Social Media — Professional Marketing Tool or Gimmick?
How freelancers should approach social media
Self-employed freelancers are entrepreneurs, that’s a fact! To be successful, they have to market themselves in addition to merely doing their actual job. In doing so, their aim is not only to find and retain clients but to establish themselves as a distinct brand in the maze that is the business world. And in the 21st century, hardly any other tool is better suited to this purpose than the internet.
In addition other internet tools that can be used for marketing purposes, such as email, an own website or blog, social media platforms naturally lend themselves to this approach. So what are the benefits of having a Facebook profile or being active on Twitter?
Some freelancers have tried it and were disappointed with the results. Others, however, are extremely enthusiastic and don’t stop talking about how rewarding their LinkedIn or Twitter experience has been. So what is social media all about? Is it a professional marketing tool that can be used successfully by freelancers, or is it just a playground for adolescent teens?
Before you decide whether or not you want to integrate social media marketing in your marketing activities, you should ask yourself what you want to achieve by using social media. Social media may, for example, be useful if you want to:
- boost your visibility and increase the likelihood of potential customers finding and contacting you,
- present yourself as a brand,
- direct more traffic to your website, blog or profile.
Social media platforms offer the following advantages:
Networking
Establishing global networks with colleagues, peers, business partners from various industries and potential clients is a marketing strategy that has already existed long before the internet but also works here.
Developing an online reputation
Anything you write online can be found by other people unless you have restricted access. This is a very powerful tool with which you can pass on your knowledge, experience and trustworthiness to colleagues and potential customers. You can use it to build a reputation around the globe and position yourself as an expert in a particular topic or subject area. Used properly, you will sooner or later be perceived as the person to go to for a certain topic.
Exchange of information
Don’t underestimate the value of information such as interesting events, new regulations and job offers that you receive on message boards or in dialogue with fellow freelancers, for example, on Facebook. This alone may justify participating in the relevant social media platforms.
Job offers
Many clients looking for professional services don’t just use online job portals, but increasingly, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter as well.
Visibility & SEO
This is the actual core of digital marketing. Potential customers should find you before they find your competitors. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and means optimising your online presence in the form of your website or profile in such a way that search engines like Google list it in a higher rank on the results page so that it is displayed above those of your competitors. Search engines use complex algorithms to generate the order in which the results are shown. These are largely based on three aspects: keywords, traffic and activity.
Keywords
Use words and phrases that a potential customer would use to find your services on your profiles, in your blog, forum posts, tweets, etc. Many freelancers write things like “freelance translator” in their profile headlines or keywords. But nobody will search for that. You have so much more to offer, so specify what makes you different from your competitors, such as your language pairs, your expertise or additional professional background information. Remember that you want to be found, and a potential client could, for example, enter “professional medical translator Italian English with experience in nutritional science” into Google. Your objective must be to be listed on page one on Google for relevant searches.
Traffic
The more hits your site or your profile page has, the higher it is rated by Google.
Activity
Google recognises when a page has not been updated for longer periods of time and will automatically list it in a lower position in the search results. A website, a profile page or blog that is updated regularly will maintain its Google ranking.
All this can be achieved with relatively little financial outlay. You don’t need any paid memberships on platforms such as LinkedIn. But you need to bear in mind that just having a profile on LinkedIn or Facebook doesn’t mean that it will bring you clients. You have to invest — in time, that is. Social media marketing only works if you are active. Once you have reached a certain reputation and level of visibility, you must continually work on maintaining them. You need to invest this time in addition to your regular freelance work, otherwise it’s not worth it. That is why you have to consider carefully in which social media platform you want to invest your time.
The following is a selection of social media platforms form that could be useful for freelancers:
Business platforms such as LinkedIn (international), Xing (Germany) and Viadeo (France)
These platforms offer excellent options and tools for networking, presenting your skills and making an outstanding impact on SEO. All platforms require a certain level of activity to bring results. Linkedln has a more international focus and is not as US-heavy as many would think. Xing is mostly used in German-speaking countries and Viadeo mostly in France.
This is probably one of the most underrated social media platforms for professional use. You can use it to generate a high number of visits to your website or profile. It is ideal for building your professional reputation, offers relevant information and links to job postings and makes it possible to network in a casual environment. However, it is very time-intensive.
Facebook is a very powerful SEO tool, but also the most challenging platform. Facebook marketing follows a complex code with many pitfalls. The best way forward is to have a clear separation between private and business activities. Ideally, you should set up a business page for your freelance business and use your personal page for private connections with friends and family members.
It’s clear that when you decide to set up a profile on a social media platform, you need to be committed to being active there on a long-term basis. One thing is for sure: it’s better to have no profile than to have a profile has been dormant for six months!
Always trust your common sense and have fun — that’s also part of it all!
