This brings up a really great point that my business partner made to me today as we watched our Twitter followers and our client’s followers disappear: We don’t pay Twitter — or Facebook or most other social networks for that matter — to manage our social assets. We are getting this “stuff” for free. And this “stuff” is becoming more and more valuable to us.

This “stuff” is friends, fans and followers (or FFFs, as we refer to them in my company). The power of our friends, fans and followers eclipses the power of most people’s email lists because of their inherent ability for conversation and engaging interactions.

So what do you do when you lose followers on Twitter, or fans or friends on Facebook, or contacts on LinkedIn? Do you stop doing business? Do you stop communicating with your FFFs? Have you even considered a backup plan for times when the volatile free services we are relying on suddenly erase our assets? I’ve been using Backupify to archive my tweets, but if it isn’t archiving my Twitter settings including followers, then I’m still potentially losing assets.

Are we all suckers on the social web relying on the grace, generosity and skills of other companies to maintain the integrity of our company’s assets with the same kind of diligence and care that we would do for ourselves if we had the means? We control our web sites, but we certainly don’t control Twitter or Facebook and yet we entrust these companies — who we are not paying — to hold our assets dear.

I’m sure Twitter will restore our “lost” followers. During this time, it doesn’t appear as if we are speaking into a vacuum. I still see the stream of tweets from people I’m following. We just seem to be missing that magic “Followers” number on our Twitter pages. And this makes us uncomfortable, sad — even angry.

How dependent are you on your Twitter following to get things done? What are you doing to back things up so if a social network you’re using goes down, you haven’t lost your assets?

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You don’t have to limit your marketing and promotional efforts to content creation, though. Here are a few other ideas to help you get the word out about your business.

1. Create and maintain a high-quality, easy-to-use, self-explanatory web site.

Your web site works for you 24/7/365, so it’s important that it does a good job. It doesn’t need to be beautiful or showy. As a web designer, I would actually recommend clean and easy-to-use over pretty, fun or cute.

When thinking about your web site’s design and functionality, focus on answering these questions for your ideal visitor:

• What is this site about?
• What does this person/company do?
• How much does the service/product cost? How does the service/product work? What else do I need to know about this service/product?
• How can I sign up or purchase this service/product? How can I contact this person/company?
• Should I keep up with this person/company (through a blog, newsletter, regular email coupons/discounts, etc.)? If so, how do I sign up or follow the person/company?

Your site should quickly and obviously answer these questions so that visitors can find their way around your site easily and so that they take action as quickly and painlessly as possible.

2. Use a short and effective email signature.

Every time you send an email, it’s a chance to remind your followers and new contacts what you do. Take advantage of the opportunity. Don’t be spammy. Don’t overdo it. Just provide a concise message to jog their memory and get them to click over to your site every once in a while.

Here’s my signature.

Amber Singleton Riviere
http://www.ambersingleton.com/

I also like my friend Betsy’s.

Betsy Talbot | www.marriedwithluggage.com | Twitter @marriedwluggage

3. Be a guest on other video blogs, podcasts and radio shows.

Monitor places like Twitter, Blogger Linkup, and HARO for opportunities to be interviewed for video blogs, podcasts and radio shows. It’s a great way to expand your reach and get known for your expertise.

4. Invite others to be guests on your blog, video cast or podcast.

One of my best methods for networking actually revolves around guest posts, whether I’m inviting people to contribute to my site or offering content for their sites. It’s been a very effective way to generate interest around my business. It takes a lot of effort to keep up, but it’s worth every minute of it.

I offer guest posts regularly on my site (usually ten or more per month), and what’s great about it is that you usually get the added benefit of promotion to the person’s followers and audience.

5. Participate in online networking.

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are great places to meet new people and get the word out about you and your company or site. Also, be sure to follow and comment on other blogs that target your ideal customer or client. By participating in conversations surrounding your niche, you’ll become known as an expert and a valued source of information.

6. Run promotions and discounts on your services periodically.

Getting potential customers and clients to take action and actually purchase your products or services can be tricky, but if you run occasional discounts, you’ll find customers coming out of the woodwork, and it’s a good way to get new prospects to test the waters with you and your company.

I offer a discount in each of my newsletter issues, as well as occasional discounts on Facebook and Twitter. On that note, running contests can also be a good way to get attention for you and your business, especially on Twitter.

