So how can Twitter help you?

Now the first thing most Freelancers are probably thinking is to get more clients. While this is a biggy I think there are many more, but let’s start there anyway.

Can Twitter help you get more clients?

Follow people you want to work with/for
I think the answer is yes, but instead of thinking of Twitter as a big promotional tool perhaps it should be considered more of a way of introducing yourself in a more subtle way. Twitter allows you to follow anyone, so you could start following companies that you would like to work for. Then you can start joining in their twitter conversations, answering questions they pose, retweeting their tweets etc etc (NOT SELLING). If you maintain regular Twitter contact with them, with any luck they will check out who you are, follow you back and who knows what will happen from there. As well as the standard Twitter search also check out Twellow.

I have got work through Twitter
Personally I have got work through Twitter, one through someone I regularly tweeted with and actually hadn’t even considered they may give me freelance work. I have also indirectly got freelance work through Twitter by finding and following someone, and then asking if they would be interviewed for my other blog on Skype. After that we met in person through another Twitter friend and since then she has given me some freelance work.

Setting up twitter searches for your freelance niche
Twitter also allows you to set up searches (I use Tweetdeck for this), so you can keep an eye out if anyone is looking for the type of freelance work you offer. For example a little while ago a friend of mine was looking for a freelance copywriter, I said I would put a Tweet out for him through both my twitter accounts. Within half an hour I had people recommending people and some suggesting themselves. Some of these people weren’t even following me, so they must have either had searches set up for the term “copywriter” or alternatively my tweet was retweeted by someone they were following. To cut a long story short, my friend ended up with about 10 copywriters to choose from and ended up using one of them.

Getting advice

If you are a freelancer working alone it’s great to know that at the end of a Tweet their may be someone who can answer a question for you or offer advice.Perhaps you are having computer or software problems or just aren’t quite sure how to do things then put a Tweet out.

Need recommendations for products or Services

If you are looking for something such as a product or service what better way to find one than asking you Twitter followers. of course as with anything you have to do your own due diligence.

Making Friends

If you work in a big office there is never a shortage of conversation, but that is not always the case for freelancers especially if you work from home. Want to share a story, something you are working on or just pass the time of day you can do this with Twitter.

Finding Other freelancers to collaborate with

Who is to know what can happen with the people you meet on Twitter. Find someone you have a lot in common with and you can always take the conversation to email, Skype or even meeting up in person.

What are you thoughts on using Twitter as a Freelancer?

Please feel free to comment below or drop me a Tweet on Twitter

For tips on freelancing straight to your inbox click here

Other posts worth reading on the web

How to Really Use Twitter to Find More Freelance Work
http://freelanceswitch.com/freelancing-essentials/5-ways-not-to-use-twitter/
8 Easy Ways to Network on Twitter

With the current financial situation, freelancers could either find themselves in demand as they are cheaper than larger companies or that their work shrinks as their clients continue to feel the squeeze. There may also be more freelancers around as people made redundant from full time work seek interim freelance jobs.

So how do you Market your freelance services?

I would love to find out (if you are up for sharing )-

• What has been successful for you?
• Have you tried an unusual way to market your freelance design services?
• Is Twitter your marketing friend?
• Does Facebook feed you new clients?
• Does blogging bring you new business

What difficulties have you found?

Leave a comment or why not drop me an email and share your story and I will feature you on this blog along of course with a link back to your website and show some of your work off too.

Advice from other Freelancers

A few years ago I ran a popular series called Freelancers Focus where freelance designers shared their experiences and advice on freelancing. It was a real insight into how different freelance designers ran their businesses and marketed their freelance services. You may recognise a few names from the range of freelancers that took part, including designer bloggers:

• Jacob Cass
• Von R. Glitschka
• Rob Cubbon
• Amanda Vlahakis

Of course since then there has been an increase in the number of online channels where you can market your freelance services and network with both peers and potential clients including Twitter, Linked In and the new kid on the block Google Plus.

Want to get notified of Freelance Tips straight to your inbox? <a href=”http://www.graphicdesignblog.co.uk/freelance-tips/”>Sign up here</a>

Ps. What do you think, should I start up the freelancers focus series again – any volunteers?

For more info check out http://cole007.net/blog/86/freelance-rates-survey-2011 and find out if you are charging what you should be.

Want to get notified of Freelance Tips straight to your inbox? Sign up here

Podio

Just like Basecamp, Podio allows you to create and cchedule tasks and create different spaces where you can invite other people to collaborate. This is great for scheduling your own projects and for designers collaborating on design projects. Another interesting feature of Podio is that it allows you to create “Apps” and all this requires is a drag and drop of different elements (no coding needed). This gives you the ability to do all sorts of things such as storing contacts for a design job, collecting together inspirational links and much more. You can also attach images in Podio giving clients or the rest of your team the ability to leave comments, which can save you from having to dig through emails, and allows you to remember who said what.

