Using Twitter for more content

When I first joined Twitter, maybe 2 years ago, I used it mostly to satisfy my curiosity of a social media consultant in the making, without having any other secret plan than to change ideas and get the best news in real time. For a good time, this limited objective worked perfectly and the first work-related thing I was doing in the morning for weeks was to check my Twitter account and read the latest news. From time to time, I was also a news setter being among the first who launched on air some freshly pressed information. Even though I was not necessarily following a strategy, I got credibility and serious connections that brought me near an impressive threshold of 1,000 followers in 12 months.

Besides the conversations on general and generous topics and the choice of the right hashtag and some consistent #FFs, there were not too many 

However, after a while I got bored and realized that I have other priorities in life than to check my Twitter. I restricted the access and mostly abandoned it. Now I enter every 3-4 month to check if someone interesting sent me any message. Meanwhile, I decided to be more focused on a specific strategy and opened a business Twitter account. My aim is to connect with specialists and trend setters in my domain, to share my own opinions and thus, to get a good traffic for my blogs as well as to provide reliable content. 

Since I've been the last time on Twitter things changed considerably and it is not very easy to win supporters/followers unless you do something (hard, very hard) to deserve them. As I remarked on another occasion in a recent post, I feel that I really deserve every single follower as behind the entry of any new member into my virtual community it is a lot of serious consistent work. Believe me, it is not that easy to expand your audience, but compared with the 'old good times' I feel that the growth is more consistent and thus is worth the effort. 

One of the most serious ways to be considered when looking to connect with the right people on Twitter are the Twitter chats. In most cases, there are weekly's fix whose date is known days in advance. The day of the chat, one may spot at least twice announcement of the event, or even some hourly countdowns that help those interested to gather online for a more than casual discussion. It may last 30 minutes or one hour with regular questions aired every 10 minutes. Each chat has a predetermined topic that has to deal either with the latest trends of the industry or with the people sharing the same interests with you. There it is your weekly or daily - if you have enough time - to share your practises and to convince the other participants at the discussion that you really have something to say.

As in many other cases, this is only one of the many tools one should use for increasing its online audience. Do not expect dozen of new followers after every chat. You better focus on getting the best content and writing nearly to perfection. This should be the main focus of any blogger, regardless of his or her domain. 

How to better use the social reading networks

I am an avid reader and I wish I can spend at least one month the year reading non-stop, with only 5 hours of sleep and one hour of cooking and shopping. It is an utopia, of course, but I try to find as much time as possible to read (almost) any kind of books: literature, travel, cooking, history, self-help, politics, history...You see? Almost everything.

As I also manage several blogs - travel, foodie, social media, and writing - and I am member of the respectable networks of Goodreads and Shelfari and I am always looking to expand my audience and increase my expertise, my book passion can turn into a golden mine for my diversified efforts. Trying to fight with the low social media presence for some of my blogs, I discovered that writing book reviews on my blogs that are later on shared on those social networks plus on Amazon.com could be an impressive free opportunity to raise the awareness about what I am doing as well as a way to attract more readers. 

I am trying as much as possible to have my posts free of a high concentration of key words and to offer honest reviews based of an analysis of the style, information and relevance. Even if I know personally or virtually some of the writers, I always prefer to keep myself at the decent level of evaluation and to not spare any criticism if needed. 

From my point of view, this experience is useful also for improving my writing, my page ranking as well as for preparing the ground for my own books. The motto of my life is to always be ready for challenges and to use my skills for new tasks and opportunities. And there are so many books to read!

Lessons learned of my first Facebook ad campaign + other details

If before officially starting to promote and launch my websites - especially the travel oriented ones - I had the (false) impression that I know enough about social media. In the last two months I realized that I need to dramatically review all my knowledge about how to use various tools for success, not only for fun and entertainment. 

After I've reached a certain threshold of 'likes' on Facebook for my page, I received a coupon allowing me to use a certain budget for increasing my audience. Worth 30 Euro, the coupon expires in around 3 weeks after assignment. Trying to reach an honorable 200 'likes' I considered that it is the right time to have my campaign started during the week-end. 

The main thing I liked about it is that you can shape your target audience, in terms of age and geographical representation. You cut your slice and wait to see what is going on. In the last days, I slowly reached my objective, with a modest budget of 8 Euro the day. My campaign is supposed to end in a couple of hours and for the moment I prefer to work the audience in a different way, trying to offer more content and diversity of perspectives. 

What I was not extremely keen about is the random audience that I reached. Till now, I was joined by people that looked interested in what I was writing and doing, but from now on, it is more a matter of random clicks that of clear interests. On the other hand, I am a blogger looking for audience and I should stop thinking in terms of elitist audience. I am no more in the academic world, remember?