Promoting a business doesn’t always have to be difficult. The key, though, is consistency.  Select the methods that work best for you and then stick with them. Do them on a regular basis, even if you’re not seeing immediate results. It takes some time to gain traction, but if you’re persistent, you’ll eventually hit the tipping point and business will start to snowball.

What other easy ways do you promote your business?

Image from Flickr by Slack pics

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1. Get a professional email address. Most clients aren’t likely to take you seriously if you are using an address that contains “hotmama23,” “sexydude12,” “ilovemykittycat,” or anything similar. Your best option is something like yourname@yourdomain.com, or in a pinch, you can use some variation of your full name on Gmail (avoid Hotmail, AOL, and other consumer services that have ever targeted newbie internet users).
2. Have a professional web site. Your web site doesn’t need to be complex or extensive, but you need to have something for potential clients to see, and having a simple, professional site lends credibility to your services. At the minimum, it should have your contact information and an overview of your services presented in a professional manner. If you have a little more time to devote to your web site, a portfolio page with examples of your work and a blog where you can highlight your professional expertise are great additions. Some of the popular blogging platforms are a good choice to act as a content management system for your web site, and most of them can be used with no programming or design work required. I also recommend having your professional web site at the same domain as your email, which should ideally be something like businessname.com or yourfullname.com.
3. Always use clear, concise, professional communications. The most important thing that you can do to have better communications is to carefully proofread every client email. I have a hard time taking someone seriously if their email is littered with mistakes. Your initial communications should be extremely professional with no SMS abbreviations, no smiley faces, no profanity and no other unprofessional language. You can start to relax some of these rules as you get more familiar with your clients. You should also remember that people are busy, so concise and clear communications with clients are important. I always include a descriptive subject line and try to keep my emails as short as possible. Another tip is to put any really critical information in the first couple of lines, along with any requests that you are making of the client. The harsh reality is that if your email is long, most people will start skimming after they get the gist, and any critical information that is buried near the end is more likely to be missed.
4. Dress like a professional. When working from home, pajamas and sweatpants are perfectly acceptable, but when you are meeting with new clients, you need to look like a professional. The definition of professional varies depending on the location and industry; for example, a meeting at a Silicon Valley startup is going to be less formal than a meeting at a financial institution in New York or London. Oregon, where I am based, tends to be much more informal, so I can easily get away with khakis and a nice shirt in most situations. When in doubt, err on the side of being slightly over-dressed rather than appearing under-dressed. Will’s recent post has more tips for surviving client site visits.
5. Use social media wisely. Take a few minutes to look at what your client sees if they search for you on Twitter, forums or other social web sites. Is your client going to see a professional that they can respect? I’m not suggesting that every post be professional. I spend quite a bit of time talking about interesting goings-on in Portland, food and other non-work topics, and I encourage you to show your full range of personality. However, if you are bashing your clients, are often negative or complaining, or are engaging in questionable activities, this can reflect on your professionalism as a freelancer. This is one of those gray areas where you have to balance how you want to behave online with how you want people to see you in your professional career.

These are my top five tips for making a good first impression as a freelancer. What are your tips for making a professional impression, or what are your pet peeves for unprofessional first impressions?

Photo by Flickr user yngrich, used under Creative Commons.

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Separating the wheat from the chaff is a big part of creating a successful business. As one Inc. magazine article noted, “A person ought to be able to…in five or six seconds have an idea of what you’re selling and whether it applies to them.” Weeding out those who are not well-suited for you and your business is just as important as attracting those who are.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself, to see if you’re weeding out those who are less than ideal for you.

• Is your web site a true (and bold) representation of you?
• Do you clearly identify your ideal client within your web site?
• Do you offer alternatives for those who might be less than ideal for you (e-books, products, referrals, etc.)?
• Do you clearly outline your services, as well as those you do not provide?
• Do you have a detailed frequently asked question section on your website to help prospective clients decide if you’re the best person to serve them?
• Do you have a clearly defined niche market, and do you spend the majority of your time networking in relevant groups?
• Do you have a succinct elevator pitch for when people ask you what you do?

Helping people quickly rule themselves in or out as potential clients for you and being willing to turn away work that’s not a good fit will actually improve your business over the long haul. You’ll be happier and more enthusiastic about the work you do, you’ll have more satisfied clients because of the improved quality in your work, and you’ll be more likely to acquire similar clients going forward.

What methods for screening do you have in place to help you turn away more of the wrong kind of work for your business?

