One of the best things about social media is that businesses can interact with consumers where they play.  You have seen this in traditional means of advertising, too.  You see billboard ads at events.  You see advertising at the Winnipeg Goldeyes Games.  You see advertisements on the LED screens at the MTS Center when you go to see a concert.  You can do the same thing on social media but it is less obvious.

When you see a billboard or a big ad at a concert you know it is advertising.  But when you are using a site like Pinterest, it is not so blatant, which makes it even more effective.
Read more….

Reach People Where They Play – on Pinterest is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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I recorded an audioboo about FiversWorld. Take a listen:

Check out FiversWorld here!

Check out my gigs on FiversWorld

FiversWorld | Buying and Selling Online is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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Guest post by Hajra Kahtoon

WHO?

Jane Sheeba  runs many blogs!!! That is probably the first thing you notice about her.

She blogs about blogging at Problogging Success.

She tells you all about the technological buzz going around at Tech Buzz.

She runs a relationship advice blog at Merry Relationships.

Besides this, she is a team member at We Blog Better, works as a scientist by day and don’t ask me how; but manages to run her family and raise a kid!

Now that you have done gasping; read on.

WHAT?

Jane has authored an amazing book called Pro Blogging Action Plan. The book is a 132 page of action packed blogging guide. It can very well be your blogging guru all in itself. Not only is the book explanatory, but it walks you through EACH AND EVERY step of the blogging process. From selecting your niche, to naming it, to hosting it, to writing posts, having schedules, SEO’s, links, plug – ins, to, hear hear…MAKING MONEY!

Not only is this book  a walk-through through your blogging journey; it tells you how to maximize benefits at each step.

WHY?

Why should I buy this book you ask? Here’s why:

• Everyone talks about making mistakes. Pro blogging action talks about improving on them. What you should NOT be doing and what you SHOULD be doing and HOW you should be doing it.
• There is absolutely nothing a newbie needs to know that hasn’t been covered. You name it and it is there in the book.
• Illustrations :  probably my best loved feature in the book! Not only does Jane walk you through; she illustrates how!
• DEFINITIONS! Yes, Jane’s book defines many terms that technology cripples might find hard to understand. Terms like content syndication, quality link building, do follow links are comprehensively described.
• Not only will you know what blogging goals are; you shall know how to identify them.
• It’s a tried and tested formula. Jane mentions how she went wrong and how she worked on it.
• Recommendations: The book lays out the resources available and compares them to each other. Also, Jane mentions what she uses herself and why.
• Wonderfully explained methods to increase traffic to your blog and also optimizing your blog for search engines.
• MONEY: Everyone is here to make money, at least some money. This book might help you get just that!

HOW MUCH?

Priced at 27 $ this book is probably the best bargain you get! Also, there is so much to learn that money really won’t be an issue. Also, letting you on a little secret; if you are a subscriber at Jane’s blog you might just get yourself a discount!  And it comes with a 100% 30 Day Money Back Guarantee. What more can you ask for?

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING?

Check out what others are saying about the book.

Brankica Underwood of Blog Like a Star: If you are searching for actionable steps to make your blog bigger and better, Jane has the solution for you. Her e-book is filled with great advice. She served all the things on a platter for you. Do you know how much time we would have all saved if this book had been published sooner? She tried and tested everything and handpicked the things that work the best. Can’t ask for more than that! ”

Ana of Traffic Generation Café: “Jane’s book is a goldmine for any aspiring blogger. It’s filled with the kind of thorough and practical advice on setting up and running a successful blog that others charge hundreds of dollars for. If you already have a blog up and running, don’t think this ebook is not for you though. Her chapters on content creation, SEO, and blog promotion are definitely something that can give your blog the push you’ve been looking for. In short, this ebook is definitely a winner in my book. ”

So, given all that you stand to benefit, go book shopping here!

For the Problogging Success’s Blogging Tips 101 Contest.

Book Review: ProBlogging Action Plan is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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If you are looking to get into the world of freelance writing, I highly suggest you take a look at Ghostwriting Cash by Tiffany Dow. This is the most helpful, thorough course on the topic that I have seen on the Internet. Tiffany was once a ghostwriter herself, writing articles and reports for some of the biggest names online. Because she has been there, she tells it like it is and provides her customers with the best methods for setting up a profitable writing business.

What You’ll Learn

The Ghostwriting Cash course features an ebook that will help you set up a successful freelancing business. You will learn how to set up a website in order to gain orders from new clients. You also learn how to go out and network with those that may be interested in your services. When appropriate, Tiffany also includes videos so that you can see exactly what you need to do. Having a look over the teacher’s shoulder is always nice!

