Why You Should Make Social Media Part Of Your Job

Promoting your freelance and side-hustle gigs.

Do you know that old story about the five blind men and the elephant? Five blind men encounter an elephant, feel different parts of the animal — trunk, tail, sides, ears, tusks — then come away with five different impressions of what an elephant is.

That’s not too dissimilar from how many people conceive of social media. Unless you’ve spent a lot of time on the various social media available, you may not have a complete idea of its potential to help your freelance business or side hustle.

For that reason, people could be leaving significant money on the table by ignoring social media or not using it to their advantage.

The good news is that it’s never too late to get started.

Why are you ignoring social media?

Well, it can be overwhelming.

For a long time, the Internet was big enough. I mean, it’s right there in the term worldwide web. Then social media came along — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and a host of others came along, and suddenly content exploded beyond what one could reasonably conceive.

Everyone who wants a voice has one. Often they have several voices each.

At last count, there are 330 million monthly active users and 145 million daily users on Twitter. A billion people use Instagram every month, with half of them using Instagram Stories every day. And there are around 2.7 billion active Facebook users.

It’s impossible to keep track of that many people chattering online.

So, it’s perfectly understandable that many of us can find social media spaces to be a bit too much to handle. Sitting down to an endless stream of even micro-content can make you wonder if there is any real value to it at all.

Surely, you have better things to do.

The importance of using social media

The thing is, there are a lot of opportunities to be had on social media — especially for freelancers and side-hustlers.

Can you think of a better way to get the word out on your services or product for practically no cost?

If you’re not already much into using social media, dealing with Twitter or Instagram may seem like a chore. That’s probably not the most inaccurate way to look at it. But just as one needs to take care of chores around the house to make it livable, so, too, do you need to take care of a few chores related to your freelance business to keep it growing.

Like dealing with your billing, accounting, and marketing, social media should be considered another part of making your business function and — better yet — flourish.

What to do on social media

Here are some ways you can use social media to boost your business’s visibility.

• Project announcements
• Promotions
• Special offers
• Post images of products, book covers, works in progress, behind-the-scenes stuff
• Get to know and/or network with fellow solo entrepreneurs
• Get to know and/or network with potential clients
• Lead followers to portfolio materials
• Links to Etsy, Amazon, Redbubble, or wherever you sell things
• Build your email list
• Share links to recent blog posts
• Retweet or share on-topic news
• Follow or friend people connected to your interests either as colleagues, customers, or even potential mentors

Also…

Even if you’re faking enthusiasm for social media, it’s important to give the impression you’re engaged with your followers, the people you follow, and the overall community.

It’s harder for people to get interested in you or feel connected if the only things you post are about your services or products. Make sure to also:

• Like and “favorite” other people’s posts
• Comment on posts. Even get into conversations
• Post off-topic stuff on occasion. Examples could include funny memes, “dad” jokes, snippets of your personal life, inspiring quotes, light-hearted observations of life. This can even be a plus on business-centered social media such as LinkedIn or Alignable
• Retweet or share other posts looking for a signal boost related to topics or causes you support. Try to avoid heavy politics or other sensitive issues — unless that’s the sort of thing you already promote.

How much is enough?

Good question. And the answer differs from person to person. If you can see where your links are getting clicked from, you can tell what social media areas are working and what needs work. If you’re not getting much engagement, you might need to do more.

As for the daily routine, I would recommend at least two posts a day — once in the morning and once in the afternoon. That seems to work well for me. If you’re looking for a more statistical breakdown of best times and days, check out this report from CoSchedule, which goes into more detail.

You also have the option of scheduling a lot of your posts with apps like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, and Buffer. Instead of blocking out a bit of time in the morning and afternoon for social media chores, you can schedule a larger block on (for example) Sunday, and organize the posts to automatically go out over the course of the week. Most apps also have analytics available so you can see how your posts are doing.

What’s the ROI? Is it worth it?

For the most part, social media accounts cost nothing. You may get hit with some ads and join the ever-growing amount of faceless data collection, but otherwise, your only investment is time. And not even that much time when you come right down to it.

Not having an active social media presence means you’re missing out on a whole segment of potential clients and customers. As a freelance writer, most of my clients this past year were people who saw me on Facebook and LinkedIn. As a book designer, Facebook and Instagram served me well. Twitter and Instagram helped me sell a bunch of t-shirts and stickers.

All of the above have helped me move books as a small publisher as I used them to announce projects, introduce authors, link to excerpts, and share cover art.

Results vary, certainly, but look at it this way. You can build your business by investing a little time on social media, or you can hope for word-of-mouth and possibly having your website show up on Google (page 7, down at the bottom) to build your business.

Your choice.

Give it a shot

If you want your freelance business or side hustle to take off, you have to get the word out there. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, and a host of others are just sitting there waiting for you.

Give social media a fair shot at growing your business. Use it to maximize your presence and — more importantly — the presence of your product or service.

And maybe make a few new friends while you’re at it.

Thank you for reading. I’d love to share more with you via my Bi-Weekly Word Roundup newsletter sent to subscribers every other Sunday. It will feature news, productivity tips, life hacks, and links to top stories making the rounds on the Internet. You can unsubscribe at any time.