Image from Flickr by visualpanic

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A personal site can — and should — be the hub of your other web activities. Your site should have links to the other places where you’re active on the web, and more importantly, those other locations should have links to your professional site. Having your own site gives you flexibility and control that you can’t rely on anywhere else. Twitter limits how much you can write. LinkedIn has a fairly rigid format. Facebook Pages can be fairly flexible, but customizing them requires a fair amount of programming. It’s difficult to use such sites to show off a professional portfolio. And while these sites are free right now, they could charge fees at some future date.

Content is king. Darrell’s right that it takes time and energy to maintain an updated, relevant site. But almost any modern, well-designed site will include some sort of content management system that makes updates easy.

I don’t update my company’s site all that often. And our blog rarely gets a new entry, now that most of my blogging efforts are concentrated here at WWD. But I make a point of announcing when we post new web sites for clients — a process that only takes a couple of minutes. And I’ve put my Twitter and Facebook feeds on the site as well, which I use to share information that I think may be of interest to clients, as well as announcing any technical issues that may affect them.

As a side note, it’s worth remembering that domain names can also be used for email. Professionals should always use email addresses with their own domain names. That way, it’s not necessary to change your email address if you change providers.

These days, hosting and domain registrations are cheap. And if you’re not a designer, and you don’t want to spend money to hire someone like me to produce a custom site, there are lots of “build-it-yourself” options for creating sites. So even in this era of social networks, there’s really no excuse for not having a professional site.

Do you maintain a web site for your professional activities? How often do you update it?

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I thought about it long and hard, but in then end, there were just too many reasons against keeping my own server space in operation, and too many reasons for storing and publishing my data, portfolio, and contact information elsewhere. Here’s what convinced me to stop the madness and save a little money in the process.

1. Discoverability. Because I am not myself anywhere near an expert on SEO, and because I’ve been entirely uncomfortable with shoving links to my content down the throats of people in my network, any content I might post on my own domain goes largely unnoticed. Sure, I have the occasional link via profiles on sites like this one, but let’s be honest, how many of us click through to those, and even having done so, how often do we follow further links off-site from there?
2. Maintenance required. When it comes to your own site, you take responsibility for the look and feel, the user experience, and the content. The look alone requires pruning, refinement and the occasional overhaul to keep it feeling fresh and current. Keeping content up-to-date might be as easy as updating other social networking site pages, but more often than not, it’s actually a lot more work than making sure your Facebook or LinkedIn profile is accurate and current.
3. Low Rate of Return. The monetary investment involved in setting up a web site is not inconsiderable. Even if you’re only paying between $100 and $200 a year for server space and domain name registration, are you really seeing that money come back to you as a result of having your own web site? Think about the professional connections you make that turn into profitable relationships. Do they come mostly from your own site (if your business isn’t operated solely from your site, of course), or from connections made via the social web and other sources?
4. Distraction Factor. A web site of your own might be doing more than just costing you money. If you’re spending a lot of time trying to boost your visitor count, set up advertising, and basically justify its existence in some way, you could be spending your time in a much better and more productive way pursuing additional contracts, working on high priority projects you’ve been procrastinating about, or even just improving your work/life balance.
5. Reputation. If you do have a web site, and it languishes in disregard, as mine does currently, than it might be even worse than just distracting or wasteful. Stale, dated content with your name on it automatically becomes part of your personal brand, whether or not you’re actively trying to cultivate one. If someone is looking you up online, and they come across your web site before anything else, whatever good things they heard about you via word of mouth could be tainted or even completely erased by the impression your site gives of someone who is either lazy or out of touch.

A web site is admittedly a nice thing to have if you’re a web-based professional. But if your business isn’t dependent upon it (which it would most likely be if you were a web site designer, for example), then that’s all it is: a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have. If you can let it go, maybe you should. You’ll save yourself time, money and possibly even face in the bargain.

Do you have your own web site? Do you use it? How often does it bring you business/real value?

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You can always provide a covering letter in the body of your email when you send something along, but a recently launched web app provides a tool that’s much more useful in sharing that context along with the web content you choose to share. Layers.com allows you to layer images, text and video on top of any site of your choosing, and then to share your annotated version with whomever you choose.

