Talk Your Way to a Job

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Networking Freelancers

(Photo credit: solobasssteve)

The popularity of social media in today’s job market has made everybody believe they can talk their way to a job. It gives them an excuse to visit their favorite social media site and say they are doing it as a part of their job search. While freelancers and job seekers can find jobs on social media sites, it needs to be handled carefully to be successful.

When looking for freelance writing gigs, it is important to let people know you are open to receiving new clients. One of the benefits of social media is the people you are associated with know others and those people know more people. You never know who you can reach within your network on a social media site just by telling people you are looking for a freelance position. [Read more…]

Follow These Freelancers and Enterpreneurs on Quora

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Quora

A couple of days ago I was chatting with some friends over drinks, and the topic turned to social media. Given the status of about half of us as geeks, this was an in depth discussion that lasted for quite some time. Accompanied by plenty of eye rolling from the other half of our group with little interest in social media outside of playing Farmville.

When we talk about the web and technology related fields, those in the group as obsessed as I am will usually agree on the good, the bad and the undecided. But what shocked me was that of those there, only one other friend had used Quora. A fact that was stunning, given my recent obsession with the site and the way it is growing more and more by the day. [Read more…]

10 Interesting Social Media & Blogging Stats

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I recently came across a collection of stats as they pertain to social media and blogging. I found it to be a powerful collection of information to have. Especially while reflecting on old blog posts and considering future topics, social media goals and methods in which I can increase my traffic.

With this kind of knowledge you can customize a long-term agenda that will fit in line with some of the current trends.

When it comes to blogging and social media – now is not the time to get left behind.

  1. Social networking usage among seniors 65 and older grew 100% from 13% to 26%, and is expected to continue to increase (Pew Research Center)
  2. Twitter.com had 96 million unique visitors last month up 76% from the same period last year. The #1 spot being held by Facebook with 598 million unique visitors from the same period last year, up 54% from last year (comScore)
  3. 29% of Twitter users 18-24 years old use Twitter to follow their favorite companies
  4. 60% of web users visit social networks (PC Advisor)
  5. Two thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook.
  6. The average Facebook user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events (Facebook press office)
  7. Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day (Twitter)
  8. There are more than 600 million searches on Twitter every day (Twitter)
  9. Over half of YouTube’s users are 20 years old (YouTube press center)
  10. 77% of internet users read blogs (Technorati)

I hope you find these stats to be as inspiring and thought provoking for you as they have been for me.

Stats Source

Why Social Media is No Legal Safe Haven

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One of the reasons that the Web has become a legal minefield is because it deals with laws and ethics that, prior to its creation, almost no one had any reason to know.

Before the Web, the only reason to understand libel, privacy, copyright, trademark and other areas commonly associated with mass media law was if you were a journalist, a publisher or someone else involved in some form of media. The average person just didn’t have the means to really reach a large audience, not without filtration, making the laws fairly pointless to know.

But now, with the Web, anyone can reach an audience the size of the largest newspaper or TV station, but without any of the understanding of the laws that govern such distribution. That’s a big part of why I write this column here on Freelance Writing Jobs.

But there is yet another problem. The Web often times leads one to have a false sense of privacy. Social networking and social media are supposedly all about one’s friends and personal connections, not the larger world. However, the law, in many areas, doesn’t make a strong distinction between those two things as, in many areas, the difference between lawful and unlawful isn’t based on the number of people a message is sent to.

Here are just a few examples of why social media can still be a legal minefield, even if it feels like a safe haven.

100 or a 1,000,000

In most areas of media law, the law isn’t concerned with how many people received the message, but rather, what the content of the message.

For example, with copyright, burning a copy of a CD and giving it to a friend is a copyright infringement the same as sharing it on a major file sharing network. The only difference is the amount of damages one would likely be able to claim.

The same is true for libel and privacy law. Though the damage done might be greater with a broader audience, especially with libel, all one has to prove is that a 3rd party saw the libelous statement.

In fact, with libel, social media can actually be worse in many ways than publishing on the broader Web as the message is targeted at those the subject knows, possibly causing more direct harm.

