Self Employed Freelancers Can Promote Services Using Social Media

One of the most difficult aspects of being self employed is getting new work. It doesn't matter if you mow lawns, sell insurance or bake wedding cakes on weekends. Marketing and self promotion can be difficult. And if you don't operate as a small business it's often more difficult. Advertising online and in papers is expensive. Many people can't afford a web site. Even people that have a web site can't afford to promote it enough to generate consistent business leads.

Fortunately, people are communicating through the web using public channels. This has led to massive growth in social media. There are many ways that self employed and side job workers can take advantage of social media. In particular, Facebook offers a great platform to promote a service.

People love hiring their friends. If you provide a service, there is a good chance you already have worked for many friends. These days we notice that it is more common to see people get on Facebook and ask if anyone can recommend a good mechanic or a good dentist. People are getting used to seeing recommendations and self promotion.

You might be surprised that many of your Facebook friends don't know that you provide services. This can be especially true for older classmates. Most of us have some friends that follow us, but we just didn't stay in touch over the years. And if you just started providing a new service, it would be impossible for them to know you are available to help. While it's possible they can read your profile, most people will never read it. You have to be proactive and post about your offerings on your own.

Even more important, friends love to recommend other services. So if you are a freelancer and you use Facebook to promote your service, you might find that your friends recommend you to people that are their friends but not in your own circle. This is one of the best ways to reach people in your 2nd and 3rd tier that are still in your community.

One of the drawbacks of self promotion is that people feel a bit uncomfortable and don't know how to write their own "advertising." That is why we developed Dunlist. It is a stand-alone web site and Facebook App that allows anyone to create a free account and fill out a profile that is easy to share using social media. It doesn't look like you just created a post yourself. it looks much more professional and makes it easy for others to share. Not to mention, our profiles are searchable by anyone that is looking for a service provider. Users that connect their Facebook account and can search Dunlist and see their own friends come up to the top of relevant searches.

Using social media with the right platform is a free and easy way to directly market yourself to a community of potential customers.

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