OK so at this point in the season you have already spent quite a bit purchasing presents for those around you. Whether you agree with the commercial nature of the season or not, it is hard to argue with the meaning behind this practice. Show appreciation for those around you by providing useful and thoughtful gifts.

This year I suggest you not only show appreciation to your friends and family (and do this first and foremost) but also your freelance career. Sure your career probably hasn't purchased you a gift and it might not directly say "thank you," but I assure you that karma will take care of you in the end.

All jokes aside your freelance or business needs constant love, attention and appreciation. It is easy to get into the mindset where you are comfortable with a long term contract or a specific set of clients with out thinking about how you can continue to grow and improve your practice.

Gifts of Education

One of the best ways you can improve your business, freelancing or career is to improve on your skills. This can be done through practice (which you should be doing constantly) and by making an effort to learn new theories, techniques and skills.

1. Buy the Web Design Business Tool kit

This is probably the best all inclusive book / kit I have come across when it comes to building a successful web design business. Filled with plenty of great information, sample documents and new ideas you can be sure that you will find at least a few great ideas to build your business.

Read more about it on sitepoint.com

2. Attend a Conference

Sure they can be expensive and often times there are podcasts that you can check out afterward but you can't put a price on the networking and connections that you can make by attending just a few good conferences. Becoming a part of the web design community on a personal and real level can do wonders for your career.

I suggest looking into:

• An Event Apart
• SXSW
• Future of Web Design
• Wordcamp

3. Read Some Books

There are a lot of great books out there on all aspects of web design. You just need to take the time to read them and expand your skills. This year I see more and more emphasis on web analytics, web strategy and other forms of online marketing. Some books to check out:

• Web Analytics 2.0
• Landing Page Optimization
• Sexy Web Design
• 4 Hour Work Week (expanded)

Gifts of Efficiency

Being more efficient is a long standing hobby of mine. If you are like me, you have lots of ideas and aspirations to do great things but are severly limited by the amount of time you can dedicate. Not only will you be rewarded with more time and less stress, but being more efficient will help you keep your clients happy and increase revenues. Hard to argue with those perks eh?

1. Improve your Book Keeping

Yes I know, for creative types doing accounting is probably the last thing we would ever want to do. However the insight that you can gain by having a clear picture of your cash flow and expenses is invaluable. It can help you work harder to hit your revenue goals and keep you apprised to how much you are spending. If you don't want to take the plunge and hire an account consider signing up for one of these services that will save you time and makes accounting easy:

• Freshbooks
• Blinksale

2. Improve your Project Management

I used to discount how important project management was. As long as projects were moving forward things are great right? ah if it were only so easy. The more time spent planning the smoother projects will go. Here are some options:

• Basecamp
• ActiveCollab
• Zoho
• Getting Things Done

3. Hire help

If you can pay someone less than your billable rate for any task you are doing then by all means do it. The increase in time will let you find more and better projects as well as spend more time on what you are really passionate about. I recommend either finding interns, contractors, virtual assistants or full time employees.

• Authentic Jobs
• oDesk
• Find a Virtual Assistant

4. Impove your Process

It is always a good idea to evaluate and try and improve your internal process. Is there something you could spend time on now to save more time later. I take time quarterly to try and look at what activities we perform at 3.7 DESIGNS constantly and try and improve our approach. I recommend the following books:

• Website Redesign 2.0
• Getting Things Done
• 4 Hour Work Week (expanded)

Gifts of Promotion

When you provide a service as opposed to a product you are faced with a situation where people are paying for something that seems intangible. You can't hold, feel or look at a website. One of the great ways to make your service feel tangible is by getting actual tangible items that carry your brand. This can be everything from business cards, folders, coffee mugs, letterhead, etc…

By providing several items to a client or potential client that are tangible items from your business it builds confidence that you have an established and credible company.

1. Paper Products

• Overnight Prints

2. Create a Portfolio

• Mixbook

3. Schwag

• Cafe Press
• UberPrints.com

Gifts of Reoccurring Income

Doing some work to develop some reoccurring income streams will allow you to be more selective about what projects you take on, who you hire for help or what other investments you are willing to make. Because a lot of time these can be developed so that the income is not specifically tied to an amount of hourly work (which is typically how we price our services) it provides a whole range of options that simply getting more projects does not.

Continue Learning…

You are the best at what you do. No other freelancer can do what you do as well as you do it.

