Self-promotion as a freelancer - what is it and are you doing it?

One of the big parts of running a freelance business is self-promotion and letting the world know about your great services, but how many freelancers do you know that are actually doing this?

It’s easy to spot when you need to invest in a bit of self-advertising; when work is a bit quieter and capacity gets a bit easier, but how will potential new clients find you if you haven’t been doing a bit of self-promotion?

We explore the topic of self-promotion and share some tips on how to include it in your regular business activities.

How are you telling the world about your great services?

Being a freelancer often involves spinning multiple plates at one time meaning things like advertising are pushed aside for the tasks that generate money. But if you’re not telling the world about your services when you can, how will new clients ever discover you?

When you’re a freelancer, it’s down to you to advertise your services too, which can be a trickier task for those of us who would rather not tell the world how great we are! If you’re an introvert or find networking events too difficult, our tips below can help boost your self-promotion and hopefully secure some new clients too.

Get loud and proud on social media

Are you active on social channels and online communities, sharing great tips and experiences with fellow freelancers? If you’re not, you should be!

Social media comes with both pros and cons for many of us, but for freelancers, it brings endless possibilities to find new projects and clients. Whether you’re active in freelance Facebook groups like Freelance heroes and Being Freelance or spend time engaging on LinkedIn, social media channels can lead you to lots of potential new clients, job prospects and projects.

When you’ve got a quieter period, try searching hashtags like #freelancejobs or #freelancers on LinkedIn and Twitter as this will filter the posts that users have used these. Following dedicated freelance job-sharing accounts on Twitter and LinkedIn can also help see various opportunities in your wider network. Don’t forget to follow fellow freelancers too as a lot of the community will share the jobs they can’t pick up or will reach out to freelancers who may be interested.

If you’re a freelancer, you should be investing your time in growing your online presence enough to get noticed by that potential client or company you’ve been dreaming about working with. As social media sites become our new age of networking, everything you share, like and comment on becomes small self-promotion that someone may see and reach out about.

Regular blogging and posts

If you’ve got a website and it’s been lying dormant, now is the time to get updating. Refreshing your web content will not only help re-engage your clients and hopefully bring in new opportunities but it will help your visibility online as Google favours websites that are most recently updated.

If you’ve got a blog or article section, it’s always a great idea to update this and publish regular posts to help keep your website updated too. Not only can this help showcase your talents and expertise but clients can get a good idea of you and how you work. You can use your own blog section to get creative, share some tips about freelancing or even advice to fellow freelancers in your field. The options are endless!

Haven’t been great at dedicating time to your content? Try creating a basic content calendar with some brief ideas to help gain momentum so you can make sure it doesn’t get forgotten. Write down ideas as you go too so when you do get round to writing something, you’ll have some good ideas to choose from.

Make Your YunoJuno profile "public and indexable”

Whilst this only applies to freelancers on the YunoJuno platform, the same applies to your portfolio or website too. Making your online profile visible for people to find is key if you want more potential clients to find you when they’re searching for your skillset.

A monthly round-up

Whether it’s an email, a formal newsletter or even a LinkedIn post, reach out and remind your existing clients and even your network that you’re still available to work with, without being too ‘salesy’ or direct.

A regular post from you about what you’ve been working on, what you’ve been involved in will help remind people about your great services and can often lead to clients getting back in touch.

A newsletter will help showcase your other skills such as marketing and content writing, whilst giving you the opportunity to share some great design work or images of projects you’ve been involved in (if you can!).

If you’re limited on time but want to share your freelance updates, a LinkedIn post is a great way to put down your thoughts whilst reminding your network that you’re available to work with too.

It can feel unnatural to ‘blow your own trumpet’ but as a freelancer unless you shout about your achievements with your online networks many of your clients will simply forget about your services. Why not try a couple of different methods until you find a way to help spread your great work.

What are your tips for self promotion? Join YunoJuno today. We'd love for you to share it with us and our freelance community on Slack.