Social Media Trends Freelancers Shouldn’t Ignore
Posted November 9, 2012 in Marketing, Social Media
As a freelancer, what do you need to know about Social media trends?
Probably quite a lot. Social media is an important marketing strategy for most freelancers.
But, if you’ve been freelancing for a while you also know that social media changes often. It can be hard to keep up.
In this post, I list four recent social media trends and their potential importance to freelancers.
Trend 1: Facebook Promoted Posts
What it is: Facebook recently launched a “service” to its users. For a small fee (which seems to vary depending on your profile), you can have your statuses appear at the top of the user feed.
Why it’s important: Facebook is one of the largest social media networks online with a huge user base. No matter what your freelancing specialty, chances are that your target audience is on Facebook.
When this post was written, some users seem genuinely unhappy with the new service of promoted posts. Consider, for example, this editorial by Matt Silverman at Mashable.
While promoted posts may not last, the fact remains that Facebook needs to earn a profit. If this is not the means, rest assured that they will come up with something else.
What you can do: If your networking is done solely through Facebook or mostly through Facebook, you should investigate other social media sites as well. It’s never good to have all your eggs in one basket.
If you want to play with promoted posts on Facebook to see what happens right now the price seems cheap enough for freelancers to test this feature.
I don’t recommend this as a long-term strategy, though. Those little charges could really add up. I think “wait and see” is a good strategy for most freelancers when it comes to this trend.
Trend 2: LinkedIn Skills & Expertise Endorsements
What it is: LinkedIn has enhanced the Skills & Expertise section of the LinkedIn profile so that your LinkedIn connections can endorse a skill area.
Endorsements differs from testimonials in that your connection does not write an endorsement, but merely clicks on a skill and the connection’s image appears by that skill as an endorsement.
Why it’s important: Personally, I greatly prefer LinkedIn recommendations over LinkedIn endorsements. But the fact is that recommendations are hard to get. Clients get busy and don’t have the time to write one.
Within the first few days after LinkedIn endorsements launched, I quickly received endorsements from several clients who I had tried to get recommendations from previously.
What you can do: List any skills that you feel are strengths so that these skills can be endorsed. Endorse others. Ask for endorsements.
Trend 3: Bing Social Media Sidebar
What it is: While it doesn’t boast quite as many users as Google, it’s still important to consider the Bing search engine. Plus, the user base is growing.
The Bing Social Sidebar has been in place since May of 2012. What it does is list relevant social media information beside your search results in the form of people who might know about your search query. You can then directly ask your question through social media.
Why it’s important: Your social media presence has never been more important. By listing names in a sidebar by search results, Bing is, in effect, identifying experts. Social media tools that can be accessed by the Bing Sidebar include:
- Foursquare
- Google+
- Klout
- Quora
(In my own tests of this feature, most of the recommendations seemed to come from Quora. I’m not sure why.)
What you can do: If you don’t have an active social media presence, start to build one.
Trend 4: Google+ Mobile App
What it is: The newest version of the Google+ app for Android and iOS allows users to see their Google+ stream and share with their circles.
Why it’s important: Google is still the most popular search engine by a wide margin. So, it’s important to pay attention to what they do. Google+ is likely to affect Google search engine ranking.
Beyond that, this is a cool app that can help mobile freelancers keep up with their Google+ social media presence.
What you can do: If you haven’t established a Google+ presence yet for your freelancing business, consider doing so. If you’re a mobile freelancer, download the app so that you can keep up with your social media activity while you travel.
Your Turn
Have you tried any of these new social media trends? What do you think? Are they helpful, or not?
Share your answers in the comments.
Related posts:
- 4 More New Social Media Trends for Freelancers to Explore
- 7 Popular Social Media Myths Freelancers Can Ignore
- 5 New Social Networking Trends for Freelancers to Explore
- 6 People Freelancers Meet on Social Media
- The Top 10 Social Media Options for Freelancers & Small Business Owners
About the author: Laura Spencer is a freelance writer from North Central Texas with over 20 years of professional business writing experience. If you liked this post, then you may also enjoy Laura’s blog about her freelance writing experiences, WritingThoughts. Laura is also on Google+.
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14 Comments
Tony Moly
November 9th, 2012 at 11:59 amI haven’t noticed about LinkedIn so much in the past. Maybe I need reconsider this social network. Agree with you that we can’t skip social networks in the online marketing nowadays.
Thanks for your post, Laura!
Laura Spencer
November 9th, 2012 at 1:16 pmTony Moly–Thanks for your comment. :) I wouldn’t ignore LinkedIn. Recruiters are using it as a database to find people for short and long-term positions.
Gold
November 9th, 2012 at 2:44 pmDo you have statistical information about what recruiters are using?
Laura Spencer
November 9th, 2012 at 3:15 pmGold,
According to cnet, the percentage of recruiters using LinkedIn is 93%. Here’s a link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57469282-93/heads-up-linkedin-users-93-of-recruiters-are-looking-at-you/
Moravcsik Andra
November 10th, 2012 at 9:39 pmComments are an easy way to build quality content. Google gives more value to sites with topics that create debates.
Facebook comments are very important, seen lot of sites ranking high because of them.
john
November 11th, 2012 at 7:14 amthanks for the info do you have tips for my site: Hyperlink Code
Catena Creations
November 11th, 2012 at 11:40 amBe very careful about paying for ads, posts, etc. on Facebook. I ran a campaign for a client earlier this year that seemed to be very successful, until word came out that people were finding fake “likes”. When we got through the testing phase of the campaign and started running the best ads, we found out that those people were right. Most of the likes from the first campaign were fake. We have not advertised since then, and have no plans to do so in the future.
If you decide to expand the reach of your posts by paying for promoted posts, follow your stats and check the links to make sure it’s your friends and fans who are liking and commenting.
Freelancers also need to be aware that when you post something on Facebook, only about 16% of those who Like you will actually see the post. This is a number Facebook highlighted at their Feb. 29 meeting in New York:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/29/facebook-posts_n_1311330.html
Some cite the rate as low as 12%!
So unless you’re willing to spend money to get your posts seen, you may be spending a lot of time on Facebook without much return.
Laura Spencer
November 11th, 2012 at 3:51 pmCatena Creations,
Thanks for sharing your experiences with Facebook. It’s interesting that you had a different experience than what one normally hears. Personally, I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook, but would love to hear from other freelancers who do.
April
November 12th, 2012 at 12:32 amHi Laura! Social media is a great way for freelancers to show their skills and meet new clients. I haven’t tried Bing and LinkedIn. I’ll definitely try that. Thanks for sharing! :)
Edward
November 15th, 2012 at 1:13 amOne trend most freelancers often overlook is contest organized through Pinterest. A contest can be a really effective way in promoting a business, and chances are one will gain some loyal customers.
Let’s say you are a writer. You can pin your book covers into a themed board. Other than that, if you have any visual materials related to your books, make them pin-able to your readers. The “Pin it” badge can be very useful provided that you put it at the right place. e.g. : At the bottom right after the content.
Visually attractive materials tend to attract more attention, & that can drive some serious traffic to a website.
mamun
December 4th, 2012 at 7:45 amits another great post. thanks catena for your experience.
Gamin
December 7th, 2012 at 7:43 pmI didn’t know Bing has a social sidebar. It’s definitely something worth checking out. Thanks for the suggestion!
Social Service Point
January 11th, 2013 at 2:14 pmWhy you didn’t add instagram and youtube? I think its more effective after facebook and twitter.
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