The problem, however, lies in getting clients to understand this. This is particularly hard if you’re still in the start-up stage, where you’re having to find the clients, instead of them coming to you.

In certain industries, like design, it’s easier to get the client to understand the difference in quality and rates (although designers still get rate-comparing clients), but if you’re a developer or writer, it’s tougher to get the client to understand the difference.

So how do you convince the client that your $100 an hour services are better than the other guy’s $30 an hour services?

Think Like a Consumer

We are all consumers of products. A client-freelancer relationship is much the same as a consumer-product relationship.

When the consumer (the client) shops around for a product (the freelancer), several factors are taken into account before the consumer purchases anything. What are these factors?

Let’s pretend our consumer is shopping for a car. All cars are essentially the same in that they have four wheels, some seats, a radio and a windshield. They all get your from Point A to Point B in the same amount of time. So what makes a consumer pay $60,000 for a BMW when they can get a Yaris for $8,000? Perception.

• Perceived Value–A consumer generally believes that the more expensive product is of better quality.
• Perceived Status–A consumer generally believes the more expensive product makes him better looking, cooler or more accepted by society.

So how does this apply to a freelancer? You must make a client believe they are going to get a lot more with your services (the BMW) than the other guy’s (the Yaris).

Of course, perception is nothing without reality. If consumers found out that the BMW breaks down every week, uses cheap materials and was missing seat warmers, a premium stereo and other gadgets we’ve come to expect from luxury cars, the BMW would quickly lose its “luxury” perception.

Make sure you, as a freelancer, really are providing your clients with “BMW” services before you start charging that premium price.

Get Clients to Come to You

The best way to get clients to stop rate-comparing is to get them to come to you. This can be done several different ways.

• Referrals–If your client tells a friend that your work is super-awesome and that friend comes to you for some work–they’re less likely to haggle prices. This is because they already know you do awesome work and there’s no one else to compare your rates to, since they’re probably not shopping around. They’ve already seen the product and know how it awesome it is.
• Testimonials–Testimonials work similarly to referrals, but are less effective. Testimonials are especially effective when they can be tied to actual pieces in your portfolio.
• Through the grapevine–You hear other freelancers and experts talk about the importance of social media–and they’re right. If a client sees you active on Twitter, with lots of followers and professional conversations, and then sees that you have a popular blog, they’re going to know that you’re one of those experts. And they’ll pay more for that.

Don’t Use an Hourly Rate

Hourly versus set rates have been debated plenty of times before, but if you want to set yourself above other freelancers, you need to stop using hourly rates. This is important for several reasons:

• If you’re faster at what you do than most other freelancers, you can shortchange yourself by completing projects too quickly.
• Clients like to know what they’ll have to pay up front. What sounds better? “I charge $50 an hour and it will probably take me 10 to 20 hours to get that done.” Or, “That project will cost $1,000?”
• Hourly rates can be limiting. When you tell a client that you charge $100 an hour, a client only sees that hourly number. They don’t see that while you charge twice as much as the other guy, you’ll get it done in half the time (and do it better).
• There’s a cap to how much you can set your hourly rates–certainly no one will pay you $300 an hour for your services, but you can charge a $300 flat fee for something you know will only take you an hour to complete.

Go Above & Beyond

Don’t just offer your clients a design, development or writing service. Give them more and don’t charge for it. For example:

• Offer business or web-related advice.
• Deliver your product ahead of schedule.
• Tweet or blog about the clients’ site or business.
• Always answer the phone and emails with a smile on your face. It shows.

Make sure you’re giving them those luxury features to remind them of why they’re paying you more.

Focus on Benefits, Not Prices

A client once told me that although I charge a lot more than other developers, I was worth it because my work was great and I was easy to work with. This is the kind of response you want from all your clients.

Unfortunately, you’ll always have those low, or no, budget clients that always choose the cheapest freelancer, irregardless of the quality of services you provide. But, the great clients that you really want will recognize the quality you provide and are willing to pay more for it.

Don’t be sneaky about your prices, but try not to focus on it. State your price, but then talk about the benefits and ROI you can give that client. Why should he hire you and not the other guy?

Share Your Experiences

How did you get your clients to pay your higher rates? Are you still stuck trying to accomplish this?

continue learning

Freelancers come and freelancers go.

It’s a fact that many start freelancing, but not everyone who starts a freelance business sticks with it. What do you think it is that really separates those who stick with freelancing from those who quit?

