What?

What I mean by that is this–you have to promote yourself and your work if you expect to make a dent in the print publication market. These days, a big part of this has to do with social media.

Social media may seem like a strange thing to think of in terms of self-promotion–especially if you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet. Even if you have–using it to your full advantage can take time and effort.

Let me ask you this…do you know how to get more work in print by using social media?

That’s what we are going to deal with today.

First of all–and this is huge–social media isn’t just about you and your agenda. It’s about doing for others and developing relationships with people. In other words, if you are constantly just promoting yourself and your work, you might as well pass on using it at all as a tool. People will tune you out.

Take an interest in the conversations going on out there in the field. What are some of the “hot” issues? It pays off to do a little bit of listening before you jump in with both feet. See who’s talking, what they are talking about and why. When you have a feel for things, then start to connect a bit.

Here are some social media tips for promoting yourself on the web–without annoying others:

Do  feel free to talk about what you are working on now. Just keep it professional and brief. This can be a great way for people on social media to get a feel for what you write about and the types of projects you take on.

Do build relationships with people who are influential. Magazine editors and other people in print have Twitter accounts and nearly everyone has a Facebook presence of some sort these days. Add some people and pages each week and do a little legwork to make sure your network is reaching out to those who could give you an assignment or help you find work. It pays off.

Do post helpful information, such as links to great websites, videos or podcasts that you have found interesting or useful. It’s a great way to build goodwill.

Do your best to be polite. Thank those that follow you, re-tweet you or comment on your Facebook page or blog.

Do try to have conversations with others on social media when you have time. Let them get to know you a bit. The personal touch makes such a big difference.

Do post things regularly and keep up on your account.

Now, here are some things you will want to avoid doing:

Don’t be overly self-promotional. Think about how you feel when others are constantly Tweeting or posting about themselves. It’s irritating. Some promotional posts are fine–just make sure you mix them in with other things.

Don’t ask for work. Think of it this way–you wouldn’t just walk up to some editor that you never met before on the street and ask him/her for an assignment, right? The same guidelines apply here.

Don’t underestimate the power of commenting on things you like on Facebook or re-tweeting content you enjoy on Twitter. (Commenting on blogs counts too.) It might not get you a job immediately, but it can get you on the radar for a particular editor/publication.

Don’t mix business with pleasure. If you want to use social media to promote yourself and your work–don’t get too personal on the account. Finding the right balance is key. Think of it this way–when you tweet, imagine the editor for your dream assignment is reading it. If you wouldn’t say it to them directly, don’t post it.

This isn’t an all-in-one primer on social media, but I’m here to tell you that I’ve gotten work – paying work in print – from having social media accounts and being active on them. Yes, it takes time, but you have to promote yourself anyway, and this is a great way to do it. I would suggest the following “big three” for those who are looking to break into print, or get more assignments from magazines:

Twitter.

Twitter is powerful. You can directly connect with magazine editors and those in the print field in a way you never were able to before. Build your network slowly and listen before you jump in. Include a web address so people can find you if they want to get in touch.

Facebook.

You’ll need to decide how to handle this–if you want to use your “personal” page for business, or create a page for your writing presence. It’s up to you…just make sure to keep it professional. Make sure you include some information about your background and experience, as well as a way for people to contact you.

LinkedIn.

Many people consider this a “resume” site. It’s a great professional resource, and you can also join related industry groups on this site. Make sure you complete your profile, and try to gather some professional recommendations so you can showcase yourself in the best light possible.

Have you gotten work through social media? If so, I’d love to hear about it!