In short, as far as the law is concerned, the only thing that changes when you post something on your social networking account versus the broader Web is the amount of damage. But given the high damages often won for even small missteps, that should not provide much comfort.

Privacy? What Privacy?

The one potential benefit to sharing such materials via social media is that it is much less likely the person who would take offense would every find out.

For example, if you share a copyrighted work on your Facebook profile, the odds of the copyright holder finding out are much less than if you posted it on the broader Web. The enclosed nature of Facebook, especially with good privacy settings, offers a shield against search engines and other detection techniques.

However, the idea of privacy on the social web is, in reality, only an illusion. Even if you post something only to your closest friends and even if the security is flawless, nothing can stop the people who receive your message from spreading it farther without your permission.

Sites such as Lamebook specialize in taking semi-private conversations and posting them to the larger Web (though it removes personally identifying information). These conversations are, usually, submitted by friends of the person the site is poking fun at.

Ben Franklin once famously said that, “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead” and that truism holds fast on the social Web too. Anything of great interest will leak out and, as the person who put it out first, you would have at least the lion’s share of the responsibility. Though repeating or even linking to libel is a violation in many cases, the original speaker, whether copyright, libel or privacy violations are involved, usually takes the brunt of the burden.

In short, unlike Vegas, what happens in your social network rarely stays there, especially if it is interesting enough to repost. The nature of the Web as a copy machine not only works against you when trying to control who copies your public work, but who copies your private ones as well.

Unfortunately, both can get you in legal trouble.

Bottom Line

There’s a temptation to treat one’s social networking profiles as a kind of digital “home base”, a place to relax, be among friends and let one’s hair down. Unfortunately, we have to remember that social media, both in terms of the law and in terms of your privacy, are still very much a public place.

Any legal missteps that you make on your social networking profiles, no matter how private they may seem or even be set to, can come back to haunt you and often do.

After all, people are semi-regularly fired on the grounds of their Facebook comments and a growing number of people are being sued or evenconvicted criminally for Facebook defamation.

Facebook may provide greater privacy protections but it is by no means a safe place to post unlawful messages. The law doesn’t make much distinction between the number of people who see a message and the privacy that these networks promise are really an illusion.

You can’t stop your friends from sharing that which they “like” so it is best, from both a legal and an ethical standpoint, to treat your social media interactions the same as you would any other activities you do online.

Your Questions

Have a question about the law and freelance writing? Either leave a comment below or contact me directly if you wish to keep the information private (However, please mention that it is a suggestion for Freelance Writing Jobs). This column will be determined largely by your suggestions and questions so let me know what you want to know about.

Disclosure

I am not an attorney and nothing in this article should be taken as legal advice.

(Mis)Communication in the Social Media Age

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Social Media Breakfast at SXSW - As you can see we're all chatting, just not with each other.

I miss the pre-social media world sometimes, back then ignorance was bliss.

Communicating Back Then

Growing up in the 70’s meant no cell phones or Netbooks. We sent all our correspondences via snail mail and any phone calls came to the house or office. Most of us had one phone in our homes, but some of the more well off families had extensions upstairs, and even separate phones for the kids. No one ever called during dinner hours or after 9:00.

We received our news from newspapers, magazines or one of a half dozen television stations and always had to wait for the designated hours for updates. If there was an emergency, the news would break into our regularly scheduled programming but that was extremely rare. We weren’t always connected and didn’t feel the need to be. In 1977, I was 13 years old. If you had offered me a phone to take everywhere with me, I would have thought you were crazy. Why on earth would I need to call people that much? Yet now, at least where I live, most 13 year olds are connected via cell phone and email.

We had penpals. We wrote to them now and again, usually when our parents reminded us. We sent handwritten “thank you” cards and Christmas cards and everyone marveled at our good manners. We didn’t need to know what all our friends and relatives where doing all day, every day, and that suited us just fine, thank you very much. Today, we know which of our friends are at the airport, what our cousins are having for dinner and who is checking in at the supermarket. Though I’m very proud of being the Mayor of both Stop N’ Shop and Saladworks, I couldn’t give you one good reason why you even need to know I’ve been there.

