Social media applications such as Twitter can be effectively utilized as a tool for freelancers like yourself to promote your services. In a time when the world is connected through the internet, failing to employ such a simple strategy to connect with your potential and existing clients is a waste of opportunity. Remember that you are promoting to the rest of the world each time you post something in Twitter.

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The content then, is what matters. You can update your existing clients on your latest projects and network with freelancers like yourself. In your Twitter, you may link your followers to your professional blog where they can further explore your work and even better, re-tweet it to their own network. All these can bring you more business in the long run as these people go on to recommend you to potential clients.

Here are five possible ways to make good use of Twitter for your freelance business:

1. Connect with Relevant People

As you would probably agree with me, social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook have definitely facilitated our access to such opportunities to exchange knowledge and insights to an unprecedented level. To effectively utilize such access, you must first connect with the right people to obtain valuable information from. For instance, following the tweets of designers would update you with some of their latest work, from which you may find inspirations or ideas for your own design.

Besides, there will always be things you can modify and improve about your business, be it the design of your work, marketing strategy or even the capacity of your web server. Twitter, being a great tool to network with people of the same field, is your key to refining your business. This is because freelancers like you are now able to share tips and critique each other’s work and approach. Such online relationships, although casual, can do wonders for you by widening your perspective on how things can be done.

2. Draw People to Your Blog

Twittering is a good way to inform your followers on any updates to your portfolio blog. However, the benefit of using Twitter goes beyond the purpose of simple notifications. Each time your followers get informed about your latest work or design, they may also send out a Tweet after checking out your site. This is especially when your work shows extraordinariness and your followers want to comment and compliment about it.

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Through a networking apparatus like Twitter, your blog gets promoted exponentially. This way, your blog, along with your awesome work, gets free publicity to more prospective clients. Also, supposing you have set up a Twitter account solely for your freelance business(which is advisable), then those who follow your Twitter are likely to be those relevant people you want to associate with your business. Once these people tweet or re-tweet about it, their followers are also the target audience you would want to promote your business to. In this manner, your blog is advertised freely and specifically to those that matters.

3. Find Prospective Clients

A major component of Twitter is its search function that enables users to search for other users to follow. There, you can search for specific topic or interest and get a list of Twitter accounts for your consideration to follow. If you are looking for prospective clients, then this is great tool for yourself to get acquainted and develop a professional network with other freelancers or potential clients. Strike a conversation by replying to their tweets. It works the other way round as well. Having a Twitter account yourself, people are able to search for you and request to follow your tweets.

Don’t be surprised to receive messages requesting for your freelance services. They might have come across your tweets after combing through potential freelancers on Twitter, saw your work on your site and got impressed. Either that or they might have seen some random tweets of users who were following you and subsequently check out your blog.

In any case, such bi-directional search between yourself and other potential employers would no doubt open up doors to more opportunities.

4. Establish Your Brand

Once you have a decent number of followers, it becomes a must to update them on your latest work so that they get constant reminder of your business. Focus on your specialty from the various services you provide and your followers will know what to expect from your updates. If, for instance, you’re a freelance web designer who is an expert in doing up creative typography for sites, then perhaps you can emphasize on the font design of your latest works in your tweets.

At the end of the day, it’s all about creating that association between what your business does best and your business brand. Once people can tie your brand to your brand’s selling point (in this case, the typography of web design), then you have established your brand well. As your followers consist of existing clients and potential ones as well, it is crucial to build a good reputation for your business and let the good words get spread throughout the entire network.

5. Be the Expert

If you want to get more referrals to clients through the internet, you need to build a name for yourself. To do that, post insightful updates to your Twitter and give your audience what they want to know. Providing meaningful comments on other’s work as well as your own will impress upon your audience that you’re passionate and serious about what you do. Besides, sharing your thoughts about designs is the first step to getting priceless feedback from other freelancers.

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Not all of us will eventually be considered as experts simply by giving our personal takes on designs and such. But if you managed to get there, your personal work will be taken more seriously. Your followers would be more likely to tweet the work of someone who is deem as the expert or the leader of the field. The end result is that you’ve earned yourself a good reputation, and that’s great because more people will hear of your work. This includes potential clients for your business.