3 Essential Tips to Stand Out as a Writer

Editor’s Note: This was written by the Ebyline staff, a site that connects publishers with the right freelancers for their work. Check them out on twitter: @Ebyline and on Google+.

You’re a good writer, and you know it. If given a keyboard and Internet connection, you could craft ingenious articles in no time, but the only problem is –you’re not getting the work you need. Sitting in front of your computer all day, twiddling your thumbs, checking Facebook, and getting lost on the ‘top 10s’ of Buzzfeed isn’t going to pay the bills! You need to get your name out there, and start standing out.

It is easy to doubt whether or not it’s possible to make it as a freelance writer, but the fact of the matter is that it can be done. In fact, freelance writers are more in demand today than they have ever been, because of social media networks. There has never been a better time to become a writer, and if you’ve got the skills, then all you need to do is get your name out there and start marketing your services.

Ultimately, your goal is to make it so that you’re spending more time writing than marketing, and that will help you stand out as a writer for sure. Here are a few marketing tips to reach that goal.

Scheduling Your Day

All good freelancers know that if you aren’t prioritizing and scheduling out your day –then be prepared to flounder and get burnt out of the business. The temptation is to say, “I’ve got all day. I’ll just do my work when I feel like it.” However, the reality is that you’ll be spending all day thinking that you should be working, and when the time comes to relax …you’re busy working.

The same goes with marketing. You need an actual marketing strategy and a plan to go with it, scheduled out with specific goals. If you just think that you’re going to wing it, and try really, really hard to be consistent, then your marketing efforts won’t be nearly as effective.

The best way to go is get your calendar out or (even better) get a calendar app that allows you to sync it with your email and your cloud storage system. Then, begin to plan out your marketing efforts with real goals that are attainable. Believe it or not, your calendar is the first major asset in your other freelance marketing tools.

Figure Out Your Niche Market

One of the most crucial parts about effective marketing is in knowing your clientele. Targeting your market is the best way to increase your chances of finding business, but spreading your nets too widely is going to have you doing jobs you dislike –for less money than you want to make.

This is one of the best advantages about the writing business: everyone needs a writer. You are in demand! If you weren’t certain about that fact, then just take a step back and see what all online business truly is: all written content was crafted by a writer like you. This means that if you have a niche, skill, or favorite topic, then breaking into that business is only a matter of time –provided you use the right marketing practices. If you don’t want to be stuck with insignificant writing jobs and working for pittance, then it’s time to zero in on the clients and topics you truly want. If you’re an expert, you will get paid more… just like in any other line of work.

Basically, you are ‘branding’ yourself, and making your particular skill set known to your target market. You will know when your marketing effort is running well, when the clients you want are finding you, and not the other way around.

Using Social Networking To Your Advantage

If you aren’t on this top-3 list of social networking media, then you need to drop whatever you are doing, and get on them:

Facebook – Getting on Facebook is absolutely crucial, especially post 2013. Not only could Facebook represent the 3^rd most populous country in the world, but also it is one of the most innovative and powerful marketing tools in history, and Facebook has recently changed their news feed algorithms to say that they love writers. How so? Basically, Facebook giving less clout to those cute, funny cat memes, and more news feed airtime to articles… and guess who’s writing them? Yep, people like you. Make sure that you have both a personal profile and at least one Facebook page.
YouTube – One of the biggest aspects of marketing is standing out. Unfortunately, there are oceans of spam-like writers and ‘content mills’, which market like a bad weight loss ‘miracle supplement’. Clients want to work with a real person –which is why getting a YouTube account, recording your proposals and linking to them in your emails, and putting ‘welcome videos’ on your website or profile page can be a real money maker. People like personal people.
Twitter – One of the basic reasons for using accounts like Twitter is just the fact that you can link the account into just about anything. Also, if you’ve got people following your account, then this looks really good to your potential clients.

Last Tip: If you don’t feel like coordinating all of these social media networking accounts manually, then there are apps like Hootsuite that can help you do so automatically. It’s super easy: just schedule out your posts a couple weeks in advance, and bam –you’ve just launched your marketing campaign for the next month. The best part is the fact that you can run your Twitter, Facebook, and even Google+ from the Hootsuite dashboard.

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