As a general conclusion, Facebook Ads are very efficient and probably if used on a regular basis it helps to have a big audience in a relatively short time. I don't know what to say yet about the price, but as I plan to use such methods only short term, I am not afraid that my budget will be seriously challenged by that. 

On the other end of the priority list, I have a lot to learn about: creating professional YouTube video, how to get a proper Google indexing rate, increasing my Twitter audience and how to play right the SEO cards. For the next days, I will try to offer as much original content as possible and set up Google+ pages, at least for my foodie and social media blog. 

Little by little, the priority list gets bigger and my excitement for the new experiences is pondered only by the careful need to review periodically the stakes and tactics.

Social media is easy, isn't it?

One of the most aired stereotypes, that I am also guilty to nurture from time to time is that social media is a very easy trick. In other words, you need to read a couple of books, set up profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and who knows where and spend half of your life online. And after a short while, you get hundreds of 'likes' and 'followers' of all colours. Of course that the SEO is the piece of cake you can eat and have it too and your income will sky rocket and you will be in a short amount of time the start of the web.

You know what? It's stupid wrong to think that. If you continue to tell other people such a platitude you are disqualified from using your Facebook account even all you want to share with the worlds are pictures with your cat. 

In the last 2 months I decided that I have the time and energy to launch some nice travel projects that I always wanted to do but always avoided too because assuming I am busy making money. I got rid of this illusion and started to plan carefully my posts, and trying to be as marketable as possible. Almost two months of intensive work, sometimes till late in the night, I am still thousand of kilometres away from being a success story. Of course I did follow the social media path being very active on Twitter and posting lots of pictures on Pinterest and creating content and even doing some guest posting. I tried as much as possible to swim in the unknown, without using too much the support of friends that may help me to spread the word about my wonderful project. I wanted to test the water on my own and see how far I can do from the grassroot level.   

I don't know where I am exactly, but I know that it is a lot to work from now on. Things are moving, but I feel somehow that every 'like' or 'follower' joined me because I did something in exchange. There are no free presents and I am happy that things are not that easy. I see how things are growing up, little by little by steadily and it's no better lesson, especially in the world of social media until is first tested by the teacher. I wish I have more time and energy to do even better.

Tips to avoid scams on Freelancer.com

I will refer to Freelancer.com as for the moment is the only network of freelancers I am using regularly for getting new projects. The main advantage is that they target the biggest market of this kind and from my personal perspective, I already have enough reviews and a professional profile for getting more orders without too much difficulty. After all, I worked hard for over a year to arrive there, isn't it?

The main problem that I cope with more frequently at the beginning of my experience as a freelancer, in that network and in general, was the high concentration of scams. Scams are those dishonest people that have a anonymous profile and are aimed to use your brain for...nothing more than NOTHING. Now, either the administrators of the site are more careful to ban them or I am more experienced, I do not see them quite often, even though I can feel the smell of a scam in some of the very attractive offers posted by individuals from all over the world. No, the scams are no a Nigerian label and surprisingly for some of you maybe, one may find more scams covered under the Western flags, especially US and UK.

Despite my assumed experience, I got scammed again 10 days ago and was angry enough on myself to keep myself quiet for a while. Now, partially recovered and with other projects going on in my pocket, I want to share some of my modest experiences that may help the readers to take the right decision when it comes to freelancing. I use my experience on Freelancer.com, but it may be used for any kind of projects advertised through the networks.

1) Don't look for easy work. As I was told when I was learning in yeshiva, if it is too easy for sure it is not good.When a project mention that you can have a lot of money without too much effort - eventually with many !!!, go further, it's not good.

2) Avoid as much as possible the typing projects. I have not a single idea if people doing it are ever paid or what this work is all about. It sounds for me as a huge hacking enterprise using naive and poor people and I promise that one day I will use my journalistic skills to investigate the issue. Anyway, you better don't try to do it.

3) I don't want to disappoint you, but in general, people looking for work via Freelancer.com or for outsourcing in general do not have too much money. In the case of long-term, and full time projects, the remuneration is considerable, but such golden mines are posted twice or three times the year, if ever. If you find out some well paid project for writing, you must be very careful, it can vanish once you deliver the project. 

4) Don't accept to write any single word without a Milestone! Don't! Especially if it has to do with writing or ghost writing student papers. You know what the risk is? That once you deliver the paper you end up without anything in your account! Be aware!

5) If the country mentioned for the potential employee does not matter, the language used, and especially the grammar are a very good indication of the quality of the person. He or she may look actually for a good English writer and you can help them, but sometimes, it is important that you prefer to work with people with a proper language. The way you write tells something about the way you think.

