As a freelancer, one of the major things you must never joke with is how to market yourself effectively as a freelancer in social media age. Consider social media as your lifeline. Who said income is not guaranteed with working online? Definitely, this is not what we have as a trend in the social media world. 

The existence of social media has changed a lot of people’s lives and the trend will continue to go on till eternity. Maybe a better effective method can come up, yet, social media effectiveness can not be underestimated. 

Having a steady stream of clients is the source of a successful business as a freelancer. Come to think of it, Where do these clients come from? From the sky? Nooo!

And if you are of the idea that you have a better way of attracting clients, or people around you who can position you to jobs without the use of social media, then you are amongst the tiniest pit. In the long run, You’d still have to join the majority in the social media world. 

Social media? A life changer for freelancers. For you to be able to build a steady flow of income and beat the intensity of this line of business, then you need to be able to leverage social media effectively. 

With social media, you can get started from the creative aspect of you as a freelancer without even spending a dime. Alright, you might need to pay for WiFi but you get the point. 

This post is dedicated to effective strategies on social media for freelancers. Shall we begin? 

1. Optimize Your Socials

If you are finding it difficult to attract clients from social media, check if your social profiles are worth trusting with a job. Most freelancers forget the fact that first impressions make a lot of noise to potential clients. 

If your social pages or social profile looks in shambles, trust me, I wouldn’t be offering my money to you for your service. I want to believe the same thing with you too. 

Your online presence needs to be as consistent as your daily meal. And it’s not even difficult. Just staying online, at least for 5 minutes within two hours just to talk about your job. 

Would you even use up to 5 minutes? Debatable… lol. Yet, with project management tools such as Trello, Notion and Airtable, you can easily maintain your online presence. 

2. LinkedIn is the Father as They Say

Linkedin is the father of social media for Freelancers as they say. Although Gighunt is a new freelance marketplace, I would advice you register on it as soon as possible because it is the next big thing in freelance marketplace. You just can’t compare it’s efficiency for any professional being with other social media. You can get a job from there, boost your rating, learn more about your field, meet new people and get access to premium tools that would help you through your early stage as a freelancer.

What do you need? Just an optimised profile and a consistent follow up every now and then, probably daily. 

You get to meet the top stakeholders in every organisation with just a little bit of work on the platform. However, if you are going on linkedin, my best advice is to act like it’s like eddy other social media and not a tool to find Jobs from. 

3. Other Freelance Marketplaces

Yes, these are platforms to find jobs from. A few days ago, I explained how to leverage  on. Freelance marketplaces can enhance every freelancer’s income. I think you should check it out. 

These freelance marketplace offer you a security of income that normal social media wouldn’t have offered. You can rarely get scammed on marketplaces, since there is an escrow in place between you and clients. However it is very difficult for newbies to cut it out on social media marketplaces. 

Upwork, Fiverr, PayPerHour etc are examples of other freelance marketplaces that you can join. 

For newbies, my best advice is to make sure you fill every field in your profile, portfolio, keyword rich about, link to social media accounts, and so on. Optimizing your account would help you scale the competition a little bit.

4. Have a Portfolio Website 

See, at some point in your freelance career, you need a portfolio website. Just something that will show you off ahead of other freelancers in your field. 

Your website should house your portfolio, keyword rich bio, proof of work, description of your services and offers, blog posts and content revolving around your job. 

Funny enough, it’s not even difficult to come up with a website for your freelance business. In fact, you can start from CMS platforms with free templates such as wordpress, framed, Wix and so on. Then follow the industry trend to design your website. 

5. Leverage Content Marketing

There are different types of content marketing in which freelancers can leverage on in order to start their own business. Some of which include, social media marketing, email marketing, blogging, video content marketing and so on. 

You can choose anyone that you are most comfortable with and start from there. An effective content marketing strategy can turn every freelancer into a torch bearer in their sector. 

Video marketing involves creating vlogs about your job and services. With blogging you can demonstrate your proof of work about your service through writing. Social media marketing puts you on the long drive with social media. Even with a list of enthusiast emails, you can get more people involved in your service. 

6. Network Effectively 

Networking is an important part of marketing yourself as a freelancer on social media. You get to establish relationships with colleagues and clients, who in turn refer you to potential clients. You might want to check out our article on the Role of Community and Networking in Freelance Success.

Also, you can join social media groups around your sector of freelancing. There are freelancing boards from designers, writers, web developers, video animators and so on. 

You can also do well to attend online events, workshops, webinars and conferences around your work line. If you need to be or you feel more interested, don’t hesitate to go for the offline events too. 

Conclusion 

One of the biggest mistakes I can admit to when I started my career as a freelancer was not leveraging social media efficiently. I could have milked lots of opportunities from social media instead of just relying on freelance marketplaces alone. All the same, I wouldn’t advise you to follow the same lane as me when you can just put forward social media while seconding it with marketplaces or other strategies of marketing yourself.

Either way, I explained how I gained traction at the early stage of my freelancing career on freelance marketplaces which you should probably check out. As a matter of fact, my strategy, up until now, still works even if you are a newbie.