Freelance Friday-Network with Your Target Market, Not Other Freelancers

Filed in archive freelancing tips on May 14, 2010

Freelancers, especially freelance writers, are notorious for hanging out with their colleagues, other freelance writers. Networking with other freelancers is great, don't get me wrong: you can get referrals that way and improve your career. But the primary networking audience you should focus on making time with is your target market.

For example, my target market, as a freelance writer, is professional organizers. However, until very recently, my Twitter profile included following and having discussions with writers almost 90 percent of the time. Now it is 100 percent my target market that I follow and that I converse with on Twitter, and that's because it is a networking tool, not my water cooler.

Think about the forums you belong to, profiles you have on Twitter and LinkedIn, blog posts that you write, professional associations that you join: are you connecting with colleagues or are you connecting with your target market? Connecting with your target market when you network is what will get you more business as a freelancer.