Communicating Now

When I asked my husband for a smart phone for Christmas I thought it would be kind of convenient to have for occasionally checking email or the odd Twitter update. Who knew it would be come a total extension of me? If you see me and I’m not checking Facebook or Gmail, there’s a good chance I’m about to. I went to a family reunion last fall and everyone under 50 sat in silence for about an hour as we checked our phones for updates. We finally interacted as we began befriending each other on Facebook.

You want to know the funniest thing about all this connectivity? All the social media people (including me) are insisting it’s all about the conversation. Yet we go to conferences and meet ups and sit at tables talking to people online instead of each other. We attend speaking engagements and tweet updates instead of concentrating on what is being said at the podium. In the real world talking while someone else is talking is considered rude. In the social media world, we’re updating people and building trust via conversation.

TMI?

It’s not a secret that I love my Facebook and Twitter, and couldn’t live without blogging. I wonder though, are we going too far? Do you care that my dog chewed the couch or that my son hit a home run?  How does it help my business for you to know we’re barbecuing over the weekend? There was a time we would never let anyone know where we lived or what we do when we’re offline, for fear of our safety. Now, there are whole social networks designed to track our every move.

I know we all use the various social networks and social media tools differently, and we’re all in charge of how much information we put out there. However, in our fun I hope we’re also being careful. Communication is cool and all, but there’s such a thing as too much information. It’s why you’ll never see me mention my husband or son’s name, and why the only places I check into on FourSquare aren’t located near my home.

I love my social media, but there’s something to be said about not be connected to every network. No one needs to know that much about someone else.

What do you think? Are we too connected?

Image via Brandon Eley

Introducing the Like button at Facebook!

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Just a quick heads up. Today, Facebook decided that “Like” is a better wording choice than “Become a Fan.” Interesting news because we JUST discussed this here; with me and others noting that, “The wording, “Fan” is off-putting.” In fact this wording is one major reason I haven’t felt compelled to create a separate page for any of my sites. Currently I only have a me page.

What Facebook says…

“Introducing the Like button – Starting today people will be able to connect with your Page by clicking “Like” rather than “Become a Fan.” We hope this action will feel much more lightweight, and that it will increase the number of connections made across the site.”

Facebook also noted that they hope this will improve user experience and promote consistency across the site, plus they believe this change offers a more standard way to connect with people, things and topics in which you are interested.

In any case this is good news if the prior wording was annoying you. I know I like the change. What do you think?

How Do You Support Your Favorite Bloggers?

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During our last night at SXSW, my good friends  Andy Hayes, Chris Garrett and I enjoyed some dinner and conversation. Our topic revolved around blog community and whether or not our communities owe us anything for all the information we share. We all agreed that our communities support us in many ways including visiting our blogs every time we post. Without this type of support, there would be no reason to blog at all. I always said that without my community I’m nothing and both Chris and Andy agreed. We appreciate the loyalty of our individual communities and we find our reward in their enjoyment of our words.

With that said, sometimes your favorite bloggers would like to know that they have a supportive community. Yes, traffic does tell us something, but without participation sometimes it’s just bodies. I liken blog traffic without participation to walking into a restaurant and walking out again.

Restaurants have communities too, though. They:

  • Stop by and order a meal
  • Chat with regular diners and staff
  • Support local promotions and events
  • Recommend the restaurant to others

Sometimes bloggers wouldn’t mind seeing support beyond regular traffic. It’s not that we don’t appreciate that you all visit us each day, but we’d like to know how you feel and that our words have touched you. We want to enjoy your company. We want to learn about you as a community and also as individuals.  Yes, visiting is enough, but here are some other ways you can support your favorite bloggers:

