61% of freelancers agree that project acquisition is the biggest challenge freelancers face (Freelancer Study 2023). What if we told you there is a more sustainable way of getting freelance clients?
By being able to harness and leverage your presence on Facebook and LinkedIn, you can create a personal brand as a freelancer that continuously brings in clients.
In this guide, we’ll take a look at how you can use both these two social media platforms to make sure you have a steady stream of clients coming in regularly.
Join Relevant Groups
There are many LinkedIn and Facebook groups where freelancers from the same field can gather and share opinions on different subjects and thought processes. There are often job postings on these groups for members to check out. Make sure you check out these groups often to keep updated on the latest trends.
However, this is not just limited to joining groups of freelancers from specific industries. Join groups that talk about the industry that you specialize in.
Here’s an example:
If you’re a copywriter that specializes in writing about SEO, don’t just join a group with freelance writers; make sure you join SEO groups as well. Your potential clients will most likely be from the latter group, while the former is more of a group consisting of your peers. It’s essential that you join any and all groups that relate to your niche.
Be Active and Engage
This is a popular technique that is used on both LinkedIn and Facebook, and it works because it establishes you as a thought leader. The more you engage with people, the more active you appear, and if you manage to keep the conversation going, you spark curiosity, which could lead to passive lead generation.
Once you spark attention and people check you out, they might be inclined to ask you to work with them.
Create Content
Part of being active and engaging is content creation.
Nothing tells the world better that you’re good at what you do than being able to present everyone with content. It could be an excellent article that you’ve written, a quick teaser video, or even just anything that adds value to other people’s lives.
Make sure you share it in the groups that you are a part of and get the conversation flowing!
Connecting With People In The Group
Make sure you expand your networks, whether it be on LinkedIn or Facebook because this is a quickfire way to build connections. You can start adding people on Facebook after you’ve conversed with them in the comments sections, and on LinkedIn, even a quick hello along with a compliment goes a long way.
Once you’ve told them that you are part of the group, it will pave the way for a conversation.
What do you talk about?
Well, in a way, it functions just like outreach:
- Compliment them on a post that they have in the group or their opinion
- Ask them if they are interested in collaborating with you
- Ask for their advice about something
The list goes on; by doing this, you can open up the doors to a conversation where you can tell them about what you specialize in.
Turning Your Profile Into a Lead Magnet
If you’ve created enough buzz for yourself using the techniques we’ve described, a potential client might be curious enough to check you out. This is where profile optimization is essential.
Think of your profile as a landing page that has to convert people who have happened to pass by it. This means it has to feel professional, be able to provide enough information about you, and be appealing enough that the prospect would want to contact you.
Facebook profile optimization – Fan page
On Facebook, there is no excuse for you not to have a fan page. The reason behind this is simple, all businesses have a fan page, and since freelancers essentially market their services as a business in their own right, it makes sense to have a fan page.
Make sure that your prospects can contact you easily and that your page reflects what you can do for them like a resume. Have all the relevant links ready and program messenger to act as a bot to answer questions from possible prospects.
It helps to keep organized albums that showcase your work, have your previous clients leave reviews, and consistently post to show that your account is active.
LinkedIn Profile for a Professional reach
The LinkedIn platform is the biggest professional social media channel, and there are a couple of pointers to keep in mind in order to stand out. Every single thing that you’ll do on your profile will matter.
Make sure you have a professional headshot that shows prospects what you’d look like in a meeting, have a cover photo that adds value to what you do, and your headline should be able to spell out what you do (and more) in a sentence.
Fill up your bio with relevant information about what you specialize in, and don’t forget to leave a link to your website if you have one.
Automating Your Outreach
This is an advanced technique that if applied correctly can amplify the number of your clients significantly.
If you’re part of a big group, it can be difficult to contact everyone. This is why it’s important to create an automated system to ensure that you save time and are efficient with your outreach.
The first thing that you have to do is to be active.
This establishes your presence and makes you known for something. Once you’re seen as an engaging member, it’s time to increase the outreach tempo.
We use a tool like Phantombuster to grab the names of everyone in the group.
Sign up to Phantombuster and head to the store to look for the “LinkedIn Group Members” phantom. Click “Use this Phantom”.
Make sure you download their extension and proceed to fill out all the parts. Click “Save”, and head over to the next panels.
Click “Launch” and you’ll get a list of everyone’s profiles.
Set your list aside and head over to the store again to get on the “LinkedIn Network Booster” phantom.
This grabs the list that you have and automatically sends them a message of your choosing for you to increase your network of LinkedIn connections.
After that, you can send them a message with the “LinkedIn Message Sender”, which is also available on the Phantombuster platform.
The message that you send everyone can be automated. Ask them to connect with you because you like what they’ve been posting and once you’re connected, wait for a while before you automate a message telling them to check out your profile or portfolio.
This is an automated approach to:
- Increase the number of LinkedIn connections that you have
- Contact everyone on a LinkedIn group
Note: They also have an option for you to do this on Facebook as well. So you can harness the power of Phantombuster to reach out to everyone on a Facebook group as well.
Grab Their Personal Emails
Did you know that you can grab the personal emails of everyone in a group on LinkedIn or Facebook? This way you can send people more intimate proposals or reach them with more personalized types of media.
Here’s why.
Reaching people on a different medium is a form of remarketing that can command people’s attention. Phantombuster has a phantom that can help you with this, although it would still help if you had a third-party email verification service just incase their LinkedIn emails aren’t updated.
There’s more.
If you want you can grab the personal emails of people on a group on LinkedIn, you can throw that list onto a Facebook custom audience to remarket ads to them. This helps you hit them on another platform. It increases your exposure and establishes your brand.
To do this, go to Facebook Ads Manager, and click on “Audience” under “Assets.”
Click on “Create a Custom Audience.”
There you have it, you now have a list of your LinkedIn contacts in a group – hopefully, you’ve added all of them – and you can reach out to them with a targeted ad via the custom audience.
By simply following these simple techniques, you can increase the number of freelancing gigs that you get from LinkedIn and Facebook groups by at least 25 percent.
If you’re looking for a tool to help you find email addresses and phone numbers on LinkedIn, ContactOut may be the right choice for you.
However, it still depends on the brand that you build. This is why we place a great emphasis on ensuring that your profiles are remarkable and act as landing pages for your freelancing.
With a solid brand and consistency in your activity, you can increase the number of freelancing gigs you’re getting easy.
