A Digital Freelancer Shares His “How I Did It” Story

Even though Tim Diggle is a freelance Flash developer, non-techie freelancers can learn or at least be inspired by Tim’s story. This video clip is created by a U.K. digital placement agency called Major Players. A lot of freelancers turn to placement/temp services like this for a variety of reasons, but Tim’s advice applies whether you’re with an agency or going it alone.

His short section on how to deal with an agency is pretty good stuff for anyone about to explore that option–you really do have to be on top of your game to compete at the agency level, but more on that in another post.

Who’s Hiring?

By Amanda Smyth Connor

In this crap economy, is anyone still hiring freelance writers?

Yes! Squee! Oh for joy, some wonderful companies are still hiring! And you might be surprised to hear which companies are in need of fabulous writers like yourself.

1. Gaming companies. Game development companies like Zynga and EA are in a state of fast growth and are pumping out games for various platforms faster that you can say “Alec Baldwin playing Words with Friends.” Look for jobs like “community manager” for social media positions and “content developers” for freelance writing positions.

2. Political campaigns. I’m not talking about writing speeches for Obama (although if you can get that gig, I’d ask that you put in a good word for me.) I’m talking about offering your services up to local politicians in need of bloggers, content managers and social media assistants. Just beware the skeletons in the closet.

3. Start-Ups! Keep a close eye on any start-up that you hear about. It may mean short-term gigs because funds are tight, but start-up companies notoriously need content created in large quantities very quickly as they work to build SEO and marketing campaigns. This will mean flexibility on your part when it comes to tight turnaround and jumping from one project to the next, but if you can get in good on the ground floor of a good start-up, you can position yourself for loads of steady freelance work. ps. Etsy is hiring bloggers right now. FYI.

4. Hit up my favorite industry job board – Mediabistro.com. They have full-time, part-time and freelance job listings for the writing, editing and social media industries. Check it out.

Amanda Smyth Connor is a social media manager for a major publishing company, owns her own wedding planning business and has managed online communities and content development for many start-up and Fortune 500 companies.  She has been a professional editor for more years than she can remember.

A Job Opp You May Not Have Considered

By Amanda Smyth Connor

Being a freelance writer means staying on the ball regarding finding new job opportunities and clients. It also means staying flexible in your job search. One job opportunity you may not have considered is within the community management and social media realm.

Many major corporations are outsourcing their community management needs and many of these job skills encompass what you are already good at: writing, planning and coming up with creative ideas.

What does this role call for specifically? Community managers are in charge of developing and maintaining the style and tone of content that is posted within a community. They develop editorial calendars and make recommendations for specific content. They gather feedback from the community and make decisions about how best to engage the community. They suggest various means of revenue. They control most of the social media channels and messaging, and they develop content – from marketing messaging to blog posts. Community managers straddle the marketing departments, member services departments and editorial departments. They may even have a say in product development. For being a relatively new field, community managers are in greater need now that major companies are realizing the need for such a diverse position.

While networking and job hunting, keep this position hot on your radar!

Hot Jobs: Community Manager

By Amanda Smyth Connor

One of the hot new jobs popping up for 2011 is the position of community manager. Online community managers carry four main responsibilities:

1. They serve as the online brand ambassador  and work to establish and cultivate communities of users and members. They often serve as the voice of the community, as well as the liaison between the community and the corporation.

2. They track analytics and report back on what marketing and social media strategies are working and what’s not working.

3. They develop communications plans based on customer feedback to better serve the community, while educating other departments, like PR, marketing and social media, on how better to reach said community.

4. They develop content for specific sites to engage the community and keep them coming back for more.

Why should you befriend your local online community manager? #4 on the list above is “develop content.” That’s where freelancers become invaluable to a good community manager. One CM may be responsible for several sites and audiences. It’s rare that one CM would be solely responsible for all of the content creation, thus, it falls on their shoulders to hire the best freelancers and bloggers to assist in creating articles, site copy, blog posts, etc. And if you have some knowledge of SEO practices, you become even MORE invaluable to a CM.

So put out your networking feelers and see who in your mental rolodex might provide an “in” to a CM in need of great writers, like yourselves.

Amanda Smyth Connor has managed online communities and nationwide marketing campaigns for several start-up and  Fortune 500 companies, and has been an editor for more years than she can remember.

Your opinion wanted for Freelance Forecast

What's in *your* freelancing future?

The Freelance Forecast 2011 surveys are uploaded & ready for your opinions on best practices, motivations and expectations. As in past years, there are two different surveys:

• This version is for freelancers: Freelance Forecast 2011.
• This version is for business clients, editors, art directors, graphic designers and others who hire freelancers: Client Perspectives 2011.

If you are a freelancer who also uses freelancers, you’re welcome to take both surveys.

Now, can we ask you a favor? If each freelancer encourages *one* client to participate, it would make the client-side survey even more valuable. The goal of Freelance Forecast is to publish fresh data about the state of the market and to help understand the good, bad and ugly of relationships between creative freelancers and clients. The more participants, the better it is for everyone’s business.

The results will be published in January, and once again, all participants will be put into a drawing for a $100 gift card. Thanks in advance for participating and sharing the links through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email and wherever else freelancers and clients might lurk.

P.S. You can download results from 2009 and 2010 over here.

Photo by Ruxandra Moldoveanu.

The Guaranteed Way to Become a Paid Travel Writer

The one sure-fire, 100% guaranteed method to becoming a paid travel writer is to find demand first, and write second. It’s certainly possible to write first and then try to sell your writing, but it’s a whole lot harder. In this post, and future posts as well, I’ll make sure to share some recent paid travel-writing gigs I’ve found from around the web.

A quick warning – while all of these jobs are paying jobs, they are not exactly well-paying jobs. But, for someone interested in travel-writing, these are a great way to get your feet wet, build up your resume, and get paid at least some amount for your time.

All of these jobs are time-sensitive. If you come across this post and the jobs have already expired, do a search on the sites I’ve linked to for their recent job postings.

Destination Weddings Articles – eLance

35 Articles / 500 Words / $3 each – Freelancer

Article Writer – Odesk

Finally, if you’d still prefer to write first and then try to get paid, PhotoJBartlett.com has a great list of sites that actually pay and he includes many direct email addresses – 10 Travel Photography and Travel Writing Markets that Pay

P.S. Just a quick fun, old article from Matador – Four Ways To Sound Like A Jerk In Your Travel Writing (And How to Avoid Them)

Jason Demant is the founder of UnAnchor.com, a place to find detailed do-it-yourself travel itineraries for your next trip. For the latest on travel-writing you can follow him on Twitter @UnAnchor, or join the I Love Travel Writing Facebook group.

Photo Credit: Keith Chan