Here are a few tips I came up with:

1. If you receive an @reply from someone you don’t know and they link you to job sites, don’t click. – These are usually spam. If you visit the user’s profile page you’ll find they do almost nothing but post the same self-promotional message over and over again to get people to their new job site or to a site where they have an affiliate link (and therefore get paid when you visit). When I get these messages, I don’t look for gigs. I report them as the spammers they are. And you have to be extra careful about clicking shortened links from people you don’t know in general there. You never know when they lead to a malicious site.
2. If you plan to use Twitter search, get specific. — Don’t search for “freelance writing” or “freelance writing jobs.” You’ll find a lot of spam and countless low paying writing gigs. Search in a specialty area instead to weed out some of the garbage.
3. Ask your network for referrals. — A quick mention that you’re available for new projects and open to new referrals won’t hurt anyone. And you never know who might see it and have a relevant gig for you.
4. Check your feed. — See what your followers are saying. I have a particular client who frequently needs writers in niches I don’t cover. I usually offer to tweet to my network if I don’t know a specific writer to refer in that area. Pay attention to colleagues at a similar level and you’ll find decent gigs mentioned as opposed to low-balled offers from every Tom, Dick and Harry on Twitter.
5. Edit your profile. — Is your Twitter profile too general? Does it make it clear that you’re a freelance writer? Is there a call to action for people to contact you if they want to hire you? If you only use Twitter for personal networking, that’s one thing. But if you use it for business networking as a freelance writer, you need to make sure your profile works for you. Include your name, URL to your professional site (either in the URL field or the profile background), and let people know what you specialize in. Getting the good gigs is about visibility and networking much more than stumbling across ads, on Twitter or anywhere else.

How do you use Twitter as a freelance writer? Do you actively look for freelance writing jobs there? Have you gotten referrals through Twitter? Share your own tips and stories in the comments below.

Website: http://lindsayoberst.com

Specialty: Creativity

Rates: 50 per article

Lindsay Oberst is a freelance journalistic, creative and web writer with a thorough knowledge of blogging. She specializes in interviews, research, green content, social media and anything creative.

Website: http://daniellemcgaw.info

Specialty: Blogging, article marketing

Rates: .10 per word (rates vary by project)

I have been a freelance writer for 7 years. My main service is blogging and article marketing with an SEO focus. Over the years I have written on a wide variety of subjects including cats, dogs, scholarships, and health. I have also written several e-books. Recently I have been writing on the topics of diet and exercise and careers.

My goal is to provide clients with well written articles, blog posts, and other written material in a timely manner; to give readers interesting content; to give clients content that is search engine optimized without appearing to be.

Please visit my web site for more information or send me an email at danielle.mcgaw@gmail.com.

While I no longer consult in public relations issues, I’m still quite heavily involved with social media — branding new social media sites for clients, managing their Twitter accounts, working as a professional blogger, Web publishing and blogging on my own, etc. I decided quite a while ago that I wanted to relaunch NakedPR. The problem was that, no matter how strong that brand was, it was too focused on the PR side of things. And I wanted to move the primary focus to the social media side where I could incorporate not only PR issues but also marketing, social media as a business model, and more.

So I decided the only option for relaunching NakedPR was to rebrand the site. Now that is complete and the site has relaunched at its new home — SocialRealist.com. The style will be very similar to that of NakedPR in that it’ll be a blog dedicated to getting away from the Kool-aid crowd and looking into more serious issues of social media and why popular opinions of social media tools can be precisely what lead to their demise (covered on another social media blog I write for recently, discussing the recurring social media lifecycle). It will be about keeping ourselves safe while staying networked. It will be about using social media to build and grow businesses without falling into a “me too!” line of thinking — being able to really stand out. It will be about becoming true influencers rather than popularity whores. And it will be about making sense of social media in each of our lives, no matter what we want to get from it.

I hope you’ll stop by and give it a read sometime. Other than the introduction to the new brand, the first post will talk about social media’s role in extreme cyber-bullying, how things are different from when I was in school (which really wasn’t all that long ago), and what I really think of people who would use social media tools in that way. If you have social media questions or want to see me talk about specific social media related topics there (such as how different issues apply to freelancers), as always feel free to let me know. You can reach me here, there in the comments, or at jenn@socialrealist.com.

Note: NakedPR is still currently a live site archive, but will be redirected to its new home later this week (still hashing out some hierarchy concerns before doing the massive redirect list).

This made me start thinking about how many writers (including myself) have tried to get into the social networking business as a way to expand our services and gain more clients along with crisp, stinky dollars.

