Things have been crazy in Samar-ville as of late. If I start writing about that, this post will turn into a rant. And I’m trying really really hard to not become an angry ranter.

Every freelancer at one time or another faces situations that are not ideal. Wait, who am I kidding. We face not-so-ideal situations every single day. The following scenarios/situations left me wondering how I would have dealt with them.

I also wondered if it would be easy to do what was so obviously the self respecting solution to them. I’ll let you guys decide.

1. A client stresses upon a deadline in every email but fails to send the required information on time to start/complete the project yet still demands that the work be submitted on the set deadline.
2. If you did a one off gig for someone, and they failed to pay you by the first of next month and still haven’t paid after 20 days. 2 gentle reminders later they’re treating you like you’re being cumbersome.
3. You’re in talks with a potential client. Everything has been sorted out; The number of hours, work involved, future possibilities, rates etc. The client asks you to confirm on the terms set so that they could sent you an NDA,  only to disappear on you after you send the confirmation.

What would you do if you were faced with the above situations? How would you deal with them?

Image credit: Partie Traumatic

Technorati Tags: freelance business, Freelance work, Freelancing

When twitter changed its default setting disallowing users to see @ mentions of people they weren’t following, it became harder to meet and follow interesting conversations and people.

I for one got seriously mad. Twitter practically told me to stop snooping into other people’s conversations with people I wasn’t following. The nerve!

For a while, I was stuck with following back people who followed me. I was at a loss on how to follow new folks. I didn’t have the time to go through countless profiles and see who was following who.

Considering that twitter played the ‘We can’t undo it anytime soon’ card, there wasn’t much that I could do – except find other ways to find people to follow.

Here are two ways I accidentally stumbled upon to converse with people who normally would not have come in my twitter radar.

1. Blip your way to new conversations

As someone who routinely listens to music while working, I like to share it too. The need to share and tell the world about my music taste (cuz I’m a show off that way) made me want to do it on twitter too. After all, music makes you like, totally cool y’know?

Blip.FM is a great way to connect with new people. After spending a few weeks blipping songs for around one hour every couple of days or so, I realized that I was hearing from people who weren’t following me!

The reason was simple, they liked my choice of songs and wanted to share their opinion or recommend some more. Sometimes people would @ me out of the blue because I blipped UB40 and they got nostalgic. Or because they were living in their native town and thought I’d be interested in the trivia – which I was.

Another thing I noticed was that my current followers would RT a song I’d blipped if they liked it. Since RT’s can be seen by everyone, I started getting @ replies from people I couldn’t see them conversing with. (Ha! Take that you meddling twitter!)

Regardless to say, I’ve been conversing with new people regularly and I already know we have our taste in music in common. So not only do I find cool people to follow through twitter, I get an immediate ice breaker too.

For those of you who’re wondering about finding people to follow in your niche through blipping songs, that is taken care of when your followers RT your blip and their followers leave you a message. Half the time, the person is from the niche you’re interested in.

2. RT tweets without links

I tend to RT tweets that I’ve enjoyed for the opinion they express, laugh they gave me or because I identify with it.

It has been a great way to start a conversation with people I follow but don’t usually talk with and find new people to follow.

The key is to add your own two cents to the RT to get the conversation going. A lot of people reply back as they share their own opinions and conversations tend to get interconnected introducing a lot of tweeps to each other.

The IranElection hashtag was the perfect example. I’d RT differing opinions and the conversation flowed. That’s when I realized the impact of RT-ing linkless tweets. I don’t talk politics and/or religion as a general rule and I was not looking to start a conversation on the Iran elections at all.

My reason behind the RT was that I found the sentiment expressed in the tweet in question interesting. That’s where my interest in it ended. My personal thoughts and opinions were supposed to remain my own.

But suddenly people were replying and discussing and I learned some important lessons.

