Twitter For Freelancers (A Basic Overview)
Posted April 28, 2009 in How-To, Tools/Resources 39 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.
What is Twitter Anyway?
Twitter is a social media/communications tool found at www.twitter.com. It is considered a microblogging tool, which basically means you have a series of small text entries (140 characters) organized by the time they were posted. There is no charge to use Twitter.
Once you are a member, you can begin to post your 140 character messages, called tweets. You can also customize your background, create a brief biography, add an image that will appear with your posts, and link to your website. These tweets form the basis of your interaction with other users on Twitter, and through them you can update your friends/colleagues, make new friends, have discussions, find information, and much more.
If you are planning to use your Twitter account for your freelance business, it is a good idea to make sure that all of these elements coordinate with your business brand. For example, you can use your business logo for your twitter image and possibly even your background, too. Your biography should describe your business. Your link should be to your business website.
About Following and Being Followed
Twitter gives you the chance to follow the tweets of other Twitter members. Following a Twitter member means that you will be able to see their tweets from your home page. Twitter also allows other Twitter members to follow your tweets.
You can select who you follow on Twitter. To some extent, the content of your tweets will determine who follows you.
To make the most of your Twitter account from a business perspective, it’s a good idea to follow those Twitter users whose tweets can enhance your business. Colleagues, possible mentors, and potential and existing clients are good following choices for your business. To find out people’s Twitter user name, try the Twitter “Find People” tool or look on their website for their Twitter information. Twitter search is also a great way to find other people interested in the same topics as you. (On Twitter, you can find me as @TXWriter. FreelanceFolder is also on Twitter as @FreelanceFolder.)
Ideally, your followers would be made up of a targeted group of colleagues, clients, and potential clients. Right now, however, many Twitter users are making efforts to indiscriminately get as many followers as possible. Depending on the type of freelance business that you run, this approach may or may not make sense for your situation.
Six Ways To Build Your Business Using Twitter
Here are six ways your freelance business could use Twitter:
- Build Relationships – Successful marketing is largely a matter of relationship building. Twitter is an excellent communication tool that gives clients and perspective clients a way to get to know you better. Twitter can also be used as a mentoring tool. You can follow your mentors or provide relevant information to your mentees.
- Gather Information or Conduct Research – You can conduct research through Twitter. If you’re “stuck” on a particular problem, tweeting about that problem often leads to tweets from your followers containing helpful suggestions and links to resources.
- Look for Gigs – Believe it or not, you may actually find gigs directly through Twitter. You may notice that perspective client is tweeting about needing help or that a colleague has posted a link of job listings. You can also use the Twitter search tool to look for gigs.
- Offer a Gig – Does your freelance business need to hire someone? Why not “advertise” the gig to your loyal Twitter fans first? Tweet about your opportunity and see what kind of response you get.
- Establish Your Expertise – Twitter is a great way to build your professional reputation and establish yourself as a subject matter expert in your field. Not only can you link to your own blog posts and articles, you can also scan the Internet for materials that are relevant to your field and link to those materials as well.
- See What People Are Saying About You – The Twitter search tool also gives you a chance to find out what other Twitter users are saying about you. Try searching on your business name, your blog name, your name, or the name of your latest blog post.
Do You Use Twitter in Your Freelance Business?
Do you currently use Twitter in your freelance business? Has it provided a significant benefit?
We’d love to read about your real–life business experiences with Twitter. Leave a comment and share your story or your ideas.
About the author: Laura Spencer is a freelance writer from North Central Texas with over 19 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
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39 Comments
Ritu
April 28th, 2009 at 11:13 amTwitter has really become a platform that you simply can’t afford not using. As a freelancer and marketer, I use twitter regularly. However, it seems like lately people are more obsessed with following and being followed rather than utilizing the true essence of this platform which is communication. I am going to hijack this comment section and share a chart I created a while back on the uses of twitter http://applicant.com/twitter-guide/.
Once again thanks for the great article Laura.
Max
April 28th, 2009 at 11:15 amFor me, Twitter is a great way to stay in touch with past or current clients as well as getting links to interesting articles. However, I have to admit that I personally think the way more and more people try to represent theirselves is questionable.
Even though most people probably disagree, but at the beginning, Twitter was a nice way to get to know interesting people and clients better by reading what they are doing, what they think about, etc. – Now, too many people basically just use it for commercial purposes by tweeting links all day long or pointing to products they created often just to get as many followers as possible.
