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.

Since being a freelance writer, however, one of the most important points I’ve learnt  is that networking with other writers is key to developing your writing business.

When I first started writing, I thought I could do it all myself.  Getting involved in a few different conversations but generally staying in the background, I believed that I could learn from others and develop my freelance writing career all by myself, without speaking regularly to other writers.

I soon realised that this wasn’t exactly the best idea.  I started to get more involved with other writers and without giving you the blow-by-blow account of what happened next, everything basically snowballed from there.

The following five methods all ways that I used to start expanding and developing my freelance writing business by networking with others and although there are other methods you can utilize, these five are the ones that I believe are the most useful.

1. Become a regular on the freelance writing blogs – the very first thing I did when I realised networking was the way forward was to start commenting on five or six of the main freelance writing blogs.

   I love rock and metal music and offline, whether I go to see a local band playing a small gig in a bar or a famous band performing to several thousand people at the city hall, the same people are always there enjoying the music.  They’re all welcoming, friendly and through them I’ve met some great people who I’ve learnt a lot about rock and metal music from.

   Exactly the same thing can be said about becoming a regular on freelance writing blogs.  You soon realise that whether it’s a major blog or somewhat of an underground one, the same people frequent them – with the vast majority of them being friendly and welcoming – and even within just a few days of commenting, you’ll learn something that you didn’t know previously.

2. Use Twitter – I.  Am.  In.  Love.  With.  Twitter.  I started using it properly a few months back but only used to tweet about completely random stuff, not quite “getting it”.

   Whilst I still make my fair share of random tweets (Yo – the beard FTW!), I’ve come to realise Twitter is arguably one of the most important weapons a freelance writer can have in their arsenal.

   Not only does it allow you to keep in touch with hundreds of writers at once, but I’ve seen a ton of useful information flying about, from posts which have helped develop me as a writer to actual job postings being tweeted – not the $0.05 per word ones, either.

3. And LinkedIn – I’ve talked before about how much of a great tool I think LinkedIn is and I seriously recommend that if you’re a writer and don’t have an account, you need to go get one now.

   LinkedIn is the ultimate networking tool.  It allows you to keep in contact with people you’ve worked with in the past, gain recommendations from them and keep up-to-date with what they’re doing now.

   Aside from the recommendations, one of the most useful parts of LinkedIn is that people can update their status just like on Twitter or Facebook.  Unlike Twitter or Facebook, however, the updates tend to be a lot more business orientated and I’ve seen bucket loads of job opportunities being advertised on here from other writers.

4. E-mail freelance writers directly – just a bit of a disclaimer / word of warning first.  Do not just randomly contact freelance writers asking for work or general questions about becoming a freelance writer.  This will do nothing but get people’s backs up.

   Instead, if you’ve got a question that you feel a specific freelance writer could help you out on, don’t be afraid to contact them.  Like I mentioned above, the vast majority of freelance writers that I’ve come into contact with are really friendly and extremely helpful people.

   Although you shouldn’t just randomly e-mail other writers, don’t underestimate how far a bit of one-on-one contact can get you – some of my highest paying gigs have developed from questions (not queries, just a question I had) that I’ve e-mailed to writers directly.

5. Write comment / discussion-worthy blog posts – whilst commenting on writer’s blogs is a great way to network with other writers, it’s important that you also create posts on your own blog that will incite comments and discussions.

   For an example of someone who is doing this spot on at the minute, take a look at Stacey Abler, the writer who Jenn is coaching.  I’ve not only seen Stacey actively participate in several discussions on other blogs, but she has also been writing posts on her own blog which are written so that they naturally start a discussion amongst writers.

Whether you’ve been a freelance writer for a few weeks or a few years, it’s imperative that you understand the importance of networking with other writers.  Just like in most other professions, whilst you can read as many resources on the industry as you can manage, it’s learning from others that really helps you progress.

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.

You can use it to get a feed of posts on this site, as well as posts elsewhere from AFW writers (such as on their own writing blogs if they wanted them added). AFW news will be posted there. I often give Twitter followers advanced links and notices when new tools and features are released too!

While I’ll be doing most of the tweeting on that account, it’s left open for the other writers to contribute if and when they want to. For example, if an AFW team member publishes an e-book for writers and releases it on their own site, they might announce it there. The idea was to put together a more comprehensive freelance writing resource on Twitter… not just our feed, and not just my more personal ramblings.

Not following us yet? Go ahead and say Hi! :)

Seriously, what is up with people constantly changing their Twitter handles? I get it if someone’s handle is outdated in some way and they update it. But others change it every few weeks or every few months, and as a follower I find precious little more obnoxious.

I check my recent feed and see names I know I didn’t follow. At least tweet to let us know when and why you changed your handle so we know immediately who you are, please.

Is there any real need for the constant name-changing though? I don’t think so. You screw up any branding you already had going on, and you risk confusing followers. It seems to pretty contrary to both the community and marketing sides of social media, at least to me.

How many times does someone have to change their name before you get annoyed enough to stop following? How many times have you changed your own handle on Twitter, or elsewhere? Did you have a good reason for it, or do you toss out your branding on a whim? I’m curious.

Oh but then you couldn’t get enough, could you? It turns out that Xanga was just a gateway blog for you. You started thinking about increasing your SEO. You started updating your meta description before you even wrote your posts. You imported your blog from a nice free service to your own self-hosted domain. And–dare I even say it?–you got a Sociable plug-in. Do you even recognize yourself in the mirror?