Benefits

To me, there are many benefits to following Ghostwriting Cash when making the decision to offer writing services on the web. It helps you shorten the learning curve needed to set up a website and market your services. There is no guess work as to where you should seek clients and orders. Tiffany gives you several methods for finding those that need content created. All you have to do is present them with your offer.

Tiffany also stresses the importance of eventually becoming your own client. I think this is something that most other freelance writing courses lack. They just teach you how to offer services, and don’t really cover anything beyond that. However, Tiffany has always viewed services as the “foot in the door.”

When You Have Steady Work

Once you have steady work coming in, you can begin to raise your rates. This allows you to earn more money, but with fewer clients or orders. This, in turn, gives you time to become your own client. Working for yourself should be your ultimate goal, as you will then be free from other people’s deadlines and can create passive income streams that pay you again and again.

When writing a product review, it is best to present the pros and cons of the product. However, as far as Ghostwriting Cash is concerned, there are no negatives! This is, of course, my opinion, but I think it’s a thorough course for beginners as well as experienced writers looking for more clients. I honestly cannot find anything wrong with it! I have followed Tiffany for about 3 years now, and she is as ethical as they come. She doesn’t attempt to sell you on the idea of making $10K overnight or buying that shiny Ferrari. She is the real deal, and also provides excellent customer support.

Ghostwriting Cash – The Perfect Solution for Those Beginning or Struggling with Freelance Writing is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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This is part two of a three part series.  In part one we talked about marketing yourself as a freelance writer and targeting your marketing efforts.

Here are some more mistakes you might be making:

Mistake #3: You’re not getting personal enough.

Copying a pasting the same generic message and sending it to hundreds of companies may be less time consuming than writing personalized messages, but it might come back to bite youlater.

Think about it. When you get an email (or phone call) from someone you don’t know, you probably delete (or ignore) it if it doesn’t immediate grab your attention. Sending a “to whom it may concern” message is not going to win you any brownie points, and it will probably get your message deleted before anyone even has time to read it.

The solution? Do a little digging to find out who is responsible for hiring writers within each company, and then send messages targeted to each person. Read each company website, and become familiar with what they do and how they go about doing it. Position yourself as the perfect writer for their particular needs or industry.

If you can’t find the person in charge of hiring freelancers, send a brief note to customer service or human resources and ask who you should speak with. Often times, they’ll either send you an email address or forward your message to the right people. If you’re cold calling, ask them who would be charge in hiring freelance talent.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Mistake #4: You are pricing your services too low.

You might be tempted to charge rock bottom prices just to make sure you get the gig. Don’t. At least, not unless you want to be earning rock bottom prices months from now.

While it is possible that a low-baller will walk away if you quote professional rates right off the bat, ask yourself: is that really the type of client you want? Plus, once you are locked in at a low rate, it’s very hard to increase your prices later on.

Another pitfall of charging too little is that the good clients, the ones who know the value of quality content, might not take you as seriously. You could be the best writer in the world, but if you’re charging $5 for an article, clients will assume will you don’t have the experience or talent they’re looking for. Know your worth, and don’t be afraid to ask for what you deserve. Don’t price yourself as a bottom basement writer, unless you want to work with bottom basement clients.

If you are a new writer, you’ll stick to the lower end of the pay scale, but don’t price yourself off the scale altogether.

Mistake #5: You don’t have clients sign a contract.

Get everything in writing. For one thing, it ensures that you’ll get paid (or at least provides ammo if you have to dispute an unpaid invoice). Secondly, clients will assume that you’re a real professional if you have a contract. Business owners have contracts. Hobbyists who are trying to make a little extra pocket change, don’t.

Once you have a potential client interested, you want to keep him interested. That means conducting yourself in a professional manner before you ever even get to work.

A contract doesn’t have to be anything fancy. A simple statement of the project and payment arrangements is fine. Make sure it is stated that the client won’t own your writing until payment is received in full. If you want rights to resell the work, make sure you include those terms in writing as well.

Watch for Part 3 tomorrow!

Are These 8 Marketing Mistakes Hurting Your Freelance Writing Career? – Part 2 is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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You have all the makings of a successful freelance writer: talent, professionalism, and a can-do attitude. Stellar writing samples? Check! Killer website? Check! LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook business pages? Check, check, and check! So, why aren’t clients beating down your door?

Easy. You haven’t gone out to find them yet.

As with any business, if you want to succeed as a freelance writer, you’re going to have to do a little (a lot) marketing to build your client base. Unfortunately, marketing alone isn’t enough. You have to know where to market, who you’re marketing to, and how to negotiate the process once you have a fish on the hook. Sound daunting? It doesn’t have to be, but there are plenty of things that could be hurting your marketing efforts without you even realizing it. Here are 8 of the most common mistakes.

Mistake #1: You’re not marketing yourself enough.