While some really interesting links each day are good and helpful, I already stop following people who seem to be more like a bot than a human being because that’s basically what my RSS reader is for.
Colin Wright
April 28th, 2009 at 11:22 amI find a lot of value in using Twitter, partially because I follow some amazing people, and partially because it allows me to connect with people I would not have ever made contact with through other social networks (or more conventional means).
Laura Spencer
April 28th, 2009 at 11:29 amGreat feedback! Thanks for your link Ritu – that’s a good resource.
Max I think that “people who seem more like a bot than a human being” is a common complaint. I’m not sure that I have the answer though (except to say – don’t be like that).
Ritu
April 28th, 2009 at 11:38 am@Laura : Glad you found it useful
Susan Johnston
April 28th, 2009 at 11:48 amI’m on Twitter (@UrbanMuseWriter) and I wished I’d joined even sooner! Aside from promoting my blog posts and finding potential sources for articles, Twitter is also a great community for freelancers. Since I’m home all day by myself, I tune in periodically and connect with a virtual set of coworkers. It’s great because it’s there when you want it and (unlike real coworkers in an office) you can tune it out when you’re on deadline. Writers might be interested in Tweetchats like Journchat (Monday nights) and Editorchat (Wednesday nights). Always an interesting conversation and a way to find new tweeple to follow.
@CathyWebSavvyPR
April 28th, 2009 at 11:49 amI have met a lot of very helpful people on Twitter, learned a lot of information from good links tweeted by people, and have begun to meet potential clients and turn them into paying clients there as well.
It is also a great way for freelancers and solopreneurs who work out of a home or small office to connect with others in their fields – the proverbial coffee break or trip to copier or water cooler – say a quick hi, exchange a bit of what are you reading/doing/working on info, then back to the work itself.
It is also a great place to ‘crowd source’ or research info. If you are trying to decide on the merits of one tool or program or app and another – asking for input from other freelancers on twitter can often provide just the detail you need to help your decision.
Would it be okay in this post for people to add their twitter link to help folks on Freelance Folder connect to each other via Twitter? If so, I’m http://twitter.com/CathyWebSavvyPR or just @CathyWebSavvyPR.
crazywabbit
April 28th, 2009 at 2:04 pmI just love that cute bird.
Laura Spencer
April 28th, 2009 at 3:31 pmI’m okay with people leaving their Twitter links here if Mason is.
I think I already left mine in the article, but here it is again: @TXWriter. Freelance Folder has its own link too: @FreelanceFolder
Ryan Baustert
April 28th, 2009 at 5:47 pmI recently became active with using Twitter over the last 2 weeks. It’s amazing how fast you can draw traffic to sites and show off your work. As a musician and freelance designer, I can’t imagine not having access to my Twitter page.
http://www.twitter.com/Ryan_TTF
Sean
April 28th, 2009 at 6:09 pmFor me twitter has been indespensible over the last 10-11 months that I’ve been using it. I moved into web development from my day job, but unfortunately for me I live in a country where there are not many English speaking web developers and this severely limited my ablity to network, learn and improve my skills.
However Twitter allowed me to connect with other developers across the globe. These people have been incredibly helpful and supportive as I’ve developed as a developer (corny I know). It’s also gotten to the point where I can now offer help and advice back to the same people who helped me get started.
100% twitter has helped me find work as well. A couple of times I tweeted about having free time and no projects and I had some extra work because of that. Additionally I also tweeted about specializing in an area of ExpressionEngine that many developers don’t enjoy working and got extra work that way as well.
Twitter helps, but it’s also important to build relationships not be a network leech. Relationships are the key. There is one particular person who went way above and beyond helpming me out so I bought something local and very unique and shipped it to him – that’s relationship building in action.
Sean
April 28th, 2009 at 6:10 pmWoops forgot my twitter link http://twitter.com/createsean
Doreen Howell
April 28th, 2009 at 7:58 pmHi Laura,
Great tips. I’d suggest adding a retweet button to your blog to make it easy to…well, retweet.
Lexi Rodrigo
April 28th, 2009 at 10:24 pmWhile I’ve never gotten any clients directly through Twitter I am certain that my Twitter presence has influenced a few of my clients’ decisions to hire me. After all, we had been interacting on Twitter prior to them hiring me, so if I hadn’t made a good impression then they wouldn’t have chosen to work with me.
Oh, I just remembered that I did get a couple of inquiries from people I met on Twitter (but unfortunately I wasn’t accepting any new clients).
Twitter has benefitted me in other ways, too, such as getting advice on technical Internet issues, recommendations for software and other tools to solve my problems, etc.