Could it be talent? Is it the amount of knowledge that a freelancer has? Or, perhaps popularity is the true measure of a freelancer’s ultimate success…

While all of these factors are important, there is something that is even more crucial to freelancing longevity.

The answer lies in a single word–commitment.

In this post, we’ll discuss some of the traits of a committed freelancer. I’ll also share my own observations about freelancing commitment.

Traits of a Committed Freelancer

Those freelancers who stay in business over the long run tend to have a completely different mindset than those who try freelancing and then move on to pursue something else.

There are many traits that separate the committed freelancer from the rest of the bunch. Here are a few of them:

• Has a Plan B. Not only is it important to plan for success, it’s also important to plan for failure. If things don’t go according to their first plan, the committed freelancer comes up with another plan (Plan B).
• Goes the Extra Mile. The committed freelancer is not just the one who gets the job done. They also go the extra mile to make sure that the work is the best that it can be.
• Is Passionate About What They Do. Freelancing is not just about the money or the ability to work from home for the committed freelancer. They truly enjoy the work that they do. Many of them can’t imagine doing anything else.
• Determined to Succeed. Determination goes a long way towards freelancing success. For those who are truly committed, quitting just isn’t an option. They’ll keep trying until they make it work.
• Is Willing to Learn. I’m convinced that the freelancers who have the real staying power are those who are lifelong learners. They are constantly seeking out ways to improve their skills and grow their business.
• Works Smart. Oddly enough, the successful freelancer isn’t usually the one who works the most hours. Rather, it’s the one who learns to work efficiently and minimize wasted time who succeeds in the end.

The bottom line is, when it comes to freelancing, commitment pays off. Throughout the years that I’ve been freelancing, I’ve witnessed the benefits of commitment over and over again.

My Experience

In the seven plus years that I’ve been freelancing, I’ve noticed that many of the freelancers that I knew when I first started freelancing are no longer in business. Despite a seeming initial success, many freelancers ultimately leave the freelancing world and return to the traditional workforce.

At first, this observation frightened me a little bit. I knew that some of the folks who left the freelancing arena were more talented and probably much smarter than me. If they couldn’t make it as a freelancer, how could I?

Then I realized something. Those who quit had very little tolerance for setbacks. As long as things were going smoothly these seemingly successful freelancers were fine. However, whenever they encountered a difficulty they became frustrated and didn’t know what to do.

After one or two setbacks, these freelancers simply gave up. They weren’t adaptable and they weren’t committed to their freelance business.

What About You?

Are you a committed freelancer? What keeps you going?

Or, have you already left the freelancing world behind? We’d like to hear your story as well.

What traits do you think separate those who quit freelancing from those who stick with it?

Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

continue learning

There are no shortage of great freelancing blogs and websites out there that teach you the ins and outs of freelancing. One of the more popular ones, of course, is the Envato Blog, Freelance Switch. While these blogs do a great job of educating the masses about typical freelance work, many of them fail to touch on the subject of Freelancing Abroad. Today, I would like to pick up where many of these sites stop on this topic.

My thoughts and insights on the world of freelancing abroad don’t come from just reading a few travel books and watching the Travel Channel. No, the suggestions and comments I will make come from years on the road as a man of various trades.

While traveling, I have worked as a magazine photographer in Aruba, a travel writer in Nicaragua, and a web designer in Costa Rica. These are just a few of the jobs and locations I have held. So, no matter what type of freelancing you do, you are sure to gain some helpful information on freelancing from your dream destination.

Any of you who have closely followed Outlaw Design Blog may remember when my wife and I moved to Costa Rica over a year ago. While we are currently living in the States for the time being, we lived in Costa Rica for over a year. In that amount of time I learned things about freelancing abroad that no book or blog could have ever prepared me for. There are just some things about freelancing from exotic destinations that you can never really prepare yourself for. Hopefully, by reading this post all the way through, you will limit the problems that can come up from freelancing abroad.

Author’s Note:

Please keep in mind that abroad is a very broad term (no pun intended!). It encompasses the entire world. Obviously some of the things I say in this post will only be relevant for certain parts of the world. For the sake of this article, I am mostly referring to Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.

While some people may dream of working in places like Europe or China, I won’t really touch on them in this post. For many, moving to another first-world country is nothing more than visas and red tape. Moving to a third-world country, on the other hand, has its own set of problems and drawbacks.