  • Comment: Did you like a post? Hate it? Tell the blogger why. Even if you disagree, the blogger will appreciate your input and the community will benefit from all sides of the story. I can’t think of one blogger who doesn’t get a rise out of seeing his community respond to a post. Our biggest disappointment is writing a post that gets no comments. You don’t have to reach into your wallet to support a blogger, instead take part in the discussion. I promise, you’ll make his or her day.
  • Recommend: Recommend blogs you enjoy to others. Share the love. Someone once said to me that she doesn’t recommend blogs because she doesn’t want them to turn into the “intimate local band that hit big and now everyone likes them and you can’t turn on the radio without hearing them.” I’m not sure I share this logic. What’s wrong with everyone enjoying the same thing?
  • Share your favorite posts: If you liked a post give it a Stumble or a Tweet or share on Facebook. When a blogger sees that people have been sharing something she wrote, there’s no better feeling. When she sees one of her discussion topics stimulating conversation on the social networks, that’s the gravy. You don’t have to click on ads or buy ebooks to support a favorite blogger. However, occasionally sharing or recommending will make all the blogging so worth it.
  • Send feedback: Do your favorite bloggers know how you feel about their blogs? Why not send feedback. Drop a line saying how much you like what they do. If there’s something you didn’t like, well say that too – but do be respectful. If the blogger has a survey or feedback form, fill it out. Feedback allows bloggers to write topics of interest to the community and lets them know if they’re on the right track.

Most of us blog because we enjoy blogging and just knowing you’re out there reading is reward enough. Some bloggers spend hours each day building their blogs to foster a happy community. If that means something to you, let them know. You don’t have to sing songs around the campfire, but adding your voice now and then will make your favorite blogger’s day. I know it makes mine.

How do you show support for your favorite bloggers?

3 Ways to Use Social Media to Boost Your Client Base

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If you’ve been following me for a while you know I believe there are no right or wrong ways to use social media, and often complain of “social media police” telling us how we should Tweet or use Facebook, However, that doesn’t mean I don’t believe we shouldn’t use social media to give our careers a boost. There may be no exact rules, but there are certainly tried and true methods for using the social networks and other social media tools to achieve success.

What I like about using online tools for networking and landing clients is how they’re so easy to use. In most cases, all it takes is a user name or email address and password. With that said, I also know plenty of writers who don’t care to use these tools because they either “don’t get it” or they’re uncomfortable exchanging ideas and conversing with others online.

Here are three ways I use social media to bring in clients:

  • 1. Engage: I’m not a big fan of elevator pitches mostly because I don’t enjoy being cornered to hear a sales pitch, and I don’t know many others who enjoy this either. However, I also know there are ways of learning who is hiring or  may be hiring simply by having conversations online. When you create conversations with your friends and followers they learn what you do. When they have questions about writing or hiring freelancers, you’re the one they come to. Also, by having conversations and learning more about the people in your network, it will create situations where you’ll be able to say, “It looks like you might be in need of a freelance writer. Can we talk offline?” or “I have some thoughts about your situation, can I email?” Conversational marketing can land more clients than job boards or waiting around for someone to contact you.
  • 2. Follow: I enjoy finding new people to follow on the social networks, even people I don’t know. There are several types of friends I look for. I find the folks who make me laugh and share interesting links and experiences. I also seek out people who share my same interests, and, also, I follow many writers,  bloggers and people who hire writers and bloggers. To me, the key to finding clients and readers for my blogs is to learn where they hang out and interact with them. In addition to following those who you know, follow the people in areas of interest. You never know when they could use a writer.
  • 3. Join: To add to the above, join the forums and social networks in the niches and genres that would best boost your career. A mistake many freelance writers make is to ONLY join writing forums and online groups. While this can help, certainly other writers have valuable tips and advice to share, people who hire writers hang out at other places too. If you write about health and wellness, go where people are discussing medical stuff. If you write about green living, visit the environmental communities. If you’re a music writer, hang out at the music blogs and forums. This will serve many difference purposes: you will be conversing with and learning from others, you’re building up your expertise, your name is being associated with certain circles, folks may view your writing, and, finally, you might pique the interest of potential clients within that niche.

What I like about social media is that it isn’t rocket science. The tools are easy enough to use, and unlike methods such as cold calling, you can stick within your comfort zone. In most cases it’s simply chatting with people online and, as the relationships develop, taking them offline or through a different channel of communication to do business.

What are some of the ways you can think of to use social media to boost your client base?

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