I’m sorry. I got a little accusatory. This is an intervention. I am doing this because I love you. I …worry. I think you may have become a blogwhore. Don’t believe me? Here are five signs that you’ve become a total blogwhore:

1. You now read more than ten blogs per day and leave a daily comment on each one. You have never once actually contributed to the conversation beyond something chirpy like, “Wow! Great article! I never thought of it that way!” Even if the article is about tying your shoes. This is the blog equivalent of telling someone to have a great summer in their yearbook back in high school. I also hate it when you do this because I am awfully witty, and that just means you ignored my totally rad comments. Sorry, again, this is not about me.
2. I follow you on Twitter, and I don’t think you have once tweeted about anything but your blog. Not only that, but you often retweet yourself. That is like clapping for yourself at an award ceremony. It’s one level below getting drunk and humiliating Taylor Swift.
3. You use bit.ly and su.pr, so when you update your blog, I’m always tricked into clicking on it. You always post links to your own writing like they’re a complete and total surprise to you. “Wow! Look at what I found!” you tweet. I know you’re not surprised by your own writing, not unless you’re part guppy. Is there something you’re not telling me?
4. You post status updates on Facebook AND you hooked up your RSS feed to Facebook notes. Not only that but you’ve also linked your updates to Tumblr and Twitter so for any given update to your blog, I end up seeing that you just wrote an update four times. The next logical step is for you to call me, leave me a voicemail, text me, email me, fax me, send me snail mail, and physically come to my house and announce via megaphone that you updated. If you want, I even know a guy who can do skywriting. He’s not cheap, but people need to know that you JUST NOW at THIS VERY MOMENT updated, so spare no expense.
5. The last time I sent you an email, you asked me if I wouldn’t mind submitting your response to Digg.

We need you to stop before you end up, cold and shaking, outside the New Media Expo, asking people if they’d be willing to give you a linkback if you add them to your blogroll. Do you recognize yourself?

So…

If you’re on Twitter, feel free to say hi @QueryFreeWriter!

If you’re a writer who likes to use Twitter for networking, here are a few tips to help you get the most out of it (because remember… you shouldn’t be wasting time on marketing and networking tools that aren’t giving you a good return on the time you’re investing).

1. Don’t be a link spammer

If all (or most) of what you do on Twitter is link to your own blog posts, you’re not really networking. You’re just spamming links out on the Web. If you don’t have anything of value to add to your followers’ streams (that they aren’t already getting from you elsewhere), then don’t waste their time or yours. Look for other networking tools.

2. Don’t be a follow whore.

Remember that popularity isn’t everything. Quality matters far more than quantity when it comes to using social media tools to promote your writing business. There’s little worse on Twitter than finding someone with 10,000 people following them, but only because they’re following 12,000. These are the folks who quite obviously don’t give a damn about the people they’re following. They just follow, follow, follow–more people than they could ever possibly actually pay attention to. Why? Because they know a lot of folks automatically follow anyone who follows them. You don’t want to be one of them. It reeks of desperation, not professionalism.

3. Engage in the community.

If you constantly post, but never bother engaging in actual conversations with the people you follow (and those who follow you), then why are you there? It obviously isn’t for networking if you’re not, um, networking!

4. Lighten up.

The fact that you’re building a professional network doesn’t mean you have to solely talk shop. It’s okay to share quick anecdotes and tell people about your day. Just keep it interesting. It’s unlikely anyone cares that you whipped up some mac and cheese for lunch, but they may appreciate your thoughts on a film you saw, great new restaurant you tried, or a lead to a new band that brightens up your work day.

5. Keep it personable, not personal.

It’s okay to be friendly and casual, and share more than thoughts on business. But on the flip side of that, try not to take it too far. If you mostly network with colleagues and prospective clients, they probably don’t want to read a play-by-play of your latest fight with your significant other. Be sensible about it. Ask yourself, “would I really want to know this about them?” If not, keep it to yourself. I find a good way to balance this is to keep one personal, private blog that’s accessible to a choice few people. This way when you’re wriled up about something personally, you do have somewhere to quickly vent about it without mixing it in with more professional communication.

I’m not a huge fan of Twitter and related tools to be honest with you. They’ve far from proven their worth when compared to other marketing and networking tools specifically for attracting clients. But they can be a reasonable way to stay in touch with your readers and / or colleagues when you don’t have anything too significant lengthwise to say, as long as you don’t become one of those people who’s on there all day long. Remember that networking is a necessity, but it should never become a distraction from other vital things that need to be done.

While I’ve been on Twitter since 2007, I decided to setup a new Twitter profile specifically for readers of The Query-Free Freelancer. There I’ll ask you informal questions about what you want to see here, announce new members-only downloads as they become available, post short updates on the book’s progress, and tweet about all things freelancing (while occasionally offering some more personal tid bits along the way).

If you’d like to follow me there, you can find me at twitter.com/queryfreewriter.

If you tweet about freelancing or writing-related issues, feel free to leave a comment sharing your own twitter profile so I and others can check out your updates.

I honestly didn’t have an answer. There isn’t exactly a long history to fall back on, and it could depend heavily on a number of factors (like how many updates, whether they’re quick thoughts or would involve a lot of time link-hunting, etc.). So for the sake of “getting with the times,” let me pose that question to all of you instead. How much would you charge someone to write updates for their Twitter account?

If you think about it, length alone doesn’t mean much. Sure, it’s only 140 characters per tweet. But is that more marketing copy (think of the hundreds or thousands of dollars you might be paid for writing a short ad slogan), or is it more in line with forum posting (notorious for pay of $.05 – .20 per post)? If you normally charged a penny per word, is that what you’d go with? What if you normally charged closer to $1.00 per word? Would you charge per word, per tweet, or maybe even per character?

So if we have any paid tweeters out there in freelance writing land this morning, share your thoughts. How do you charge, and how much do you charge?