Establish Your Business First

I am not going to say that it isn’t possible to start up a design company in another country, but if you are new to freelancing, you may want to establish your business in an area with a more stable economy. Once you have learned some of the basic ropes of freelancing and have a number of repeat clients, then it’s a little safer to make the jump to a foreign location.

Reason being: if you are moving to a third-world country, you can pretty much assume that no one is willing to pay what your work is worth. Thus, the chance of finding local clients is slim to none. The ones you do find probably won’t see the benefit in paying $2,000 for a custom website.

In the event that things go wrong and you go broke, it can be a lot harder for your friends and family to help you out. Depending on where you live, getting money sent to you is sometimes easier said than done.

If I haven’t scared you off with the above information, then you might have the right mindset to freelance abroad.

Suggested Reading:

• A Comprehensive Guide to Starting Your Freelance Career
• How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Honing Your Craft
• How A Blog Can Kick Start Your Freelance Business
• What Fight Club Teaches Us About Freelancing
• What Not To Do When Starting Out as a Freelancer

Deciding Where to Freelance From

Many of you will already have a dream destination that you would love to work from. This is a great place to start, but you might want to be prepared for the fact that it might not be the most reliable place to work from. It really depends on what sort of work you do and what sort of internet connection you need.

For example, writers really have the most choices when it comes to location. This is because they don’t always need a high-speed internet connection. Even in some of the most under-developed cities, you are likely to be able to find a dial-up internet connection. Photographers, bloggers, designers, and other people who need a faster internet connection will be slightly more limited in the destinations they can choose from.

Your best bet in choosing a place to freelance from is to pick somewhere you have visited before and have enjoyed. By doing this, you aren’t as overwhelmed with the move and have a better idea of what to expect. By choosing a place that you have been to before, you have a better idea of what the internet situation is really like, what areas are safe to live in, the cost of living, and other useful information. This sort of first-hand information is invaluable, as it is very hard to find accurate information of this sort in any book or website.

Deciding where to freelance from is really a personal choice and not something I can really make recommendations about. What I can do is tell you a few things you may want to think about when considering where to freelance from.

How much money can you realistically make on a regular basis?

It is always best to low-ball this amount in case you have a really slow month and don’t have much money saved up.

What are the most important creature comforts to you?

Are you partial to hot showers or air conditioning? Not everywhere has these luxuries, so you might want to double-check that house ad before you pay a deposit on it.

Do you want to rent a house or live in a hostel?

Hostels can be cheaper to live in, but you have to put up with group kitchens, lots of people, and less-than-private accommodations.

How important is a high-speed internet connection to you?

As stated before, not everywhere has easy access to high-speed internet, so you might want to research what the internet situation is in a particular area before you decide.

Will you be moving with your family? Do your kids need to be near a school?

Traveling with a family is a lot different than traveling alone. Some under-developed countries don’t always have schools nearby.

How long will you be moving for? Six months? A year? Permanently?

Depending on how long you plan on staying in any one location, you may be able to get discounts on rent when you agree to 6-month or 12-month lease.

What is Passive Income?

If you are unfamiliar with the term “passive income” you probably don’t know how to make any! The idea of passive income is simple: it’s finding a means of making money without having to do anything. Of course, that’s a very simple explanation – the reality is a little more complex. Let me give you a more specific example of what passive income is; a designer makes a premium WordPress theme and then sells it on ThemeForest.

This is an example of passive income because the designer only had to create the theme once, but will make money from that single theme forever with little to no more work required.

That is how passive income works: by creating a product or service once, and then being able to profit from it time and time again with little to no work on your part. All the Envato Marketplaces are perfect examples of how creatives can start building up passive income.

• ThemeForest – Website Templates, WordPress Themes, HTML Themes, Code Snippits.
• GraphicRiver – Stock art, Vectors, Icons, Photoshop styles, Design Templates
• FlashDen – Animations, Image viewers, Menus, Site Templates, Loaders, Games
• AudioJungle – Music Loops, Sound Effect, Songs, Music, Source Files
• VideoHive – Stock Footage, Video Graphics, Project Files, After Effects

Another reason passive income is such a good idea for freelancing abroad is because it makes for a nice emergency fund. Even if your passive income streams only make $100 a month, that can turn into quite a nice emergency fund that you can probably have pretty quick access to if something should go wrong.