Freedcamp

Although I have only quickly looked at it, another free option for managing your design projects is Freedcamp which is very similar to Basecamp. Check out the video below to find out more.

You can read a full review at the  Pixsym Blog

Wunderlist

If you have ever tried the paid App “Things” by Culture Code Wunderlist looks very similar, if a little more basic, but best of all it’s free. It’s available for Mac, PC Andoid and Iphone and you can also collaborate (though I haven’t tried this). The only thing that bugged me about Wunderlist is that I could only view my tasks by Project and not purely by date.

What do you use to manage your design projects?

Business dreams are fantastic; they can fire-up your enthusiasm and make the planning and work feel worthwhile. What’s even better than business dreams? Watching them become your reality.

Studies show that setting precise business goals makes business dreams a lot more likely to become real. That’s because the right goals keep your drive high, focus your mind, and get your creativity flowing.

1 “Begin with the end in mind” (Stephen R Covey, author & speaker)

What changes would you like in your design business? Examples could be “I want clients who really get my style” or “I want to earn an additional £800 a month”.

Note down your answers to the question — don’t analyse them, just let them flow out.

2 Highlight one answer that feels like it would have the biggest impact on your business at this moment

(There may be lots of things you want to do, that’s wonderful — remember you can always come back to this process as soon as your first goal is finished, or on-track.)

3 Make your goal do-able, but exciting

Don’t underestimate yourself with a half-hearted wish like “It would be nice to have one new client by March next year”; you have more talent than that in your little finger! Your goal should be something you’d go for when you’re on a high or having a good day — it should stretch you a little.

4 Get into the nitty-gritty

Make your goal specific, an example could be: “I want four new clients, giving me work totalling £600 per month, by 9am, eight weeks from today”.

Don’t be tempted into fuzzy phrases like “I need more clients”. Put actual dates & numbers in, even if it feels challenging. Dates & numbers will really increase the chances of your goal becoming reality. And remember: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.” (Les Brown, speaker & author).

5 Finally, “Ink it, don’t think it” (Mark Victor Hansen, business coach & entrepreneur)

Write your goal down; perhaps turning it into a desktop background, design or collage. Whatever format you use, make sure you place it where you can see it every day in your work area.

For an extra boost, put a credit-card sized version in your purse or wallet. Studies show that, funny though it sounds, carrying your goal on you really increases the chances of it becoming reality.

I look forward to your achievements — do feel free to share your success stories with me.

I’m Mhairi Gordon-Preston and I help design business-owners & freelancers become more profitable and more fulfilled. Get monthly tips from me, plus a gift ecourse at SuitFreeBusinessHelpForDesignCompanies.com. I worked as a designer for 10 years, have run my own businesses for 10 years and am an Enterprise Champion in my local town, helping small businesses connect with each other

It is because of this I have been wondering whether to create a free guide called something like – How to Freelance for Beginners. If this is something you would be interested in please let me know by signing up below to be alerted when the guide is ready.

Sign up for notification of the Freelance Guide

Name:

Email:

Please put in the comments anything you would specifically like covered in the guide.

Meanwhile I have previously written several posts on how to freelance that you might enjoy:

How to Freelance Posts From Graphic Design Blog UK

Advice for New Freelance Designers by 30+ Freelance Designers
The answer from 30+ freelance designers to the question – What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to someone starting out freelancing?

Working Freelance From Home or Inhouse, Pros and Cons
Working in house can prove a more sociable way to work but freelancing from home has its perks too.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Freelance Design Through a Third Party (Middleman)
As well as working directly for companies as a freelancer you may also get offered work via a third party, this could be a PR company or a design company that subcontracts their design work to you. This cuts out some of the client management process which has both pros and cons.

Back up Your Freelance Design Work
I can’t emphasise the importance of keeping back ups of your freelance design work. Losing a days work is frustrating, but several weeks or months work could be a major disaster for your business.

How Much Can You Charge for Freelance Graphic Design
A look at how to calculate what you should charge for your freelance design services

So What’s Stopping You Becoming a Freelance Designer
My personal journey to becoming a freelance graphic designer

Does a Freelancer Need an Accountant?
How an accountant can save you more than you pay them

Freelancing – Breaking Free from Fulltime Employment
Questions you should ask yourself before going freelance and tips to help you.

8 Reasons Why Designers Should Blog
My recent post with examples of how blogs have helped freelance designers

How to Freelance Advice from Other Design Bloggers

7 Tips for Freelancers Arranging a Holiday
A post by Ken Reynolds which deals with the tricky problem of how to take holidays as a freelancer

Why Freelancers Should Not Announce Their Availability
An interesting post by Brian Yerkes who thinks freelance designers may be missing out on work by publicly announcing their availability.

