I answered these questions for Sam Kirk, a fellow Multimedia student, to help her with her personal research project. Her research topic question - What does it mean to create a portfolio and what are the circumstances that necessitate their creation?
I though my answers were good enough to share so here they are.
As a freelance designer, can you please share with me your experiences of acquiring work through online media?I am a fond user of Twitter as a means of getting work from myself as a freelance web designer. I currently have custom searches set up to notify me with certain tweets which include keywords such as hire, need, web and designer. I then selectively choose to reply to certain tweets that interested me. These tweets are mainly UK based however I have contacted a few potential client that were outside the UK. With all types of job hunting you get turned down but when someone you reply to is actually interested in your work and want you to work on their project it can be very rewarding. One example of this was with my client The Dessert Deli from Clapham Junction
in London. She tweeted she wanted a web designer and within a few hours I had replied to her with a link of my online portfolio, which she liked, then she replied back to me via email. We then started the process of designing her a fully functional e-commerce site build in WordPress. She also invited me down for a day to add finished touches to the site as a bit of face-to-face completion time on the site was needed. This process of using Twitter to directly contact potential client has proven useful for myself and I will hopefully continue to use this method in the future.
With regards to contacting a client indirectly, for example, a member of that company seeing that you've included something of interest or mentioned that company in one of your blog posts, tagging blog posts with keyword can help provoke interest in your work. In doing this your blog posts become search engine optimised and that when a particular company inputs their company name into a search engine your blog posts may become apparent to them. One personal example of this happening was when I was designing a website for Saltwater as par of my second year project. What was interesting with this was while researching possible clients, before actually selecting Saltwater, I had added a little comment about Pulp, an alternative clothing shop in Nottingham. In doing this I received an email one day from a gentleman at their head office asking me whether I would like to help out with some website design. I promptly replied expressing interest in his offer, but unfortunately haven't heard back since. This however highlights the possibility of getting work through potential research you may be doing through your blog.
Finally online competitions are always a good place to find work. I don't necessarily mean big world wide projects in which you use a biding systems to bid on a project, but smaller competitions which don't always have prizes if you end up winning. A few examples for me was logo/poster/t-shirt design competitions. I managed to work for the Welsh Hockey Union after wining one of their logo competitions, which in turn brought me other projects from than, I also designed a logo for a themed night out called 'Paint it Blue' in which my design was printed on their t-shirts. I've also designed an education campaign poster for Nottingham Trent University and finally a hoody design for the Nottingham Trent Christian Union. All these projects were found through online competitions in which some I got paid and other just completed for the experience of doing so.
Please tell me about the methods used to promote you and your work online, any specialist media websites you might have used.
I'm a massive blogging geek that likes to tweet like there's no tomorrow. I've also recently decided to start video blogging as a reflective process and to share more of my personality when blogging and producing work. I currently have my own domain name in which I host my online portfolio and I also link it to my blog currently powered by Posterous. In updating my blog a few times a week with articles of interest, work updates or my video blog, I'm creating and shaping my online presence. I also use the Posterous auto post functionality to post my articles to my alternative Blogspot and WordPress blogs. It's also very helpful in auto-tweeting links to these newly uploaded articles. In using a mixture of media types when blogging I find I can tailor to a wider audience, which ultimately could consist of new clients.
How have you used the internet to attain work in the past?
Before Twitter came about, I used to promote my work just by word of mouth. Conversing with people can sometime bring up potential routes of find work and possible logo or website projects. You then direct them to your online portfolio and tell them that if they like what they see to contact you. In being able to direct a potential client to a collection of your previous work helps them get a better idea of your ability and skill in a certain area. Being selective about the work you show can increase the chances of securing a client or not.
Which method has proved to be the most successful for you?
Directly contacting clients through Twitter.
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