The problem with this trend of freelance writers as social networking savants is that not all of them are good at it. In fact, some of them (and I’m not necessarily excluding myself here) downright suck.

You may be able to write an amazing article in your genre but that talent does not necessarily translate into social networking savvy and personally, I think many of the writers could actually be hurting their client’s chances for social media success.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve known several writers who’ve transitioned to social networking with amazing results. Mostly because they understand that they need to build community, conversation and trust for the brand they represent. But some writers I’ve spoken to think that just being able to write witty Tweets and hit the “follow” button mean they are media mavens. This is not so.

Take a minute to read this blog post by social media strategist Amber Naslund. I’m not an expert, but her article brings up many important points that I think freelance writers are forgetting when they attempt to add this service to their roster.

Remember, true social networking for a client means a lot more than just building up a Twitter following and sending a few Tweets after you write a blog post. Social networking requires that you step into the role of brand representative completely and that you tweak your style to meet the needs of the brand, that you start the right conversations with the right people, and that you are experienced enough to know who those “right people” are for the brand. It also means that you have a plan for community building that is multi-faceted and created with the goal of building business, trust, and community support.

Great spelling is not your only goal.

Starting with how to install a WordPress theme on your freelance writing blog last week, this week we’re going to take an introductory look into how to promote your freelance writing blog using 5 different social media tools.

N.B. – this post is meant to act as an introduction into social media and its uses, aimed primarily at those freelance writers who have just set up their own blog.  It includes what I consider to be the 5 most useful social media tools for beginners, but it by no means covers how to use them in an in-depth manner,  acting as more of a way to get started and help your new blog get off the ground.

1. Twitter - if you haven’t already got a Twitter account, go get one now.  Arguably the most important social media tool out there at the moment, there are two golden rules to always abide by when using Twitter.

   Firstly, you should never just tweet about your latest blog post and secondly, you need to use it as though you were having brief – but helpful – conversations.  The idea is to share and discuss information with your followers so that they enjoy tweeting with you, meaning that they will not only recommend that others follow you, but that they will also be more likely to read your business related tweets.

2. Facebook - I’m going to be honest here and say that I don’t use Facebook for business.  Yeah, I’ve got an account that I use (sparingly) on a personal level, but as I’m not a massive fan of it for keeping in touch with friends, I’ve only used it minimally for business.

   However, I know people out there who use it regularly for business purposes and who see massive benefits, which is why I’ve included it in this list.

   If you’re planning on using Facebook to promote your freelance writing blog, there’s no need to take out a business account just yet (or at all, in fact).  Start by setting up some groups on interesting topics related to your niche and begin promoting them so that their member count increases.  When your groups have several members, you’ve got yourself a captive audience and whilst not really suitable for promoting your freelance writing services on a general or direct basis, if you’ve got something in particular to offer on your blog – an e-book, for example – then you can expect to see a steady stream of traffic from Facebook.

3. LinkedIn - I love LinkedIn.  I’ve only started using it in the last 6 months, but I think it’s an absolutely fantastic social media tool and a must for any freelance writer, regardless of whether they’ve been writing for 2 weeks or 20 years.

   LinkedIn works by acting as a way of keeping in touch all of your business associates, allowing you to contact people who you have worked, or are working, with.

   Most importantly, it has a fantastic ‘recommend’ feature, where you can recommend people who you have worked with and conversely, receive recommendations yourself, instantly helping to get your name – and therefore your freelance writing blog – noticed more.

   When you start using LinkedIn, look for everyone who you have worked with in the past and add them.  Then, just like in your Facebook groups, you’ve got a captive audience – made up of people who have enjoyed working with you in the past and benefited from your services previously – to begin promoting your freelance writing blog to.  Simple.

4. StumbleUpon / Digg / Delicious – I’ve grouped these together (no doubt much to the dismay of StumbleUpon, Digg or Delicious aficionados), as the way I see it is if you look to use one of them, you can use any of them with relative ease.