6) As in the case of the employees, the companies or individuals looking for hire do have a list of credentials. I am always happy to contribute with proper reviews of the employers shortly after the project ends because it is important to offer a hint to other people interested to deal with the person. 

7) Don't accept communication outside the network, or at least, keep the Freelancer.com account as the main tool of communication. Sometimes you may need to skype or to send big documents attached - by the way, dear Freelancer.com, sometimes the 'attach option' is not such smart as I would expect - but communicate as often as possible via the network, especially when it comes to the financial matters and to problems directly related to the progress of the project. In case that it is a conflict, you will use the tools offered by the network and in general, the customer service work quite well and fast. 

Keep those in mind and happy freelancing, wherever you are!

Calculate your revenue

Changing your status from a full time employee to a freelancer may be a challenge for many. For instance, you should be aware that, unless you have some healthy savings put aside or some big big projects going on for at least one year, your revenue may not be as secure as it used to be.

I mentioned several time the problem of being paid late even one month after the project was finished, but also about the special situations when you are not paid at all, as the proud employer deleted his/her account on the network of freelancers or simply did not answer your e-mail. It happened for me very often in my first year of full freelancing, and it still happens - more about spams in a next post.

One of the biggest questions when you start freelancing is how to evaluate your work. For instance, do you need to set up some prices that may be negotiated with the employer or not. 

If you are part of a network of freelancers as Freelancer.com that I use regularly, some projects do have already the price set and it is up to you to accept or not the quotations. At the beginning, when I was very enthusiastic to put my writing skills on trial, I accepted quite law payments for my articles, but after I realized that one month and several dozen of articles later my revenue was the equivalent of a modest pair of Converse, I put on hold all the attractive and cheap projects - 0.50$ for 100 words sounds familiar to you?

If you have a trustworthy employer and a good system to evaluate your work, working per hour is a good opportunity. Honesty, I prefer to use this system because I am quite good to time management and I am more than scrupulous when it comes to the strict counting of the hours and minutes. Especially for my PR and customer service projects I love such a counting. 

However, when it comes to translation and proof-editing projects, my preference is for pay-per-page calculations. In the case of proof-reading it is very easy to show how much did you work with the help of the track changes. The translation projects are also suited for a pay/word, but in the majority of cases, most employers will prefer for the sake of simplicity a very clear counting.

As for the price itself, even though you are a very beginner, the evaluation should be realistic: be sure that your evaluation covers a minimum of needs that will bring you the necessary energy to continue the project - meaning that you will not starve or work in a park because no more money for food and/or rent. Even if you do such jobs for your perfect fun, be aware that once you set the stake low, your example can be used against freelancers auctioning on the market and it is not a good advertising for the freelancers' rights.

As a junior and middle level employer, you will need to wait a couple of months, or more than one year till you will be able to really enjoy your freelance life. Make sure that your career advances with decency and stability.

Good luck, freelancers!

When content is really king

We often use words and expressions whose deep truth is revealed only through direct contact with the reality. No, I am not about to enter a mantra-type of PR consulting. I am talking about the simple reality of a communication consultant trying to promote her own business or ideas.

As I am testing the waters with a new communication project focused on tourist and travel information, I did follow the usual steps: a lot of reading and online connection, careful planning of the posts and networking to get the best information from the best people, blog posts and social media tools - Twitter and Facebook page and the exploration of other opportunities, such as Pinterest (which, by the way, is a little bit addictive). 

One month after, the results are modest - less than 100 'likes' and 'followers', after quite a lot of work, that even brought me close to the burnout. The reason? Don't believe in 'social media wonders'. Especially now, when specifically in the domain of travel, it's hard to make a simple selection of blogs and sources of information, the content provided is what matters the most. Your readers and followers need to be offered quality information, regularly and preferably as diversified as possible. The more you offer them deals and good discounts, the better. 

The best strategy is to set up modest goals, unless you have a strong pressure from the investors to jump up in the sky in only a couple of days or weeks. Start to build your credibility and your brand, engage with your audience regularly, answer their questions and avoid as much as you can the monologue. Three, two years ago maybe it was easy to have a Twitter account and post autistically what you wanted to read and say. Nowadays, such an attitude will not bring you anywhere closer to the objective of increasing the awareness about your activities. 

You need to improve your style permanently - especially as a travel writer -, post the best pictures, publish the most exciting interviews and never stop. The big good news is that the world is to rich that you can hardly complain about the end of the travel stories. The stable success is only the result of hard work and efforts. Always surprise your audience with quality and novelty. Make each reader that he or she is unique for you and is invited to share something beautiful yet useful. Read it as the opening message of the new kind of business model.