And if anybody here would like to follow me on Twitter, here’s my link: http://www.twitter.com/lexirodrigo
Jon Phillips
April 29th, 2009 at 3:35 amGreat post Laura!
I have to say I wouldn’t be where I am right now if it wasn’t for Twitter. A lot of my clients I met on Twitter, and many of them are now friends, which is even nicer! Even though I don’t always tweet about business-related and entrepreneurial stuff I find it’s a great way to let people know what’s going on ‘behind the scenes’. :)
Cheers
Jon
Judith
April 29th, 2009 at 4:42 amGreat article, Laura. I have to say am new to blogging as well as twitting. The two platforms are new but my twitter account has gathered a small number of followers. But, I love it.
ww.twitter.com/kenyanfreelance
Judith
April 29th, 2009 at 4:46 amooops sorry folks, I meant http://www.twitter.com/kenyanfreelance
Nemanja Jovanovic
April 29th, 2009 at 5:25 amYes,I recommend twitter,great tool for freelance designers to get some good gigs.
Chef_pete
April 29th, 2009 at 9:31 amI offer daily meal ideas with 140character recipes, follow me on twitter Chef_pete and if you have any ideas would be good to know!
Mason Hipp
April 29th, 2009 at 9:43 amHey Everyone, great discussion!
I just wanted to chime in and agree with Laura — go ahead and leave your twitter names if you’d like to contact each other :-)
Dave Sherohman
April 29th, 2009 at 1:35 pmRegarding the “don’t act like a bot” point, I do agree, but…
IMO, most of the things worth saying won’t fit into 140 characters. (I once got into a debate via twitter regarding a minor point of public health policy. I felt hamstrung by the inability to support my points rather than just asserting them.)
Given that I presume the “burma shave” technique to be bad form (i.e., making a series of 5-10 tweets which have to be read in sequence to get the complete message), isn’t a blog post and a link the appropriate solution?
Laura Spencer
April 29th, 2009 at 1:54 pmDave, you raise an excellent point – how can one communicate in 140 characters or less.
When I first started on Twitter a year ago, I felt exactly as you do. I wondered how I could possibly fit anything meaningful into 140 characters.
Over time, I’ve come to realize that there is an art to Tweeting effectively. You come to it gradually after Tweeting for a while.
Now I actually think that Tweeting has helped my writing some by forcing me to be more succinct.
Does anyone else have a different answer for Dave?
Catherine Cantieri, Sorted
April 29th, 2009 at 4:04 pmI’ve been using Twitter for a couple of months now (http://www.twitter.com/getsorted), but I don’t think I’ve quite gotten the feel for it. I’m pretty happy with the mix of tweets I put out there, but I feel like I could be doing a better job of “listening” to other folks.
Dave: I’d assert a point then use a shortened URL that points to evidence for your point. Good luck!
Marisa Wikramanayake
April 30th, 2009 at 6:26 amHi,
I use Twitter now and I target people who will see my writing on my weblog and either hire me fulltime/parttime or as a freelancer. The way I do this is by using a few plugins that automatically update Twitter with links to my weblog posts whenever I create them. One such plugin/program is TwitterFeed which you can search for via google.
I also chat to a lot of people – replying to what they say even if they never reply back. I have chats with people who are on some of the same blogging networks. Despite blogging in the same network, we have never chatted before because we blog about different things but we follow each other now on Twitter and while I was just a name before, they now have more of an idea of what I am like and whether we have things in common.
I find that having things in common with people gets you clients and Twitter chatting is an easy way to do that. People who follow you after seeing your tweets are generally people who feel they have something in common with you. I have writers following me because I blog about that but I have geeks following me because they have now realised that I am a geek too! :-D
So yeah, great post. Cheers, Marisa.
Leo Becker
May 1st, 2009 at 8:45 pmMuito bom o artigo!
Acho o Twitter uma ótima ferramenta, que pode ser utilizada de diversas formas, basta ter criatividade!
Leo Becker.
Robert Schueler
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:56 pmAmazing how many new apps are created every day for better easier more fun, twittering…
syed
July 9th, 2009 at 9:34 pmbusiness to business, trade leads, sell offers, buy offers,b2b website,chinese suppliers, manufacturers,join free b2b
Гамлет
August 21st, 2009 at 10:49 pmПремного благодарен, что просветили, и, главное, как раз вовремя. Подумать только, пять лет уже в инете, но про это первый раз слышу.
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