Suggested Reading:

• How to Create Jobs Abroad to Finance Your Travels
• Making Money When Things Get Slow
• Passive Income Opportunities for Freelancers
• What To Do Before You Take Your Business On The Road
• How To Resell Hosting: A Guide For Web Designers

Dealing With Clients Overseas

If you are already running the majority of your business over the internet, you will be in great shape when you move abroad. One of the hardest adjustments to make is getting used to having many different clients in many different time zones. Although this can be easily remedied with a few clocks on your computer, it still takes some getting used to.

There are so many apps and tools on the web these days that you can pretty much find any tool you need to conduct business online. Below I will list a few essential tools that many freelancers could find useful in running their businesses abroad.

Fax.com – Some clients would rather fax you back information than email it to you. There are a number of similar services like this that allow you to send and receive faxes via email.

Basecamp – This project-management software is great for designers and developers, but might also come in handy for writers or photographers. It could serve as your own personal organisation and backup area online.

RightSignature – Need signatures on forms and contracts but don’t have time to wait for snail-mail? RightSignature makes it easy to get legally signed contracts taken care of via the internet.

Skype – A telephone service like Skype or Google voice is an essential tool to have. It will give you a telephone number where clients can reach you, no matter where you live.

Earth Class Mail – If you still have a need for snail-mail, services like EarthMail will check your mail for you, open the mail you tell them to, and then scan the enclosed information to your secure account. This is good if you still have bills or important documents that you need access to while away.

Offering good communication between you and your client is critical to success for any freelancer. This is especially true when freelancing abroad. If you want to keep your clients happy while on the road, make sure you stay in touch with them. When living in a new and exotic location, it’s easy to put off client calls and email to head out to the beach for the day. I am certainly guilty of doing just that, but I always made it a point to email, chat or call clients at least once a day. Even if I did no other work that day, I made sure to stay in touch with my clients daily.

You need to get used to the idea that you may not have a phone or internet service in the house you are renting or living in. In some parts of the world, very few houses actually have a phone. Even less will have high-speed internet service. Start getting used to the fact that you will be spending a lot of time working from internet cafes. I mention this because it might make it that much harder to stay in touch with clients, depending on where the internet cafe is in relation to your living quarters.

Final Thoughts

Obviously there is a lot more to moving, living, and working abroad than this post covers. For that reason I am working on creating a membership site called Freelancing Abroad. The idea of the site is to help educate freelancers with basic knowledge with which they need to be able to run a profitable freelancing business from anywhere in the world. If this is of interest to you, I encourage you to sign up for updates at my site Freelancing Abroad.

Freelancing from your dream location might be the most amazing thing you can do with your life. Think about it: what could be better than doing something you love from the most beautiful place you can think of? I am here to tell you, it is not as hard as you might think. The hardest part is taking the first step and getting the ball rolling. Once that ball is in action, you won’t let it stop.

Continue Learning…

We spend a lot of time on Freelance Folder talking about marketing. That is because good marketing is very important to a freelancer’s success. It is important to get those clients in the door and signed up for your products or services if you are going to earn enough to really support yourself as a freelancer.

For some freelancers, though, that “in” door is actually a revolving door. If this is you, it may seem that no sooner do you get a client signed up for your products or services than they leave. You have no idea why you are losing clients, but you know that it has to stop.

This post should take some of the mystery out of why freelancers lose clients. It will also provide some tips for how to hang on to the clients that you do have.

Eight Reasons Why Your Clients Leave

There are many reasons why clients stop doing business with a freelancer. While we may never know all of those reasons, we can identify (and correct) some of the most common problems that clients have with freelancers.

Here are eight common reasons that clients stop working with a freelancer:

1. Missed deadlines. In general, clients like freelancers who meet their deadlines. They want to know when they can expect a completed project. While most freelancers occasionally miss a deadline, frequent missed deadlines give your client the impression that you don’t care about them. If you must turn a project in late, contact the client and let them know when they can expect the work.
2. Lack of communications. While no client has the right to expect a freelancer to be “on call” 24/7, they do have the right to expect timely answers to their questions. No client should have to wait days or weeks to get a response from a freelancer. If you will be going on vacation or otherwise unavailable, let your clients know ahead of time as a courtesy.
3. Quality. Do you take shortcuts with your work? If you do, guess what? Your client can tell. The quality of your work demonstrates how thorough you are. If your work is poor or has to be redone, don’t expect your clients to stick around. You can solve this problem by having someone else check over large projects or by double-checking your work yourself.
4. Talking too much. Many freelancers enter a project with a set agenda in mind–their own. Good listening skills are vital to the successful freelancer. Not only do you need to find out what the client wants, to do the best job for them you also need to find out why they want it. The only way to do that is through listening.
5. Not fulfilling instructions. Nothing makes a client more upset than a freelancer who ignores their instructions. Read the project assignment over carefully until you are sure that you understand what the client wants. If you have a question about something be sure to ask it. It’s better to ask a question early than have to do rework later.
6. Not keeping up with your field. What year is it? Do your business practices reflect the current trends and knowledge? If your work is out of date, then clients may want to go with a freelancer whose skills and knowledge are more current. This is why it is important for freelancers to make time to learn new things.
7. Dishonesty. This should go without saying, but unfortunately there are a few dishonest freelancers out there (just as there are a few dishonest clients). My best advice to you: don’t be one of them. Any so-called benefits that you may gain through your dishonesty will be far outweighed by the hit to your reputation.
8. Personality clash. Freelancers are people. Clients are people. Once in a while, they just don’t get along. While a good freelancer should be professional enough to work with many different personality types there are a few times when a freelancer should just acknowledge that they aren’t person to work with this particular client.

There’s good news, though. You don’t have to keep losing clients. You can stop the revolving door. To learn more, read the next section.

How to Keep From Losing Clients

The most important step that you can take to keep from losing clients is to recognize that you have a problem. Once you acknowledge that clients are leaving your freelance business you can begin to determine why they are leaving and take steps to correct the problem.

You can start out by reviewing the list above. Do one, or more, of these categories describe you? If so, you know what you need to do to solve the problem. Stop the offending behavior and you should start to retain more clients.

If you don’t fit into one of the categories above, don’t panic. It’s possible that you are losing clients through a misunderstanding. You may have to ask your clients why they are dissatisfied. Conduct a friendly survey of clients who have been inactive for more than a specified length of time.

How Do You Retain Clients?

Share your experience.

Have you solved a client retention problem? What did you do?

Let us know in the comments.

Conversely, are you the client of a freelancer? What would make you stop using a particular freelancer?

Share your answers in the comments.

See more articles here…

Like it or not, social media is here to stay — at least for a while. More importantly, if you are not using the various social media tools that are available to grow your freelance business, you are missing out on a prime opportunity. The audience is global, the tools are almost all free and, with proper time management, the return on your investment could be phenomenal.

I have heard from numerous peers of their struggles to grasp the reigns of the wild stallion that is social media marketing, but I have had measurable success learning how to utilize Twitter in ways that have increased my clientele, enlarged my network of connections, and strengthened my standing as a member of the freelance and design community. In fact, without Twitter I would not be writing for Freelance Folder!

In this post I will share some basic transferable principles I have discovered that could help you not only get your feet wet with Twitter, but quite possibly could open doors you thought were locked to you and your freelance business.

Get Started

For those of you who are not yet convinced you should be on Twitter, here is a brief explanation of how it can benefit you and your business.

• Twitter provides a global connection. If you can learn how to provide quality information combined with interaction that is personable and engaging, you will strengthen your online reputation as well as gather loyal followers who will tell others about you. Of course, if you present yourself in a negative way, the opposite can happen. The risk is worth the reward, though. Many freelancers — especially web workers — conduct most of their business online, often without ever meeting clients face to face. Twitter provides another vehicle to make those connections, and reaches to every corner of the globe.
• Twitter gives you a stronger voice to a larger audience. As your follower base grows, you may find that more and more people are listening to what you have to say, many who you would not have ever had contact with otherwise. Twitter gives you the ability to reach hundreds to potentially thousands of people in an instant. The power of the spoken word is immeasurable, and it can be used to your greatest benefit in the Twitter context.
• Twitter connects you with your peers. I have met countless web and graphic designers and freelancers through Twitter who I know without a doubt I never would have otherwise. Now I interact with many of them on a regular basis. They read my blog and I read theirs, we chat or Skype, we critique each other’s work when asked, and more. I have grown my skills and the quality of the services I offer because of this. And I’ve made new friends with common interests!
• Twitter spreads the word (good or bad) like wildfire. If you can build a solid reputation through your interactions on Twitter, free word-of-mouth marketing will be yours. I can’t count on both hands the number of new projects and clients I have gained due to the kind recommendation of someone else on Twitter. If you can endear yourself and your work to others, they will send people your way.

