Is Social Media Useful?

Can you find work as a freelance writer through social media sites? With sites like FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter and more, you can make contacts, but finding work still isn’t easy. Finding work depends on the individual writer, their education, their experience, and how proactive the person is.

Making contacts and being helpful whenever possible, is what anyone using social media needs to do. Social media also consists of blogs as well as sites like FaceBook and others. The blog is the best way for people to find you and learn something about you. This puts a person with the name. Your blog should contain the best writing and content you can do. If your blog is about a niche subject, make it entertaining and useful to whoever reads it.

Content is still king when creating posts to your blog. This will get you read. As people read and tell others, your traffic builds and you will have greater opportunities to find work.

Being proactive and asking people, or guest posting is one way to get known. Let’s face it, if no one knows you, they will not come to you. You need to make relevant posts to your subject, and to offer people something in return for reading your post(s).

At social media sites, you need to be interactive and helpful to others on the site. Post links to articles that are helpful, or to sites that are helpful. Retweet items that have relevance to others, include hashtags on Twitter to various groups that might be interested in a link to information you find, such as #writers, #editor, and more. Be a helpful member. You don’t need to hang out all day, but when you are at some social media site, be friendly and be a part of the community.

At any social media site, be sure to create a bio so people can read about you. Post a recent picture of yourself so that people can put a face to the name. People reading a post like to know that there is a real person posting to a blog, posting links, or information to a social media site.

Will all of this help you with your business or service? Maybe, it depends on what the other people at the site are looking for. Social media is another form of advertising.

About the Book I'm Writing

After being asked how to break into freelance writing, I decided to write a book about it.

I have 11,081 words at the moment, 3 appendices,an about the author page and the Table of Contents page. I have begun chapter eight of ten chapters in the first draft. I am not sure how many I will ultimately end up with. I've already added more than I thought as it is. This is a list of job sites compiled in this book.

I work on this book in between writing, copy editing,, and work on the social network for freelance writers I created on Ning.com

Branding

What is branding in the Web 2.0 environment? First, what is the definition of branding? The definition of branding: is giving a product or service a particular image or brand identification.

In the realm of freelance writing, what you stand for is your image, and brand identification. You are your brand, and you are your brand if you are a solo-entrepreneur. Do you have a logo, a website, do you belong to social media sites, and do you have a blog, whatever you do in the Web 2.0 environment, is your business, in front of the possibility of thousands of potential customers looking at your web presence, and you ultimately. Your web presences, and your business, if you are a freelance writer, are one in the same.

This means, that you are a writer, and your business is writing. You are and your business is about writing, there is no period where writing is not the major part of what you are about as a solo-entrepreneur freelance writer. You are looking for work or if you have branded and marketed yourself efficiently, work may come to you. Anytime you are writing, webese is not acceptable. You must always write as though you were writing for a client.

If you have a website, and other sites where you visit on a regular basis, consider suing one name, and that name be what you are trying to get out to the public as a brand. Have thought about a brand?

If you are in any business, you need a brand, more so if you are a freelance writer and want to find jobs. You also need to place your URLs on as many sites as you can when on places like Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, and more. Any place you visit, use your brand. Let people know what you stand for and that you are a freelance writer.

Finding Work as a Freelance Writer

Finding Work as a Freelance Writer

There are numerous places for finding work as an aspiring freelance writer:

About Freelance Writing

Craigslist

Elance

Freelance Writing

Freelance Writing Jobs

Guru

oDesk

Online Writing Jobs

Sun Oasis

Some of these sites charge a fee per month, sign-up fee, take tests, or require a percentage of the income from your gigs. You can do a search and find more. Some jobs will also require a degree in English, Journalism, Science, or Engineering.

Although you may be looking for freelance writing jobs to some people freelance writing means building web sites, link building, and more. At least you can choose your jobs when you freelance. Some sites want experts in various subjects like:

About.Com

Suite 101

The sites listed here are not recommendations. As with anything online, proceed with caution.

Are You Committed to Writing?

If you are committed to being a freelance writer, you will need to have a marketing plan in place. You will also have a commitment to learning the craft of writing on various subjects; how to calculate the keyword density for the articles you write that require SEO keywords as part of the requirement given you by the client. You must also commit to writing something every day. You can’t just hang out and then write when you get the next assignment.

You need to build up clips. Clips come from writing, take a guess at what you need to do. Write, write, write, and write. If you are not willing to make this commitment, you are probably not going to make it as a freelance writer. It takes a commitment to writing, improving, learning, marketing, and promoting to make it as a beginning freelance writer, and even after you are established. No writer can rest on their laurels, especially the freelance writer. A freelance writer must work doubly on staying in the mind of clients and working on finding the next client, unless you work in-house for some company and they find your clients. If you want to keep busy, you will have to spend more time looking for work, than actually writing.
If as a freelance writer, you are not willing to do the work finding jobs and promoting yourself, you probably won’t make it in the freelance writing arena. Marketing and promoting have become an integral part of every writer’s life, not just the freelance writer. Especially as the economy slows down and companies merge, they can do the promoting for you any longer. You will need to reinvent yourself with almost every piece of copy you write.

Learn, read, and above all practice your trade. Learn to write press releases for your business to let people know you are there. Also look at the copy from businesses in your community, see if you can make it better. Approach the local Chamber of Commerce, social clubs, fraternal organizations, your church, and work on their newsletters, and pamphlets. Anything you can do to learn the art of freelance writing. Write web content for organizations, or church you belong to; any kind of writing to gain practice in the various types of writing freelancers write for a living.

If you cannot maintain this type of commitment, you should reconsider your choice of becoming a freelance writer.

Being Tagged to Write a Christmas Story

Thanks to my friend, Lea, I wrote one and posted it on my website, Stormy Writer.

It is my business website that has been newly created. It will be a work in progress to keep it fresh.

My Website

I have been working on a website which all writers should have.
My friend Paidra made this video for me which I added to my landing page.