Maybe it’s time to declare RSS “feed reader bankruptcy” and find another way to monitor your niches.

That’s what I did maybe 8-9 months ago, though I’ve never said it publicly. In fact, I didn’t even admit it to myself until recently, fully intending to go back to my Feed Demon app. The massive quantities of unread items and the duplicates generated by some blogging platforms just overwhelmed me. Half my day was spent browsing through feed items I’d never have time to read or use in any way.

What Now?

Freelancers tend to be generalists, which means they need to monitor multiple niches all the time. For some people, a good RSS reader is ideal. If you’re not ready to give up feed readers just yet, I recommend you read Chris Garrett’s excellent 21 Niche News and Feed Reading Productivity Tips.

However, if you are fed up with using an RSS reader, what do you do instead to stay on top of a specific niche? Continue Reading