As a freelancer, you’re blessed with the freedom to move from job to job, which means you regularly get to experience new people and things. The downside is that you're constantly seeking new employment, and sometimes seem to spend as much time looking for work as you do actually working. One way to ease the stress of a freelance career is to build long-term relationships with short-term clients. Here are four tips to start turning that few-day or few-week job into a more permanent working relationship.
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For many, the advent of social media is the best thing since the online job search board. It can be used to great effect to zero in on employment opportunities you wouldn’t otherwise be privy to and to network. But the visibility of social media can also work against your professional life. Social media posts have been known to get people fired, and have no doubt been the cause of a whole lot of people not getting jobs they would otherwise have been a shoe-in for. Here are four social media activities you may have perpetrated before that you should never do again.
Social Media Posts To Avoid
- Taking drunken selfies
Like the old song says, you’ve gotta fight for your right to party. Just don’t let a prospective employer see evidence of how hard that partying sometimes gets if you don’t want them to get the altogether wrong impression of you. Keep it classy and you won’t have to worry about getting passed up for a job or a long-awaited promotion because someone out there happened upon your profile and now thinks you’re a total lush they wouldn’t trust to walk their dog. - Going on a political rant
We are all political animals. And come election time, that passion gets stirred up even more. Sometimes it’s impossible to keep your political opinions to yourself – especially if you feel passionately about the issues that impact your life. Just remember that not everyone shares your views. Even if you go out of your way not to insult people of differing views, it sometimes happens anyway. Being a loose cannon in this way can cost your career. Don’t do it. - Talking smack on ex- or current employers
Not everyone is in love with their work life. Nobody’s saying that you should be (although it would be pretty cool if more people were). All we’re saying is that if you have a beef with an employer, social media is not the place to air that information. Employers need to know that workplace conflicts won’t become a matter of public record. If you’re constantly badmouthing people you’ve worked for, you could be seen as a liability. - Uttering gratuitous profanities or other inappropriate obscenities
Some dirty jokes can be hilarious. But there’s a time and place for them – and social media isn’t it. No employer honestly expects you not to have fun from time to time. But being blatantly obscene on a highly public platform can be a major turn-off for those who hold hiring and firing power.
Don’t mistake this to mean that if you want a career you’re going to have to walk the social media straight and narrow or ditch your Facebook profile altogether. There are methods you can employ on social networking sites that ensure only certain people have access to your rants, inappropriate photos, and other inadvisable activities. If you absolutely can’t live without posting drunk selfies or talking politics, button up your profile security settings as fast as you can. It could mean the difference between landing a job and asking for an extension to your unemployment benefits.
At Artisan Talent, we know the ins and outs of social media and can help you find freelance employment opportunities in a variety of fields. Contact us today to learn more.
Need More Tips on Social Media? Read These:
Secrets of the Social Media Resume
Is Searching for Employment on Social Media A Struggle For You?
The Do's and Don'ts of Using Social Media to Screen Candidates
Instagram is an effective social media campaign for making an organization more visible to customers, and often comprises part of that organization's digital strategy. Many Fortune 500 companies rely heavily on Instagram visibility to promote brands such as Nike, Ralph Lauren, Starbucks and Whole Foods. Instagramming is also an important part of social media for small business interests due to its low cost. Search Engine Watch discusses a TrackMaven study of the ways that Fortune 500 firms use Instagram visibility as part of their digital strategy. These methods include the use of videos, hashtags and posting schedules.
Instagram Visibility Overview
The TrackMaven study shows that Instagram photos are still more effective than video for achieving marketing goals, probably because Instagram’s video service is still new. The volume of user interaction with photos varies only slightly between business hours and non-business hours, but video performs significantly better during off hours. The primary reason for this difference is probably due to the audio component, which may be overheard by the user’s coworkers and supervisors.
A digital marketing strategy should use Instagrams with more hashtags, according to the TrackMaven study. This study shows a significant correlation between the number of hashtags in content and the marketing success of that content. The study compared the number of hashtags in a post with the number of user interactions, defined as the sum of the comments and likes for that content. The results showed that the optimum number of hashtags in a post was five, which provided an average of 21.21 interactions for every 1,000 followers.
Videos
Instagram added video-sharing to its capabilities in 2013, which many Fortune 500 companies have been slow to adopt as part of their digital strategy. Increasing the number of videos on your account can increase the number of interactions you have with your followers, since Instagram is such a visual platform. An Instagram video currently receives an average of 24 interactions, making it only less effective than photographs. The slow adoption rate of video by Fortune 500 companies helps smaller businesses meet their marketing goals more easily. The short duration and ease in uploading also businesses to market their brand effectively with Instagram videos.
Hashtags
The rules of etiquette for using Twitter as part of a digital strategy generally limit the number of hashtags in a tweet to two, but this restriction doesn’t apply to Instagram. However, a larger number of hashtags requires you to integrate them seamlessly throughout the post, rather than placing them all at the bottom. The TrackMaven study shows that larger marketing efforts can benefit from more hashtags, such that up to 11 hashtags can increase the average number of interactions per post by 77.
Posting Schedule
Most Instagram users have a mobile device, so they tend to use the platform at all hours. This posting behavior means that Instagram is less likely to have an ideal posting time compared to other social media sites. The digital strategy of Fortune 500 companies typically involves posting during business hours, although the TrackMaven study doesn’t indicate a clear advantage for this strategy. Businesses that use Instagram to achieve their marketing goals will generally need to experiment to find the best posting time for their brands.
Decided to give it a go? Don't forget to follow Artisan Talent on Instagram! Need help upping your Instagram presence? Contact us today to learn more about adding a social specialist to your team.
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