   The idea behind all three of them is to share interesting and informative content from around the web.  Now, the reason that they can benefit you and help with the promotion of your freelance writing blog is that you can gain followers to your profiles (which should feature the details of your blog, as well as all of your details as a freelance writer) and become reputable amongst the community as someone who provides quality content.

   Therefore, if you provide informative content on freelance writing, you’ll soon develop a loyal following who, if interested in the freelance writing news you’ve been providing, will also be interested in your freelance writing blog.

5. Blogs - although they may have developed away from the whole social media scene, blogs are still, to all intents and purposes, a social media tool – and possibly the most useful.

   When you’re first starting out your freelance writing business, you need to be getting involved in as many blog discussions as you can, making sure that your input into the discussion is worthwhile and that you’re not commenting for the sake of getting your name out there.

   It’s also worthwhile noting that regardless of what you may hear from Search Engine Optimisation experts / gurus / gods, you don’t have to  comment on blogs that are only  ’do follow’ (there are two types of blogs – those which have an effect on your ranking in search engines if you use the comments box to fill in your blog’s details – known as do ‘follow’ – and those which have no effect on your search engine rankings whatsoever – known as ‘no follow’).

   This reason behind this is simple and as long as you fill in your details properly and your comment is beneficial to the conversation, people will begin checking out your blog naturally.

It’s important to remember that social media tools aren’t to be used solely for promoting your own freelance writing services.  There’s no doubting that they’re a fantastic way for promotion, but it’s important that you use them in a way that’s going to offer value to others, as without this, you’re doing nothing more than providing random pieces of information that no one particularly cares about.

Furthermore, don’t expect overnight results.  Take things slowly, gain members or followers and most importantly, listen to what is being said about your business.  You might not be able to see instant  in, for example, the number of people coming to your blog, but due to the nature of social media websites, you’ll be able to see instantly what someone thinks about it.  Whether it’s positive or negative, it allows you to act on it and ensure that your freelance writing blog is heading in the right direction.

What is a Blog Troll?

A blog troll is someone who comes to your blog specifically to cause trouble. It’s usually a repeated effort rather than a one-time thing. Tom Hespos recently published a great post detailing some of the different types of trolls you might encounter in 6 Trolls that can Wreak Havoc in an Online Community. More importantly than what a blog troll is though is what it isn’t. The following do not necessarily mean someone is a troll:

• They disagree with you (even if passionately, and even if often).
• You think they’re being “mean” to you (“mean” is subjective — just make sure they abide by your published comment policy).
• You don’t like them (because really, who cares?).

History with Blog Trolls

In one of the more pathetic examples of trolling I’ve seen, Yo and I actually shared one. They would come to this blog, to her blog, and to our joint blog then tied to the Freelance Theater project. It didn’t much matter what was said. The troll (who thought they were sneaky and anonymous as they hid behind a proxy), would comment often just to bash us personally because they disagreed with our stance on a particular issue we’d covered in the past.

On one hand that kind of trolling is really sad, because clearly they had nothing better to do. On the other hand, it’s kind of flattering when a troll is that obsessed with you and what you have to say. Either way though, it’s destructive to a community, and we don’t allow it here — while I don’t mind people bashing me, I expect them to take credit for their words.

It took a bit of time and comparing notes between the site stats, but we were able to identify the troll even though they were hiding behind a proxy’s IP address (meaning you can’t identify them through their own). The trolling was in turn tied to a reasonably known person in the niche. Their own image would have taken a hit had those comments gotten through with their own name attached.

Then again, that’s a part of what makes trolls trolls. They’re cowards. They often hide behind a certain level of anonymity as they say things they wouldn’t dare say publicly. There are exceptions of course — ones who are proud to take credit for their trolling. Those trolls are easy to identify and get rid of though. So let’s focus more on the semi-anonymous ones.

Tracking Trolls: Beyond IP Addresses

Every time someone comments on your blog, that comment is tied to their IP address. Therefore, if they commented once under their real name, and later under a fake name while trolling, they could be easy to catch. You just run an IP search (you can do this from the comments page in your WordPress admin if you use that platform).