• Don’t RT stuff you’re not willing to discuss
• Linkless RT’s encourage people to talk to you.
• Tweet stuff (thoughts, opinions, sentiments) that will get you Retweeted

Since then, I’ve been RTing tweets that encourage an opinion from people. As a result, I’ve seen an increase in the RT ratio of my tweets, both the linkless tweets and the ones with links.

Everyone has their own story of how they find more people to follow. What’s yours? Have you found any unconventional ways to network on twitter?

Image credit: Respres

Technorati Tags: Social Networking, Twitter, Twitter tips, Twitter tricks

Blogging is serious business. Whoever said blogging is fun didn’t know what they were talking about. Blogging is a seriously fun business

Studying Ali Hale’s Staff Blogging course is fun too. No mincing of words and no false promises. What else could I want? A paid blogging job perhaps? All in good time my friend.

Unit III of the Staff Blogging Course deals with applying for a job. Ali gives tip regarding your blogging job application. What to do, what not to do, how to stay in the blog editor’s notice and lists sample application and guest posting guidelines from various blogs.

The Staff Blogging Course also tells you

• Next steps for the three different application methods discussed in Unit II
• What to do if/when rejected for a blogging job you applied to
• How to form and maintain your portfolio and
• How to keep track of job applications

The course handouts include sample job applications that Ali herself have used and has also added footnotes with further details. There’s also a sample Excel file that helps you track your applications and submissions.

This Unit includes three simple exercises that won’t take much time if you’ve done the exercises in the previous units. Follow this unit, and who knows? By next week you just may have a staff blogging job!

Using the sample excel sheet

The Excel sheet keeps pushing me to apply to new places. I’ve added a new sheet to the file where I’ve listed the blogs I’d like to staff blog for and keep adding blog post ideas related to them as they come to me.

The best part about staff blogging jobs is that they open up every few months. So even if the blog in question isn’t looking for a staff blogger now, there’s no guarantee that they won’t want one four months from now.

If you like what you’ve seen of the staff blogging course so far, you can buy the course for $19 here.

We’ve heard what Michael Martine of Remarkablogger, James Chartrand of Men with Pens and Naomi Dunford of Ittybiz have to say about being interesting to your audience. It’s time to find out what you guys have to say.

Before starting this series, I had my final post all drafted and was looking forward to typing it to perfection.

Then I published my first post of the series and Starliteve left a comment that bested my views in every sense of the word. She was matter of fact where I would have gotten er… emotional and to the point where I would have rambled.

So instead of my pearls of (very questionable) wisdom, I present to you Starliteve’s three points that make a blog interesting to her. Feel free to substitute blog with business, product,  services etc.

1. Your blog is interesting because it gives me information and a perspective that I can’t get anywhere else.
2. Your blog is interesting because you go out and find the best information and save me the time by linking me to it all at once (with your glowing commentary).
3. Your blog is interesting because you tell me intimate and interesting things about yourself that are entertaining or thought provoking.

Do you guys look for the same things? Or does something else hold your interest? The floor is now yours.

Image credit: Chris Owens

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Freelancing, Social Networking

Naomi Dunford needs no introduction. She’s a force to reckon with and embodies everything Michael and James have said about being interesting.

Naomi is as real as they come and she has an equally helpful assistant Jess who got me this interview from Naomi.

If there’s one person I could voice my real question to, it’s Naomi.

Q. How the hell do I become interesting so that people like you will visit and read my blog? How do I catch and hold your interest? Tell me for God’s sake!!!

IttyBiz: If you’re not terrified 23 hours out of 24, you’re not doing it right. (You can take an hour to answer email if you like. That’s allowed.) Not sure if you’re terrified? Use a handy little post-it checklist. Check your offering — your blog post, your ad copy, your sales page, whatever — against this criteria:

Does it make you say, “Jesus fucking Christ, am I INSANE? There’s no way I can do this. I’ll be a laughing stock. I’ll lose everyone. I’ll be broke and homeless and live in a gutter”?

No? Then back to the drawing board go you, darling.

–

Nobody says it like IttyBiz. Thank you for the interview Naomi. You’re the (wo)man!

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Freelancing, Social Networking