Day 1 of the 31 Days Blog Challenge is to come up with an elevator pitch.  I remember doing this one before but I think I missed the point of it.

The point of an elevator pitch is to have a response to people question when they say, “Exactly what do you do?” (and you know if you tell them that you’re a freelance anything that is going to be the first question they ask!) – you need to have something short and sweet to tell them that explains what you do in simple words.

Now, if you look at the title of my blog I guess it isn’t exactly clear.  Text Media?  What’s that?  I guess that text media is my play on text writing and social media.  So Text Media is any type of social media that is based on words – like Facebook, Twitter, or blogging.  It can be other things as well – article marketing, bookmarking (although I’m not really big on that yet), LinkedIn…and some others that I haven’t really gotten into so we’ll leave it at that.

You should have a short version to give to those who are just asking to be polite and likely won’t sit through a 3 minute spiel but you should also have a longer version that you can use when they really do want to know what you do.

So, my short version elevator pitch:

I help people with written social media like blogging, Facebook, and Twitter.

And my longer version:

I help people with written social media like blogging, Facebook, and Twitter.  I write profiles for their social media accounts, I help set up their accounts or their blogs, and I write the content.  It can be as simple as writing a blog post for them a couple times a week or it can go as far as writing the blog post and then spreading it through their social networks.

Have you heard of this event? It’s happening on August 30th and it looks like it is going to be amazing. This is a FREE teleseminar serious that has a line up of some of the smartest women online today.

If you’re a work at home mom or a sole entrepreneur – and yes, that includes work at home dad’s, too! – you’ll want to check this out. It’s not just the same info that you hear every day and read on every blog you come across – this going to be the kind of info that you can immediately put into action and it’s original stuff!

Wondering what exactly you’ll learn?

• Establishing the right mindset to achieve more success than you could imagine possible
• Leveraging radio so you can grow your list, get more clients and position yourself as an expert
• Achieving a six-figure income in four short months with FREE marketing
• Tapping into the power of the huge, ever-growing Hispanic market
• Transforming your website into a powerhouse branding and marketing machine
• Taking full advantage of your social media tools through some great creative tips and tricks
• Making your blog ROCK so you can make more money and attract lots of new clients
• Hiring a virtual assistant to free your time and set your business alight
• Taking your networking or multi-level marketing program to new heights
• Using community marketing to explode your online presence
• Transforming your lackluster Facebook Fan Page into a fantastic, entertaining and profitable business tool

Check it out – I know I’m not planning to miss this one. Why would I? It is FREE and you all know how I love free!

If you’ve had anything to do with marketing, online or offline, you likely already know that the best way to get the word out about your business is through word of mouth.  And how do you get people to talk about you?  It’s usually through people who have used your services.

The hard part of putting word of mouth into action is that people do not always think to say something good about a business that they have had good service with.  Why?  Because they expect good service.  That’s why bad word of mouth news tends to travel faster.

But you can encourage clients to talk about you!  Ask them for five things after you have done good work for them (which should be always!).

This video from Working Writing Happy Writer (be sure to check out the newsletter) has 5 questions (or favors) that you can ask of your clients:

I’d say that #3 and #5 are my favorites.  #3 is to ask for testimonials.  Ever wonder how other freelancers have all those great testimonials on their sites?  They asked for them!  Clients do not usually think to give them out on their own, but if you’ve done good work for them they are often more than happy to give you a couple sentences.  Make sure you ask if you can use their name and a link to their website to give the testimonial more validity. #5 is to ask them to pass your name along to others that might need your writing services.  Until you ask them they might not even think of that but once they are asked the might remember someone that could use your services.

It can be hard to ask thinks of clients other than your fee but if you’ve done a good job, clients are often more than happy to help you out.  Don’t be afraid to ask – the worst they can say is no!

Are you trying to break into the freelance writing market?  Perhaps trying to get some writing done that is NOT online?  If you are, you may be finding that it can be difficult to get into when you have no credits to your name.  Unlike the online world, having credits and clips can make all the difference between whether you get an assignment or not.

Start by checking out this short video from Anny Wayman of About Freelance Writing. I’ve mentioned Anne Wayman before and if you haven’t checked out her site you should now.  She’s got loads of great advice about writing (both online and offline) and she’s got some great e-books, too.

In this video she talks about getting your first credits by writing for your local/community paper.

Newspapers are not the only place that you can get credits for freelance writing. You can also try newsletters. If you have a lot of experience in a particular industry and have knowledge of something new and interesting, pitch the idea to the editors of an industry newsletter. There are many places that need written content and local businesses are a great place to start.

Have you had success with this? Share in the comments!

I’m sure you all know what spam is and it happens all over the place.  It’s in our inbox, our message boxes on Facebook sometimes, on Facebook groups and pages – but did you know that spammers are now taking advantage of tagging to spam people!  And this is something we really can’t protect ourselves from.  Check out this great video (it’s only about 6 minutes long) about how NOT to market yourself on Facebook:

I like how she stresses that you have to build trust in a website/Facebook Page/blog – whatever – before you will go on to actually do any reading there. Personally, if I smell even the slightest hint of spam, I’m out of there. If I feel the coldness of pyramids or MLM marketing, I run to warmer sites. And what this guy has done is all of the above.

Has this ever happened to you? If it has, what did you do about it?