Sometimes it’s not that easy. Some people change their IP address regularly instead of using static IPs (depends on their Internet service provider). Others use Web proxies. These are websites you visit before going to the end site you want to see. You enter the site’s URL there (just like you normally would in your browser window directly). Then, when you’re taken to the site, your behavior is tracked under the proxy’s IP address rather than your own.

Does that make it harder to track trolls? Sure. But it’s far from impossible. Remember, trolls aren’t as smart as they like to think they are. Oftentimes, they think by masking their IP address, they’re free and clear. Fortunately they have a harder time masking other things, and sometimes they’re downright idiotic.

The Quick Snag

Let’s talk about the dumbest of all blog trolls. These are the ones who fill out their blog comment fields out of habit. Once they’re using a proxy, they don’t even think about anything else. They post personally identifiable information, and don’t even realize it until it’s too late. While it’s pretty unlikely they’ll slip so badly that they’ll publish their full name, they might publish one of the following:

• Their real email address (they’re so used to them being kept private from the public readers that they forget the email address is still visible to the blog owner — sometimes their email address includes their full name, and other times you’ll know who it is because they’ve commented before or you know their email address for other reasons);
• Their website address (let’s face it — some trolls just can’t seem to pass up a free link, even if it means getting caught).

Yes, some less-than-genius blog trolls really do leave this information. But what if they don’t?

Habits are Hard to Break

No matter how hard a troll tries, there’s one thing that often gives them away — their habits. Have you ever moderated your comment queue, and you immediately know who a comment author is by reading it (without having to look)? I have. Some commenters are very set in their ways, and their comments are easy to identify. That doesn’t usually change with a false name and proxy.

For example, the troll might be well known to you for their passionate take on an issue. They might use the same word or phrase often (such as a word they like to call their opponents in that debate) — one that almost no one else uses. That can give away a troll’s identity.

So can their grammatical habits. For example, I tend to overuse parentheses. Others might use semi-colons constantly or ellipses. Or they might use certain general phrases all the time or make the same typos constantly. If the troll is someone you know reasonably well, chances are good that you’ll pick up on these subtle things. At the same time, the troll probably doesn’t even realize what all of their usual habits are, so masking them all would be extremely difficult.

Whois Your Troll?

What if you aren’t sure who the troll is from the post content, and they didn’t leave personal info that makes them easy to identify, but they did leave a link to a website you don’t recognize? This goes back to the fact that some trolls just can’t seem to resist that free link they get for commenting. They won’t leave a site they know you’ll recognize as theirs, but they do take the opportunity to link to another site they own or are affiliated with.

These trolls fall into that fun little “I think I’m devious, but I’m really a dunce” crowd. If they were dumb enough to link to a site they own, here’s a tip that might help you find them:

Do a Whois search on that website.

A Whois search will give you the domain name registrant’s information — name, address, phone number, email address, etc. as long as they haven’t used a private registration service (many don’t). Even if they do use private registration, you might not be out of luck. Run an IP search on the domain name. When you get the IP address for the server it’s hosted on, you can do a check on that IP address to find other sites hosted on the same server.

If they use shared hosting (common for bloggers), there might be a lot of sites on that server — most not belonging to the troll. But take a look anyway. You might just find a recognizable site or two in that list — sites you know the owner of. The odds that they’d be two people in your niche with sites that happen to be on the same server are pretty slim.

You can do similar searches for links they include in their comment body too.

A Troll by any Other Name

I’ve found that trolls often have another interesting little habit. They use the same troll name repeatedly. Rather than come up with identity after identity, they use the same name or handle (sometimes set to look like a real full name). If you’re getting slammed frequently by a troll, you might not be the only one. Do a search for that name or handle and see if the troll appears on others’ blogs as well.

Even if the troll was able to mask their posting habits on your blog, they might not have been able to on others. You might pick up on something by reading them. More importantly, check the links they left (if any). If they’re trolling in multiple niches, they might have left a link to a site you recognize while trolling in a different niche.

Troll Termination

Getting rid of trolls is actually pretty simple. While you can’t always identify them by their IP, you can ban IPs from commenting on your blog (in WordPress you can automatically force their comments to be flagged as spam, or you can force them into the moderation queue for review).