Still not convinced? If so, all I can say then is, “What do you have to lose?” At the very least, you may waste some time if you don’t see results that have a positive impact on your business. And yes, I realize that time is money. But, the investment can be so relatively minimal with the possibility of remarkable results, why not give it a shot?

Set Up Your Profile The RIGHT Way

Once you’re ready to dive in, you just need to sign up and set up your account. Signing up is easy, but how you set up your profile can be fraught with mistakes that could cost you later. Here are some things I’ve learned from some mistakes I’ve made and successes I’ve stumbled upon.

• Account Name. Make sure when you sign up that you create an account name that is easy to remember as well as associates you with your business. Mine is @bkmacdaddy, which pushes my business name out there every time I tweet. Settle on a name that will be beneficial to your freelance business and memorable to others.
• Bio. There are numerous ways you can go with this, but whatever you do, understand that people do actually read your bio. In 140 characters or less you need to communicate who you and your business are. Some bios are hilarious. Others list services offered. I don’t personally believe there is a wrong way to populate the bio section — just make sure you do it in a way that is advantageous to your business.
• Avatar. The avatar very quickly becomes your Twitter “identity”. It is the most often seen element others will identify you by as it flows through their Twitter stream in whatever app they are using. It is important to create an avatar that is memorable, unique, and communicates something about who you are. Some use logos as their avatar, but I have found it is better to include a photo of yourself in some manner. When I first started, I only had my logo as my avatar, but when I changed it to a photo of myself integrated with the logo the response was overwhelming. People loved it! They expressed how the change helped them identify the person they had been communicating with and the humorous spin I included gave them an insight into the type of personality I have. Determine what you want to communicate with this tiny 72 x 72 pixel space and utilize every inch of it.
• Profile Background. Dump the standard background as soon as possible. For many, it is the first sign of a noob when they visit your profile, and it can be interpreted as a lack of desire to make a serious commitment to becoming a part of the Twitter community. More importantly, it provides valuable real estate to share information about you and your business. Whether you utilize a free background generator or hire someone to create one for you, seize the opportunity to share the addresses of your other social media profiles, your contact information, your logo and possibly more photos of yourself. I still get compliments and laughs from my Twitter profile background, and I’m aware of a few people who followed me because of it. Be sure to use this space wisely.

Find People to Follow

It is pointless for you to be on Twitter if no one is following you, and it is difficult to gain followers without following others first. Take some time to find others who share similar interests and/or are in similar fields of business. There are several directories and tools you can use to narrow your search as well as hashtags (i.e. #design) that you can look up on Twitter Search to identify people who you may want to follow. Check out their profiles, read their bios and a few of their recent tweets to see if they will add value to your stream. Investing a good amount of time here will pay off great dividends in the long run. In my first few weeks, I followed about 100 new people a day, all with some type of connection to what I wanted to focus on.

Establish and Maintain Your Twitter Presence

Now that you’re all set up, what’s next? Tweeting, of course! For those that are new to Twitter, this can be a daunting moment. What should you say? Who is listening? So many possibilities. My recommendation is to just go for it! Realize that you will make mistakes, but ultimately true transparency — which includes making mistakes — is highly valued in social media circles. Rather than stress about what to do or not do, just be yourself. Of course, if you are a jerk you may want to consider an alternative approach, but most of us just need to share who we are and what we’re all about in order to begin tweeting. Once you get going, you will realize the only rules of etiquette you should be armed with are those that are common to humanity: respect yourself and others, treat people the way you want to be treated, be kind and generous and humble. I am a strong proponent of each person bringing their own personality to the party rather than sitting back with the wallflowers and trying to figure out who the popular kids are and how they behave. So far, it is working well for me.