Urgent! How to Handle those Last-Minute Design Requests
Every freelancer at some point will receive a call with a last minute design request Tracey Grady discusses the best way to deal with them.

Self-employment advice for designers
Davis Airey offers his advice for designers considering self employment.

What is Clientophilic Freelancing?

Cleintophilic freelancing is an ebook aimed at freelancers including graphic and web designers who need a bit of help with their sales skills (ie they are clientophobic). It is not going to help you promote your design work, but once you do get a meeting set up aims to help you convert it into a live design job with better sales techniques.

Lets face it the majority of us designers are not great sales people. I think it is far easier for someone not actually doing the work to sell – they generally don’t think about the technical problems in the brief or the timing, they just listen and say, yes, we can do that (and leave us to curse when they get the job!).

This book looks at the psychology of different types of people and gives you ideas of the best ways to approach each of them. Along with this there are very general tips which should make any potential client feel at ease. A few of the techniques you may have heard of but I am sure there will be some you haven’t. For example one technique suggested is to repeat back what the client says. For example if they were saying they were looking for a very corporate typographic logo, which must be blue and include a given strapline when they had finished telling you about it you would say Ok When I get back to the office I will sort out a quote for your logo, I understand it needs to be very corporate and typographic based and include your strapline and retain your companies existing blue. This apparently makes the client feel like you are listening to them and have understood the given information. Its funny it’s something I know I actually do at meetings, though I do it more to make sure I have understood all the information correctly (so I am doing something right).

Personally I wouldn’t be comfortable to try out some of the tips straight away in case I made it too obvious and the book itself recommends you practice the techniques out on friends and family first – obviously without telling them to see if it works. (Who knows, maybe you can use the techniques to talk one of your friends into buying you dinner )

Should I get Clientophilic Freelancing?

If you are new or nervous about meeting with potential clients or are struggling to convert a meeting into a sale then Clientophilic Freelancing will probably help you.

If you need help with promoting yourself to find new clients in the first place see my review of 10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion for Creatives

Have you ever thought how much easier it would be to get more work from your existing design clients than trying to look for new ones?

Everyone always says when your quiet give your existing clients a ring just to see if they have any design work for you. I guess you could be lucky and call at just the right time but I have another idea you could try.

I have been doing a couple of internet marketing courses recently and hearing all this talk of upselling (selling something more expensive or extra that was originally being purchased) and realised that when I went to a meeting with one of my clients the other day that was exactly what I had done.

I went to see my client who wanted a little A5 leaflet designing as she was trying to promote her business locally (it’s a local only business). I suggested what about creating some very local keyword targeted mini websites (the competition would be low for this) to drive extra business to her main web site. I also put another potential idea to her that could make her business accessible to non local people that she was interested in. Now none of these ideas were me thinking about finding extra work, but were purely because I was trying to think of otherways she could market her business. I walked out of the meeting not only with the A5 leaflet but also with some simple mini wordpress websites to create and the potential to be part of another project.

Why not try this:

Take one of your regular clients and think of new ways they could genuinely reach more potential customers - 

• Do some keyword research on their market to find out what people are really looking for
• Do they have a blog? Could it help create business
• Do they have a twitter page – how could this help them reach new people
• Do they receive much traffic to their website – how could you help them achieve more – could you create some highly targeted via mini sites, a squidoo lens, upload some imagery to Flickr
• Suggest things they could do themselves (or offer to do it for them for a small fee) – add themselves to google local, submit articles to article directories, find directories they could list themselves in. Although if they do these things themselves you don’t make any money – you will gain goodwill and show them that you are actively interested in their success. Of course if they make more money they will have more to spend on design (hopefully with you)

The next time you have a meeting with them suggest one or two of these ideas and see how it goes.

Would love to hear if anyone else has tried this technique.

I have been doing a lot of reading up on social networking (I have pile of books) and to be honest I could have thrown them away and just read this one. What is good about this book is it is targeted directly at a creative person and so tells you the things you really need to know.

The book walks you through many different ways of doing graphic design self promotion online – including creating online graphic design portfolios, setting up your designer’s twitter step by step (I need to do this myself), creating your designer’s facebook and fan page. The book however does go far beyond this with methods you may not have even considered and should have ideas for both the novice and more experienced designer.

There are so many ideas in this book you could gradually implement an idea or two a week and soon build up both your credibility and list of potential graphic and web design clients.

The book will be released on 10th March, but Alex is currently also given away some free tips on creative and graphic self promotion if you join his mailing list.

I actually had a go at creating a little Youtube video animation for the book, to try out Photoshop CS3 animation timeline its my first attempt and I had a few problems with quality but here it is…

I have made a screen cast (be gentle with me it’s my first) below to show you its simplicity.