Contrary to popular belief, a freelancer is far from a free bird. A freelancer is not only a specialist in a particular industry who has chosen the opportunity to work with many companies instead of taking a chair in the office of only one of them. Freelancer is also an entrepreneur, accountant, PR manager and marketer in one person.
In this article, we will talk about the work of a freelancer as own personal marketer and list the five main ways to show yourself in the market.
Job Portals
Do not think that if you decide to choose a freelancer path, you can forget about such things as a vacancy, CV, interview, and contract. Yes, now you yourself choose with whom you will work. But how should your potential customers find out about you?
Many companies are looking for remote employees. Many companies are looking specifically for freelancers because they have already appreciated the convenience of this approach. Many companies start looking for a freelancer to participate in the project before information about it appears on the company’s official website.
Therefore, your CV should be on all job portals. It should be constantly updated, and very desirable, be at the top of the issue.
Personal Website (Portfolio)
You are free to not use the full power of a personal website, do not run contextual advertising, and do not work on SEO promotion. At least until you have a free opportunity to invest in it. But you definitely need to create your own personal website. Or portfolio, call it what you want.
This is the first indicator of your serious attitude to your work. In addition, the link to your site should be in your resume, profile on Upwork (or elsewhere you want to look for clients), and in social networks. But more on that in the following paragraph.
Social Media
Linkedin is the B2B network, so the presence here is obligatory. Being here, it’s very important for you to do two things:
- keep your personal page always updated. Let it be a summary of your best projects and achievements.
- post articles. You can write a promotional article and tell in what way you can be useful to a particular business, or just provide your connections with useful tips, insights, and brief how-tos.
Instagram is perfect for personal brand promotion. Your primary goal here is to promote yourself as an interesting person and wisely combine it with the stories from the area of your professional activity.
In general, Facebook provides an opportunity to combine the two functions of social media – to promote a personal brand and demonstrate your expertise. Presence here is also required. Many HRs and potential customers like to find out more about a freelancer with the help of the Facebook profile.
Therefore, your task on this platform is to keep a balance between your personal and freelance life. You are welcome to express yourself here as a person and as a specialist as well.
Collaborations
As you already understood, when promoting yourself on the market, one of the paramount tasks is to constantly prove your professionalism and expertise. One way is to write specialized articles for placement on portals that your target audience (business owners) visits. For example, you can use services to simultaneously increase links to your site, as well as demonstrate your expertise to potential customers.
Even if you don’t want to invest in promoting your personal website right now, in this way you will kill two birds with one stone. You will not have the expenses promotion directly. But the site will still become more reliable in the eyes of search engines due to external links.
Specialized Freelance Platforms
Let’s face it right away. This opportunity is suitable for those who already have a certain experience. If you are new to your field, then you have nothing to do in places like Upwork or Freelancer. No one likes newbies here.
Customers do not like newcomers due to lack of experience, and competitors… Well, you yourself understood, this is because you are competitors.
However, if you have the experience, you are welcome. Fill out the profile as much as possible and start bidding.
Summary
Of course, you will get the best result from a combination of all these methods. In this article, they are presented in such an order so that each beginner can start with the first way of promotion, and gradually move on to each subsequent one.
Well, if you are an experienced freelancer, review this list again. Think about any advice you haven’t yet taken. There can never be too many customers, right?