Initial Impressions

At first, owing maybe its noisy interface, Layers.com seems a little overwhelming. There’s a lot of visual static going on, but if you can get past the initial shock, you’ll find it surprisingly easy to use. If you know how to find an article or blog post’s permalink, then you’re already well on your way to mastering Layers.com

To take full advantage of Layers.com, you should sign up for account, which takes no time at all, and allows to create and manage as many identities as you want for sharing your annotated pages with others. You can keep a separate identity for work and for your friends, or even create multiple work identities for different lines of business or if you wear multiple professional hats. You could also create individual client-specific identities.

Layers of Research

The obvious application of this new site, for me at least, is with research-intensive engagements. Especially if you’re doing a literature survey for a larger company, the ability to not only provide links and an attendant context and analysis document, but to incorporate said document directly on top of the information in question (which ups its relevance considerably for a reader) might provide enough of a “wow” factor to ensure a client comes back to you for similar work again and again. It should make analyzing individual pieces much easier for you as a researcher, too.

Layers of Creativity

Of course, there are many other applications, too. As on editor of online content, and as someone who knows a lot of web designers, I can see how helpful layers.com could be for the creative process, too. You could provide direct feedback on top of the content you’re editing, including mock-ups via your own image files, screenshots of other sites for comparison, and/or video and audio feedback for that added personal touch, or if you’re more comfortable formulating your thoughts that way than in writing.

Layers of the Everyday

And then there’s the applicability on an everyday basis for sharing links among your network of colleagues, coworkers, and peers. You can share a Layered link via Twitter or any other social network, so that if you’re inclined to do so, you can provide more than just 140 characters worth of contextual explanation with something you’ve flagged as interesting. You could even provide additional related content as a Layer, like a video interview from YouTube from a few months back atop a print piece that’s just been released. In your textual comment, you could point out the apparent contradictions between the two.

Layers.com represents a new, more interactive way of browsing the web. Best of all, it encourages people to do more than just read and accept web content in a passive way. Instead, it actively seeks out your opinion, your perspective on things. It’s sort of like the idea behind CNN’s iReport, but more democratized and without the implicit patronization. Obviously, writing an essay to accompany every link you share isn’t practical, but having the ability to do so is a welcome development.

I’ve outlined a few possible uses of Layers.com in this post, but what would you use it for?

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OK, that’s a huge understatement. I dislike having to sign up for different services to access the details of the jobs they’re offering. I loathe having to wade through the reams of alerts I receive from each one. And I can’t be bothered trying to remember which ones require me to buy a subscription in order to pitch for jobs, and which ones don’t, as well as all the other little nuances of each service.

I can safely say that so far, my job search subscriptions have not paid off. For me, the tedium and frustration of tracking all these individual subscriptions has far, far outweighed any value I’ve obtained from them. Last week I wound up just trying to search direct through Google in a desperate attempt to find the kind of project I wanted at a decent rate. Yes, I was that fed up. So when I heard about DoNanza, a service that’s touted as “redefining the search for online projects,” I hoped it might actually live up to its own PR.

What’s the big deal about DoNanza? It’s a job search engine that pulls results from freelance and remote working job sites across the web. No longer do we mere mortals have to visit multiple sites to search their listings. DoNanza appears to be a one-stop shop for job search.

So far, so good. I took it for a spin and found that an immediate benefit of the service was that it introduced me to freelance sites I’d never heard of, let alone visited — many of them in countries other than my own. So automatically it puts you in touch with a much wider pool of projects and employers.

Then I noticed a very cool filter pane on the left of the search results page. This pane uses sliders to allow you to filter the search results by price, project type, time left and date posted. You can also use it to include or exclude results from specific sites. I find this particularly nice because it lets me refine my search right on the results page — I don’t need to make extra clicks to access the “refine search” options. Hooray! Of course, DoNanza also offers all the usual features you’d expect: related search prompts, RSS and Twitter tracking, the ability to email results to friends, and so on. And — wait for it — you don’t need a(nother) subscription!

Keep in mind that DoNanza is not a job board. It doesn’t offer its own jobs (yet — will this change in time?); it acts purely as a search engine for other job sites. So when you click on a result, you go direct to the site on which it’s listed. As such, the service is very highly focused. It does one thing — offer web-wide job search — and I think it does it well.

It’s interesting, not to mention timely, that DoNanza has launched now, when many of us are feeling the pinch of financial uncertainty and looking for projects. It makes very short work of the search process itself, and takes the immense hassle out of finding freelance job sites that have the kinds of projects you want at the right rate. As I used the site, I began to wonder why no one had launched an equivalent service already — and those kinds of thoughts are usually a sign that a new idea is going to be a big success.

