Freelance writers soon learn that self promotion is the only way they’ll turn their writing into money. You can write 30 articles a day and publish them on popular sites, but if no one is aware that you’ve written them, no one is going to read them unless you’re lucky enough to gain rank on the search engine result page.
The most popular social media sites for self promotion are Facebook and Twitter. Both of these sites offer seemingly limitless opportunities to meet and communicate with strangers who share common interests.
The need for Facebook friends and Twitter followers is obvious. You’re looking for people who are interested in you and the work you do. These are the people who may just click on your link and read your article. If they like what they read, they might start following your work. They may even recommend your article to their friends.
If you’re lucky, you may even discover people who’ll become your mentors. I’ve found many fellow writers on Facebook who have not only clicked on my links and commented, but shared my articles with their friends.
The same is true with Twitter. As followers learn to recognize the value of your Tweets and links, they will retweet your tweets to their followers, greatly increasing the chances that someone will click.
When looking for Facebook friends and Twitter followers, be careful that you don’t limit your possibilities. You may have already identified friends and followers in the writing site forums where you publish. These contacts are very valuable as business contacts, but that doesn’t mean that they are actually interested in your subject matter.
You want to add Twitter followers and Facebook friends who are interested in the article that you write. If you write about history, you want to identify people who read about history. Check out history groups on Facebook and join them. Friend other group members. These are the people who are your intended audience, after all.
The same is true with Twitter. Use the hashtag (#) and run a search of history topics. Follow the Tweeters who tweet on the subject. They might just follow you back and each time you post a link, they will have the opportunity to follow it.
Grow your online social community, continue to write valuable content, self promote at every opportunity, and you may just be lucky enough to become one of the successful freelance writers on the internet.
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