You made 50 phone calls and placed 10 ads on Craigslist. Great! What else? If you don’t have an answer to that question, you probably aren’t marketing yourself nearly enough. It takes time to find clients, and one single burst of effort isn’t going to cut it. You’ve barely even scratched the surface. Keep sending emails or making calls. After you’ve done that, gather a new list of prospects and do it all over again.

Set a weekly goal, and stick to it. If you plan on sending 5 emails a day, do it.

How many contacts do you need to make before you start seeing results? That depends, and it’s different for every writer. Some will get lucky and start landing gigs after the first week. For others, it can be a much longer process.

A simple answer would be: keep doing it until you have enough work to stay busy. Then, continue doing it (albeit, at a slower pace) to make sure you stay busy. Rest assured, if you keep doing it enough, you will see results.

Image via CrunchBase

Mistake #2: Your marketing efforts are not targeted.

While it’s true that almost any company could benefit from professional writing help, some make better prospects than others. The main things you should consider when choosing who to target are the industries you have the most experience writing for, and the size of the companies you want to contact.

The way to get started is to stick with what you know. Were you in the insurance biz for 10 years? Great, write insurance articles or offer to write brochure copy for insurers in your area. Did you go to school for veterinary assisting? Contact vet clinics, pet stores, and dog food makers.

The size of each company is also important. Very small businesses often do not have the financial resources available to hire writing talent, while very large businesses usually have writers on staff. You want to start in the middle. These companies usually don’t have the money to keep writers on payroll, but they do often have a large enough budget to pay freelancers on an as needed basis.

It’s also a good idea to deal with companies that are older than the Internet. These businesses were around before SEO and $3 articles. They know the value of good content, and they are willing to pay for it. That’s not to say that all newer companies will try and low ball you, but aiming for more established businesses will lower the chances of being offered $100 to write an entire ebook.

Don’t miss part 2 and part 3 – coming soon!  Subscribe to the feeds so you don’t miss anything.

Are These 8 Marketing Mistakes Hurting Your Freelance Writing Career? – Part 1 is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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Marketing can be one of the toughest parts in running a business – any business!  There are so many things to think about and your time is limited!  I’ve written a blog post that I’m very proud of at Famous Bloggers and I would love it if you would check it out:

I think that you will enjoy it and there’s some great info there like:

Don’t try to do everything at once.  Choose something new to learn about and execute every month or two.  Read everything you can about it and think about how it applies to your own business.  Consider twisting it around and making it your own to get even more value from it.

But there is more! This is for the contest at Famous Bloggers and the competition is HUGE so I really need your help!.

There are several ways that you can help me. Each thing you do gives me points and the person with the most points in the end will win. You can:

- Comment or reply to comments (and you can do this more than once so if you have time to read through the comments and reply to the ones that are interesting to you it is even better!)
- Like the post by clicking on the “like” button at the bottom of the post
- give it a +1 by clicking on the “+1″ button at the bottom of the post
- share on LinkedIn by clicking on the “in share” botton at the bottom of the post
- or tweet by clicking on the “tweet” button at the bottom of the post (and if you have time you can come back every day to click on that tweet button and I would seriously love you forever)

If there is anything I can do for you in the future – give you a second set of eyes on an article or blog post, give you an opinion, help you with a wordpress problem, stumble an article or post, etc – please feel free to contact me directly and I’d be happy to return the favor!

Thanks so much in advance!

Want to Take Your Business to a New Level and Help Me at the Same Time? is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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It’s another Sunday and there have been some great blog posts out there worth reading.  Do you do your blog reading on a particular day or do you read throughout the week?  One of the reasons I like to try to do my blog reading on Sunday (sometimes on the weekend in general) is because then I don’t worry too much about what I’m missing throughout the week.  When I see something I want to read I just bookmark it (or star it in my Google RSS Reader) and go back to it on Sunday.

Here are some great posts from this week:

Freelance Writing

• 5 Tips for Handling Client Complaints Gracefully – It’s always hard to deal with complaints but it can be done gracefully.
• Writing for Residual Income Tomorrow: What are You Writing Today? – If you’re not writing for residual income yet start planning today!
• Do You Find it a Struggle to Secure Writing Jobs In Your Specialty Areas? – It isn’t always easy to find jobs in the niche we want to write in and Dan has some thoughts.
• Six Common Writing Excuses (and How to Overcome Them) – Keep making these excuses?  I know #2 is a big one for me!

Social Media

• Getting Back To Basics with Social Media – whether you’ve been doing social media marketing or are brand new to it, this post will get you on the right track.
• How to Charge for Social Media Services – if you’re a freelance writer and you want to add value to your services, offering social media services can be a great way to do that.  You can upsell when the opportunity is there, too!
• 10 Productive Tasks You Should Be Doing on Google+ Right Now – If you’re still not sure what the heck you’re supposed to be doing on Google+ this should help.
• 25 Google Tips and Tricks – And if the one before didn’t help this one should!

