Five tips to promote your work online as an introvert
And by way of good example, we're on Instagram now 🤓
A lot of people have asked us how they can support The Friendly Freelancer. If you like what we’re doing, the best way to support us at the moment is to tell your friends about us. We don’t have a marketing – or other – budget, and we get most of our new readers through word-of-mouth recommendations. See you in two weeks!
Ever since we launched The Friendly Freelancer – and that was … drum roll … exactly a year ago 🎉 – we have contemplated creating an Instagram page. It seemed like the perfect platform to reach creative freelancers with our newsletter. But we’ve stayed away from Instagram until now.
Social media brings out the introvert in us both. We adore writing the newsletter, but we shudder when we have to tweet about or promote that newsletter with a selfie. And as we have both already pointed out in previous newsletters: we’re not especially adept at maintaining our own social media accounts or websites. So why layer on an extra platform? And why seek out a new source of digital distraction when it’s already so hard to concentrate on work?
Because we want to have more direct contact with you, our readers. Because we are proud of the newsletters we send out every two weeks and because we want to give them a bigger reach.
Illustration by Maarten Peeters
Launching our own Instagram account is simply a new way to reach the objective we try to accomplish with every newsletter, which is to be a support to creative freelancers. By creating an Instagram page, we also hope to build a community of supportive freelancers and connect you all to each other much more.
And the fact remains that the only way for freelancers to connect at the moment is through digital means 😷 We might not be able to change anything about that, but we can change the way we look at social media.
So we set out to learn more about how you can promote yourself and your work using social media, especially if you’re a little introverted. We compiled the five best pieces of advice we discovered into a story for Flanders DC, a Flemish organisation that supports creative entrepreneurs.
The result of this has been that whereas we used to see Instagram as the home of thirst traps, food porn and getaway photos meant to make you jealous, we now see it as a platform that can facilitate exchanges with our readers. Instead of feeling self-conscious about promoting the newsletter online, we are trying to see social media as a way to engage in a conversation with others about what we do. Only when we share what we’ve been up to, will others be able to share our work in return. And work that is visible for all to see tends to generate more interesting conversations.
Illustration by Maarten Peeters
So voila, from now on The Friendly Freelancer is on Instagram. We’ll share quotes from our newsletters and exchanges with you, and regularly put a spotlight on freelancers we find inspiring. Follow The Friendly Freelancer and … er … “regram” us? (Are we saying that right? 🤷🏽♀️)
We are incredibly curious to hear how you use Instagram to share your work as a creative freelancer. Share your tips with others by emailing us at freelancerthefriendly@gmail.com
This newsletter was written by Selma Franssen and Linda A. Thompson, and was written with the support of Flanders DC. Head to their website for more practical resources like this tool. And subscribe to Flanders DC’s newsletter to connect with other freelancers.