Do you use online job sites to secure freelance work? If so, what are some of the good ones you’ve come across? Do you think DoNanza might help your current job search process?

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There’s one sure way to stay out of trouble, and that’s to wait to launch your web site until you actually have some content in a presentable form to show people. If, for whatever reason, you can’t wait that long (maybe your client wants to build the sort of anticipation normally reserved for companies like Capcom and Apple, for instance), then your placeholder should be functional rather than static. That’s where LaunchSplash comes in.

With this new web app, you can quickly and easily create a standby splash page to help visitors feel like they haven’t completely wasted their time by visiting your site, and help make sure they actually come back when you do have something to show off. It only took me two brief screens and all of about 30 seconds to create this, which is infinitely better than a static page with, say, an animated .gif of a hard hat and construction tape.

Built in to every LaunchSplash page is a mailing list that people can sign up for to receive updates about your web site. You can track sign-ups at the LaunchSplash site via your Page Editor. You can also tweak your template, colors, graphics, and even the CSS of your page to make it match your brand image. You can even use Google Analytics or any JavaScript traffic tracking snippet to check your site’s visitors, all from a visual dashboard — handy if you’re not HTML-savvy. If you already have your own domain, you can map it to LaunchSplash’s servers to display your preview page automatically.

With their basic free plan, you can create up to two Launch pages, and access all the free templates. Upgrading to one of their three paid plans ($5, $15 and $25 per month) will get you access to special “Premium” templates and the ability to create more simultaneous launch pages. I don’t see why you’d need more than one, unless you’re a lazy web designer who really likes to procrastinate, but maybe that’s their target market. Regardless, the free account is a great idea if you’re not able to set up your home on the web just yet, but want people to be able to go somewhere and see something on the web that refers to you or your brand.

What do you think of the LaunchSplash app?

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If you’re looking for another venue for promoting your services or investigating service providers to partner with, Qapacity is definitely worth checking out.

First, from the perspective of someone looking to sell their services, Qapacity presents a very attractive proposition. Basically, they give you a web site for free in exchange for your registration with their network. The web site they provide is designed to garner reviews from your current clients, in order to provide potential customers with testimonials about the quality of your work.

Upon signing up for Qapacity, you’re taken to your Dashboard, where you can fill in your profile details with the standard fare for social networks, and, if you want, offer a service to be added to Qapacity’s public listings. I noticed a strong resemblance to LinkedIn when browsing through the dashboard and profile options. When it comes to a site intended for professional networking, this is a good thing.

From the Dashboard, I proceeded to add a service to Qapacity, specifically my awesome freelance writing and editing abilities. The process was quick and painless, and once I’d provided a title, description and keywords for my service, I was able to specify a custom URL to point to my page under the “qapacity.com” domain.

You can customize your site’s content from top to bottom with Qapacity’s built-in WYSIWYG page editor, which also allows you to add modules. Modules available include video, maps, images, text and RSS feeds. You can add subpages that visitors can access via tabbed links at the top of your site, upload your own custom logo, and select from a few different themes and color combinations. It strikes me as a great way to set up a launchpad to refer people to from your Twitter account, for example, especially if you don’t have your own hosting and aren’t very comfortable with HTML.

As for sharing and promotion, which is the real purpose of the site, you’re constantly encouraged to either share your site via Facebook or email, or to invite other professionals to join in and grow Qapacity’s network. The idea behind the site, after all, is that you gather reviews and thus offer one-stop shopping for those looking for service providers.

From the perspective of someone looking for services, I found the interface to be underdeveloped. You can search for services by keyword, but there is no overall listing that you can browse. Some kind of broad categories and subcategories listing all services in that area would really add to Qapacity’s usefulness in this regard. Still, it was easy enough to find illustrators to work with for a promotional event I’m working on, but I had to know exactly what I was looking for to begin with.

Also, since Qapacity was originally a Spanish-language site, there aren’t many U.S. or North American-based providers available yet. Luckily with web work, that doesn’t always matter, but sometimes the language barrier comes into play.

Whether you’re looking to promote your own services, find a trustworthy provider, or find a partner for collaboration, any tool that provides meaningful connections with minimal investment is going to be useful, and Qapacity definitely accomplishes that goal. The major hurdle to success for Qapacity is getting community buy-in and promoting involvement, but the platform they’ve set up definitely encourages exactly that.

Have you tried Qapacity or a similar service? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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