Other Stuff

• 7 Morning Hacks to Start Your Day – I don’t know about you but getting started is usually the hardest part of the day and these tips should help.  I will start implementing these tomorrow!

Sunday Reading #16 is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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When I recently participated in the JobMob blogging contest (it’s still on going but I’m in first place and the other participants are going to have to work hard to beat me – my week is done, so I can’t get more “votes”) I wrote about ways that people could promote themselves online.

The main focus of the article was for job searchers but there are many others who could use the same information.  The point was that although social media and blogging are huge right now, they are not the only ways to promote yourself – or your business.  If you are serious about doing business online, you should branch out and use many different methods of promotion.

One 0f the first things I suggested in that article was to create an About.me page.  I was all over that as soon as I saw it and I don’t know why more people haven’t heard of it.  It’s such a simple concept but it is fun at the same time.

Your About.me page is like a sales page.  The purpose is to promote yourself and point people to the other places where you can be found online.  It’s simple and gives people a better idea of who you are and how  you can help them.

Here are some tips for creating your own About.me page:

• Keep it simple – this is not the time for flowery phrase.  If you need help, consider hiring a professional to write it for you.
• Include a picture either as the background or in the profile box.  Make sure it has some color in it and a SMILE is a must!
• If you’re not using your own picture as the background, choose something professional but reflective of your personality and your business.
• Don’t forget to include links to the places you want people to find you online.  If you don’t do social media or blog you can include links to other places like articles and profiles.

Find Out About.me on My Profile Page is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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Image by amanda_moore via Flickr

Every business is going to have its own challenges, frustrations, and of course, successes. But if you want to be successful there are a few things you can do beforehand that will be helpful no matter what business you have chosen to go into.

I’ve always been an entrepreneurial type of person. But I certainly haven’t succeeded at everything I tried! Some ventures just never came to fruition. I know why these ventures weren’t successful though and I’m going to share 3 tips with you to make sure that your next endeavour is a successful one.

1. Research

Before you begin any start up business you absolutely need to do your research. Going into a start up business blindly is a sure path to failure. And you can’t just do a few days of research and move on. You have to put some time into it.

Here are a few things you should research before you really get started with your business:

• How much money do you need to invest?
• How long can you expect to run your business before it becomes profitable?
• How many hours a day will you need to spend on your business?
• Can you do all the work yourself or will you have to outsource part of the work?
• If you are going to need to outsource work, how much will outsourcing cost you?
• Who do you know that has had a business like this? If you don’t know anyone, can you find someone and connect with them (either online or in real life)?
• What tools will you need and how much will they cost?
• Will you need office space or will you be able to work from home?
• If you are going to work from home, where will your work space be? How much space will you need?

2. Planning

Once you have finished your research, you need to begin the planning phase. This is the step that most people either overlook completely or just skim over. Neglecting this step is the biggest reason that people fail to succeed at their small businesses. When you are planning how you will run your business, where you will run it from, and when you will work on it you should set goals.

When you are setting your goals remember to set SMART goals. SMART goals are:

• Specific – General goals are often forgotten and easy to work around. Specific goals are concrete and easy to visualize.
• Measurable – You know when you have reached the goal because it is defined by certain standards such as the amount of money you have made or the amount of times you have completed a task.
• Attainable – Your goals must not be too high but not too easy to reach, either.
• Realistic – Think realistically when you are setting your goals. Don’t set a goal of reaching a million dollars in sales in your first month when you know that it is highly unlikely.
• Time specific – Set time periods for when you want to reach your goals by. By the end of the week, month, or year is your choice but have a deadline, otherwise there is no reason to work on it.

3. Focus

You can’t carry a business plan through to fruition if you have a dozen other things on your plate. When you are starting up a business, make sure that you are focused on that one business. If you have other things going on, find a way to set them aside for as long as you need to. If you have a blog that takes up your time, write blog posts ahead of time and date them for the future. If you have other businesses, hire people to take care of most of the activities that are necessary to keep them running. Don’t try to get your new business up and running when you only have a limited amount of time.

New businesses require time and consistency. Without those two factors, your business will not gain the momentum it needs to get off the ground and running smoothly.

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Have you heard of BloggersCompete.com yet? If you haven’t you have to check it out! As a blogger you can compete in blog post contests where you can win prizes for the best blog post. It is a great way to find inspiration for blog post and make money from your blog. If you want to engage bloggers and gain valuable backlinks that will help you promote your business, BloggersCompete.com can help you, too. Blog marketing can be one of the most valuable ways that businesses can get the word out about what they do and how they can help others.

Starting a Business? Don’t Skip These Tips! is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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