The financial storm has hit the world’s economy badly and resulted in massive job layoffs, falling stock rates, bankruptcies, social unrest etc. In such financial disquiet, getting business is a challenge for both SMBs and individual freelancers. As the economy continues to run in a downward spiral, the one smart way out is to try something new, something innovative.
To come up with a real, innovative marketing strategy, you need to think beyond the conventional business practices and start building business network, using social media platforms to spread your profile visibility online. You can use social networking tools for your social media marketing & PR purposes.
How?
Social media networking tools can help individual freelancers and small medium businesses collect and analyze information, innovate new business approach and promote their profiles effectively.
Relationships Matter!!
On the basis of our analysis of value-centric features, we have come up with a list of popular social media networking tools that can help you strengthen your online presence in freelance community like ours.
LinkedIn: With over 40 million users from 170 industries in 200 countries & territories around the world, LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking website that allows you to connect with professionals across varied domains, create business contacts, search projects and promote your skill set effectively.
LinkedIn basically build ups and extends your present network of trusted contacts. You can create your publicly visible professional profile and a list of known business contacts and also invite anyone to join you. The website serves as a platform for employers to review the mentioned professional information about the job seekers.
A new feature “LinkedIn Answers” that has been added to the website in January 2007 is free that allows its users like you to post your business queries and get them answered by experts on the platform.
Reviews: “LinkedIn provides a perfect example of why Private Networks are based on a greater level of trust between participants.” says Ross Mayfield, Chairman, President and Co-founder of Socialtext.
Similarly, LimeExchange gives you the freedom to post your questions and get them answered by experts through ‘Question & Answers’ section of our website. You also can answer questions posted by people across the globe, connect with them and give a boost to your profile credibility on our platform.
Ping.fm: It is a social-networking & micro-blogging web service that serves as a single entry point for users to update their multiple social networks (from Twitter, Facebook to AIM & Tumblr) with a single message. This “multicast” site is a time saver for social media aspirants like you as it facilitates to update your blogs, micro-blogs all at once. 
Currently, it works well for 30 social networking websites and helps you to send message via mobile phones (SMS, MMS), Emails, 3rd party applications etc. This connects you with thousands of professionals and employers from around the world and you can use this great opportunity to market your profile and services smartly.
Reviews: “Ping.fm , a fairly new service in the social network aggregation space lets you update your status on several sites at once. So I can submit “Mark is brushing his teeth” to it and both my Facebook friends and Twitter followers will see the message.” says Mark Hendrickson, a former writer and web developer at TechCrunch.
Shozu Desktop: This application was earlier available only on mobile phones but has now moved to desktops. You can use this great application to share photos, videos on your system across 30+ networks in a single click. 
Shozu Desktop application helps you to update your friends & professional contacts about your activities, add details to your uploaded photos and videos and get your friends’ & professional contacts’ updates on your phones instantly. Once you get the freedom to connect with them, you can advertise your services and skill set efficiently.
Reviews: “One of the most useful tools I’ve been using while bouncing around America these last two weeks has been Shozu.” says Ewan Spence, a writer at All About Symbian.
TweetDeck: A favorite among Twitter friends, TweetDeck is a personal browser that helps you keep in touch with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook etc. You get the ease of tweeting directly from TweetDeck and view all new tweets in real time. If you are running a marketing campaign on Twitter, you can track the events and developments of the same through messages on Tweetdeck. 
On TweetDeck, you can categorize your Twitter friends into different groups such as clients, designers, inspiration etc. to keep update with topics. In addition, you can view replies & direct messages and also manage you conversations effectively.
Reviews: “TweetDeck is fascinating. It really is one of the best desktop clients you can use to narrow your Twitterverse- and focus in on the things you want the most from Twitter.” says Teresa Hall, a freelance writer.
You can tweet about your LimeExchange activity on Twitter and direct visitors to your profile on LimeExchange. This can brighten your chances of getting new business opportunities.
SlideShare: It is a great tool in the networking kit and the world’s largest community for sharing your slides (Powerpoint, OpenOffice or PDF files) on the web so that you can share your ideas with a wider audience. You can easily upload your presentations/slides, sync audios with them and share them publicly or privately.
In addition, you can also embed slideshows into your blog or website thereby allowing you to engage audience, connect with like-minded people and potential prospects and develop connections with them for promoting your skill set.
Reviews: “SlideShare seems like a perfect solution, at least until online tools like Zoho rival the desktop applications. I uploaded a test Power Point presentation in a few seconds, and after a few seconds more of processing time it was available for viewing.” says Michael Arrington, Founder & Co-Editor at CrunchBase.
As a final word in the post, we would recommend you to actively participate in forums and communities so that you can widen your professional reach and take your freelance business to greater heights of success. We hope that you liked our post and welcome your feedback and insights. We shall keep you updated with the latest social media networking tools and strategies in future.
Recent Comments