This won’t stop all trolls on the first go-around. Some will just switch proxies for example. So ban the next IP too. It takes very little time for you to do that, and eventually the troll will get fed up and they’ll take their ball and go home. If you’re really lucky, they might get annoyed with the proxies being banned, so they’ll slip up and post using their real IP address.

If you want to, you can also stop trolls from even visiting your site by banning traffic from their IP address, but that’s a bit beyond our scope today.

Trolls vs Time

It’s not always worth the time it takes to track a blog comment troll, so I don’t recommend actually following all of the steps above every time you encounter one. Reserve the more thorough troll-hunting for ones causing big problems — following you around to multiple sites, posting so frequently that dealing with the comments is a time drain itself, etc. Otherwise you risk letting the troll win. After all, what they want is attention. In the end, there’s only one real rule to live by:

DON’T FEED THE TROLLS.

It is important to note that not only is my way not the ONLY way to do things, but it may not even be the best way. It’s worked out alright for me, but don’t look at it as gospel so much as a starting point.

Quoting—Hourly vs. Fee-Based

I have two ways of charging for social networking—hourly and fee-based. I prefer fee-based and would advise everyone else to stick with that model. In the fee-based model I tell the client how many tweets I’ll send each day, how many people I will follow, how many conversations I’ll start, etc. Then, I consider how long I think those tasks will take and I multiply that amount of time by the hourly rate I charge for social networking (which factors in the value of my time and the potential value of the service). That is their fee for my work on their Twitter accounts.

Guru is Guaranty with An Extra U

I’m not a fan of promoting myself as a guru in anything—but especially social media, a place where I’ve been wrong many, many times. In fact, I shy away from expert, guru, supreme being and all other hyperbolic and ridiculously impossible titles in everything I do. Experienced? Sure. Knowledgeable? Definitely. Dedicated to consistently improving my skills and knowledge? You got it. Guru? Hahahahahaha—no. And just as I shy away from the title guru, I also shy away from giving a guaranty of the results my social networking will achieve. Because you know why? I have no idea what the results will be. Also, with every individual client it takes a lot of time and trial and error to figure out what will and won’t work. Instead I let the client know what they should expect from me, not from the work itself. Every few months the clients and I go over what is and isn’t working and discuss a game plan for the future.

Tangibility of Your “Product”

Social networking is a difficult product to sell because it is completely intangible. Even if a client logs on to Twitter to see what you’ve been doing, he or she may not feel particularly impressed by your tweets about your cat and Justin Beiber—even though you know that these conversational tweets go far in building community. The way that I handle this is by giving my clients a biweekly report. This report has a graph that shows any increase in followers, lists the amount of link click-throughs we’ve gotten, tracks the number of our messages that have been retweeted and the number of conversations we’ve had.

So there you have it. It’s not earth-shattering, amazing, or even terribly creative but hopefully it’ll help you get a little of that deer-in-the-headlights look outta your eyes the next time someone approaches you about handling their social networking.

**Special Note**

You may have noticed that I’m doing fewer and fewer marketplace reviews. Most of that is because I’m super busy lately but a small part of it is because I never get surprised by my results which makes it a lot of work for little payoff. I have plans to take a look at a few more marketplaces in upcoming months but I’m also wondering if we shouldn’t expand the series. Is there any other myth or folklore about freelancing that you’d like me to explore and prove or bust? I’m up for (almost) anything. Give me your ideas below.

Website: http://claimid.com/smange

Specialty: Freelance Writer on Social Media/Social Networking

Rates: 50 per article

I am an Australian in France, making a living doing freelance work online.

I have completed a degree in Internet Studies and Journalism, focusing on how people use social media for community and business. I’m also a heavy user of many social networks. So, I have both and academic and empirical view on social media.

I’m a regular blogger, both on my own blogs and freelancing for a number of high profile places.

Other qualifications I have are in Event Management and finance.

Generally, I’m interested in music, reading, dance, cycling, movies, festivals and good food.