A freelance
worker, or freelancer, is a worker who is not committed to just one company –
many aren't even committed to just one industry. These people may fill a
position or need for a business in virtually any capacity. A typical
arrangement between a company and freelancer includes a signed contract about
the nature of the work, this is why many are referred to as contract workers
instead of freelancers. Some freelancers work out of the office of a company that
they have assignments from, but many, like myself, are on their own completely.
Regardless of the nature of their work, a good freelancer must have a plan if
they want to achieve success.
Determining Your Niche
A major part
of your plan is going to be finding your market or niche; this is the part of
the process that is going to pave the way for many opportunities. Most
freelancers have a certain area they specialize in – for example, a writer may
write predominantly on health topics. Having a niche does not at all limit the
scope of work you can do, it just establishes your authority in that area. When
choosing a niche, think of something which interests you, an area you have
personal and professional experience with, and something with a lot of
subcategories within itself – this will keep assignments from getting
repetitive and stale.
Finding Your Audience and Socializing Your Brand
After you
determine your niche, there will be a target audience associated with that
area; for instance, someone who writes books on running will want to reach out
to athletes. However, spending your time marketing to a group of couch potatoes
with no plan of ever leaving the couch probably won’t be the best use of your
time. When you know who you need to market to, you need to figure out how to
reach these people. Having a webpage is pretty much standard for any type of
independent professional, service, or product in this day and age. Your
website, or blog, will act as a base camp for all of your marketing efforts. This
point really can’t be stressed enough. Freelancers must have a strong marketing
platform to help make clients aware of their existence.
Incorporating
social media into your marketing efforts will greatly help you get noticed.
Building your brand through social media will allow you to engage with possible
clients in a very personal and direct manner. Just make sure that you choose
the social media platform that is best for your target market. The major three
social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. To determine which
platform you should begin applying your efforts to you should determine where
most of your target audience engages with others on. If your target market is
mostly professionals then I would highly recommend LinkedIn. However, if you
are focused on college students then Facebook would probably be your best bet.
There are
many different ways to market online; you are only limited by your creativity
and dedication.
Taking Care of Business
When it
comes to working as a freelancer, it’s not always
fun and games (its only fun and games
most of the time). There are some legal
considerations to take into account when you work for yourself. Freelance workers
have to remember that they are their own accountant, human resource department,
and manager; you might not have anyone in your company besides yourself to
answer for, but if there’s a problem with how you’re doing business you will be
completely responsible. At the very least, you need to be paying your own taxes;
the companies you do work for will not be taking out taxes for you, this is up
to you. When you file your income taxes, you will need to report all earnings
you have made from every company you did work for that year on a 1099 tax form. Because
this can get complicated, using a tax service every year is highly recommended.
In addition to reporting wages, you’ll also need to track businesses expenses
for deductions.
Otherwise,
there’s not too much that a freelancer needs to worry themselves with – certain
workers do choose to get a business license for legal reasons. Working for
yourself as a freelancer can be very rewarding but it does take a lot of
responsibility and effort.
Are you a
freelancer, what advice would you give Newbies?
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