Freelancefolder

Twitter For Freelancers (A Basic Overview)

Posted April 28, 2009 in How-To, Tools/Resources 39 Rockin' Comments »

If you spend any time online at all, you’ve probably already heard of a social media site called Twitter.

Twitter is quickly becoming mainstream, and is growing at an incredible pace. In the past month alone it’s been mentioned on radio commercials, in a television advertisements, and I’ve even heard non-internet savvy friends discussing it. Many popular celebrities are tweeting these days.

Some of you probably already have Twitter accounts and actively use them to promote your business. If that’s your situation, we’d love to hear about your Twitter business experiences in the comments.

Many of you, however, may have delayed your involvement with Twitter. Maybe you even have an account, but just aren’t quite sure how Twitter can help your freelance business. If you fit into one of these categories, then this post is for you.

As an overview, this post won’t cover the literally dozens of Twitter add-ons and utilities that are available around the web. We will, however, give you some basic suggestions on how your freelance business might be able to benefit from using Twitter.

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Why You Need to Monitor Your Online Reputation

Posted April 13, 2009 in Business, How-To 57 Rockin' Comments »

A couple of times every month I browse on over to Google and search for my own name to see what the results will bring. After I’ve done that, I type in the name of my website and run the search engine again.

Checking your online reputation like this is something that every freelancer should do on a regular basis. I wouldn’t recommend stopping with Google, either. You should also check on Twitter and on other social media sites.

While it might seem vain to search for yourself online, it’s actually an important step in protecting your online reputation. If you do business online, then you not only be checking on but also working to protect and manage your online reputation.

What You Can Learn From Your Online Reputation

Every time you search for your own name on Google or Twitter, you can learn several important things:

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How To Successfully Collaborate With Other Freelancers: A Beginner’s Guide

Posted April 7, 2009 in Business, How-To 21 Rockin' Comments »

As you continue to freelance, you may come to a point where it just makes sense to collaborate with another freelance professional.

It may happen because a project that you are offered requires skills that you don’t have. It may happen because you desire creative input from another freelancer that you respect. Or, it may happen because your work schedule has gotten so busy that you need to share some of the workload in order to grow and expand.

Whatever the reason, collaboration can be a great experience for a freelancer — with a lot of significant benefits. Or, it can be a real nightmare when each collaborator gets hung up in details like:

• Who is responsible for what?
• Who gets the credit?
• How will the pay is to be divided?

The key to collaborative success is in the preparation. You should follow some basic guidelines when you collaborate to avoid problems. Here are a few suggestions:

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Overcoming Loneliness: How To Develop a Flesh-And-Blood Support Group

Posted April 1, 2009 in How-To, Lifestyle 29 Rockin' Comments »

My friend leaned across the table. In a low voice she said, “I could never work from home like you do. I’d miss being around people too much.”

Actually, she has a valid point. At one time or another, most freelancers do face the problem of loneliness.

While it is great having virtual friends and colleagues from all walks of life and all over the world, there comes a time when most of us want to be around real people.

Loneliness might happen during a work-related crisis, a family-related crisis, or a personal crisis. Or, it might just be the consequence of spending too much time in front of your computer. Whatever the cause, that virtual contact just won’t do. You need a flesh and blood support group.

I’m fortunate in that I have several good friends that I can meet for lunch about once a month. So, I don’t really feel as isolated as I could feel. I can say this though, it’s a real treat for me to get out of the office and get face to face with another person. My local friends serve as sort of a support group for me and I appreciate their willingness to listen.

Since many freelancers work from home, we don’t often get the opportunity to make friends locally. Consequently, some of us don’t have a flesh and blood support group.

That’s where this post comes in handy.

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Redesign Your Portfolio Site: 4 Tips To Make It Better And Get More Business

Posted March 30, 2009 in Business, How-To, Web Design 20 Rockin' Comments »

If you’re thinking about redesigning your portfolio site, it’s probably for some pretty good reasons.

Maybe you’re not getting enough business out of it, maybe you want to add more features but you can’t because of a restricting layout, or maybe you’re just tired of the current design.

No matter the reasons, there are some basic steps and guidelines you should follow when redesigning a portfolio site. These four tips will help you make the most out of it:

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How To Know When A Project Is Complete (And Avoid Overworking)

Posted March 26, 2009 in How-To, Lifestyle 40 Rockin' Comments »

When is a project done? Do you really know how to tell when you should stop working?

New freelancers often ask me nervously how many times they should check over their work. My own commitment is to look at a project at least three times before turning it in.

However, caution can be overdone. Many freelancers are guilty of overdoing their projects without really intending to. If you tend to be a perfectionist (like I am) it is really easy to overdo it. Rechecking over your work usually means redoing, and redoing it, and redoing it. . .all in the hopes of “perfecting” it.

Sometimes a minimalist approach is really the best answer.

I think that there is an awful lot of overwriting, over programming, and over designing going on in the freelancing world. Overwork happens because freelancers tend to be quality-driven (and in general, that’s a good thing).

However, sometimes there can be too much of a good thing. Unfortunately, all of this extra work takes a lot of time. It can cost the freelancer in terms of lost opportunities. It could even cause the freelancer to miss deadlines.

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How To Handle Monumental Screw Ups When They DO Happen

Posted March 23, 2009 in Business, How-To 18 Rockin' Comments »

In a previous post on FreelanceFolder, Jon Phillips discussed steps you can take to avoid major problems before they happen. But, what do you do when they do happen?

Because let’s face it… problems WILL happen.

How you handle those situations can either make or break your relationship with that client. A poorly handled problem can cause you to loose the client and possibly more through word of mouth.

However, handling those problems with the coolness and professionalism of an airline pilot can actually improve your relationship with the client.

Below is a process I’ve come up with to help with those situations. While it won’t help in all situations, it’s been tried, tested, and works very well in most.

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Find The Perfect Image For Any Project In 5 Steps

Posted March 19, 2009 in Graphic Design, How-To, Web Design 37 Rockin' Comments »

Finding the right image is a constant challenge for designers, writers, freelancers, photographers — and just about anyone else who works on visual projects. Wading through the myriad of images and websites that are out there is tough, and picking a single one of those photos can be even harder.

In this article, we’ll show you a simple 5 step process that can make finding the right image much easier. It’s a process that’s been used to find hundreds of great images on this site, and it’s been used to find thousands of images for various other projects.

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10 Types of Bad Clients and How To Avoid Them

Posted March 17, 2009 in Business, How-To 73 Rockin' Comments »

Last week we ran an article about the various characteristics of a good client. This week, we’re going to look at the other end of that: ten different types of bad clients, and what you can do to avoid them.

If you’ve been freelancing for long, then there’s no doubt you’ve read some of the horror stories about bad clients. You may have even run into a few bad clients in your own business.

Over the years, I have noticed that most bad clients seem to fall into certain common patterns. In this post, I share those patterns with you. Keep in mind that none of these bad client types are specific to any one client that I’ve ever worked with. Rather, these examples are a generalization of the many different characteristics a bad client can take. Personally, I rarely ever have to deal with a bad client in my business, and I’ll explain how you too can avoid them later on in the article.

Here are a few descriptions of some bad clients that you might encounter during your freelancing career:

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