5 Social Media Strategies To Help Freelancers Land Better Clients

By Abdullahi Muhammed

Forbes

As a freelancer, you might think that dream clients are exactly that – a dream. But this is far from the truth. In fact, there are amazing clients hiding everywhere, you just have to know how to find them.

Social media is one of the best ways to do this because 37% of employers use social media in the hiring process. Think about the over two billion people who use platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn every single day, that’s a huge pool of people you can tap into. You can and should use social media platforms to connect with and stay top of the mind with potential clients and referrers. But how exactly do you do that?

1. Check out who follows you on Twitter

Let’s start with Twitter, which can seem like an endless stream of clutter if you don’t know where to start. Instead of aimlessly searching its depths for potential clients, start by checking out who follows you. According to astudy run by digital marketer Jeff Bullas, the average number of followers an individual user has on Twitter is 208.

That’s a considerable amount to start with, right? And these people are usually already interested in what you have to say and know who you are, so a quick introduction to your services or a question via tweeting at the user won’t be out of the blue. You’ll want to avoid a direct message as it can come across as spammy.

Russell Nohelty, a publishing consultant, directly asks his new followers thoughtful questions like “@username Thanks for following. How many books do you read in a year?” and “@username Thanks for adding me. What are you reading right now?” These interactions have the potential to open up meaningful conversations that turn new followers to leads, clients and referrers.

2. Create a portfolio board on Pinterest

Pinterest isn’t just a platform for pinning pictures. In fact, it can be a great place to showcase your portfolio to potential clients, especially if you’re a designer, a website developer, a painter, a photographer or someone else whose business is visually-driven.

Simply create a beautiful cover image for each piece of work you do and add it to a dedicated board. Be sure to use keywords when describing the board. When a person or business searches Pinterest for topics within their niche (which is also your niche), your board will show up and they’ll have access to your previous work. Small business strategist Gail Gardnerreported how one blogger got one-third of her over 600k monthly page views from Pinterest.