Here are some tips for establishing and maintaining your Twitter presence in ways that will grow your business:

• Give more than you receive. I realized pretty quickly that no one wants to be bombarded by self-serving or self-absorbed tweets. People are on Twitter for a variety of reasons, but I have yet to meet someone who is there to hear all about me and my business. Instead, I have set out to share what knowledge and assistance I can in my field. I blog about it. I tweet about it. I ask questions about it. Ultimately, I interact with others about web and graphic design, freelancing, family, and anything else that others seem interested in. I believe that is the key — I’m not there to promote myself. I am there to connect, and the promotion of my business comes from others who have discovered value in who I am and what I offer. The beauty of word of mouth marketing is that the best results come from someone else’s recommendation of you, so you must establish yourself in ways that others will want to recommend you. Give, then give some more.
• Don’t Abuse Your Podium. In many ways, Twitter is a broadcasting channel for every individual. The problem with this is that, just like any other broadcast, viewers or listeners will change the channel whenever they get annoyed or bored or offended. I encourage you to be yourself, but to the end that who you are is someone others will find engaging and interesting. If all you ever do is tweet links to your blog posts or ask people to hire you or other self-promotion, you quite possibly will never see any return and many may stop following you altogether. Consider what you would pay attention to, and offer the same value. On the opposite end of the spectrum, tweeting once a day or even less can be just as damaging. Find a balance that invites your followers to interact with you, get to know you and provides value to them in ways that doesn’t completely disrupt your life or schedule.
• Integrate Your Blog. While it is unwise to tweet your latest blog post every five minutes, which would have the opposite of the desired effect, Twitter is a fantastic way to bring new readers to your blog. For the freelancer, it is even more important because your blog can be a great tool to help potential connections and clients get to know more about you, your business and what you have to offer. Operating from the understanding that, as a freelancer, you can provide more personal service than most larger organizations or agencies, use your blog posts to share personal and professional insights that will help visitors gain confidence and interest in you. Then, of course, be sure to tweet your blog posts. I usually try to tweet my posts every three to four hours on the day of publishing, and then once a day thereafter for the next week or so. (If you don’t already have a blog for your freelance business, I highly recommend starting one.)

Set a Schedule

One of the biggest concerns that people have about using Twitter and other social networks is the time investment. The truth is that anything of value will take an investment of some type, so it is important to know and accept this when you start. I have found that the key to not being overtaken by your social media usage is to set a schedule. If you work from home, Twitter can become quite the distraction, so try to identify your best times to use it and best times to disconnect. I recommend checking in at least two to three times per day minimum, especially when you first start out, in order to maintain a presence and build familiarity. If you engage at the same times each day, you will begin to interact with a lot of the same people because they also choose those times. This can be another aid in establishing relationships and connections.

One of the best solutions I stumbled upon is to make Twitter fit into your preexisting schedule, rather than make adjustments for Twitter. For instance, I tweet in the morning while reading my RSS feeds and share articles I think others may be interested in. I usually do the same around lunch, during breaks and in the wind down time of the evening. I confess I am a bit of a “Twitterholic,” but I have never rearranged my schedule for it. Instead, I have learned the best ways to integrate Twitter into my day, and it has worked very well so far. Do what you can to stay in control of your Twitter usage and don’t let it control you. Set a schedule, and then modify it as you go until you have found what works best for you and your daily routine.

Offer Assistance

Since we are focusing on word of mouth via Twitter, why not step outside the box a bit and create the most positive of buzzes about yourself? Early on, I learned that by offering assistance to those in need I was establishing my online reputation as someone who cares, who is willing to help, and who is not solely on Twitter to promote myself or my business. I have helped others with website problems when their current web designer was MIA. I have given direction or provided links to help people set up their RSS feeds or Gmail. I have assisted others in relatively small ways that were easy for me because of my skills and knowledge, and in return they have expressed their gratitude by keeping me in mind when someone asks them if they know anyone who designs websites. Again, the word of mouth has sent numerous clients my way, and my willingness to help others has helped strengthen my reputation in the Twitter community.

Use search tools to find people who are tweeting questions that you may have the answers to, or requests for help that you may be able to assist with in a quick and painless way. I’m not suggesting giving away your services left and right, but you can definitely help some people out in ways only you can at little or no cost to you, but with great dividends in social media status.

What’s Next?

After taking the above steps, you should be able to navigate your own way toward a successful Twitter engagement. Of course, this list of tips is not exhaustive, but it should help you get started with or improve your Twitter usage to help grow your freelance business. The bottom line is to get out there and do it! Your freelance business can gain so much from the social media exposure and connections, so don’t miss out on the opportunities and possibilities that a small time investment can unleash. Above all, just be yourself.

What tips have you tried? Do you have some that were not included that you can share? What has your experience been with Twitter and its impact on your freelance business? Be sure to share your thoughts and tips in the comments.