#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – eight tips on establishing yourself as a freelancer
September 5th, 2011 | No Comments | Posted by Sarah Marshall in Freelance, Magazines, Social media and blogging, Top tips for journalists
If you’re trying to establish yourself as a freelance journalist, Leon Brown, a freelance developer and tutor who has taken the step and started pitching and writing articles for magazines about internet technologies has the following eight tips:
- Use your website to list ideas for articles you want to write then use social media like Twitter and LinkedIn to target decision makers who will want to hire you;
- You could allow buyers to select article components. I’m creating something like this on my website, allowing magazine editors and other types of buyers to select them and add them to a shopping cart;
- Engage in discussions that decision makers are involved in;
- When you post a comment on LinkedIn, most people involved in the discussion will get an email making them aware of your comment;
- If you are contributing informative points to a discussion, it helps people perceive you as knowledgeable which enhances your personal brand;
- Engage with decision makers’ own content. For example, I’m speaking to .Net magazine about writing an article for them which came about after I commented on a blog post. The strategy was to take something that’s already of interest to them and propose something new from it.
- Suggest writing content that has an interesting twist on current events. For example, I’ve did this when pitching my two most recent articles. The first was when LulzSec hacked Sony. I proposed to Web Designer Magazine to write an article about how website hacking works and how to build code to protect against it. .Net magazine was interested when I suggested writing an article containing advice for people working in the web industry who have been made redundant. That was promoted by the current economic uncertainty.
- Build you followers. If you have a fan base, then this becomes an asset when getting decision makers to hire you because this also allows them to make more sales of their publication to your audience.
Tipster: Leon Brown
If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.
Tags: Freelance, leon brown, tip, Top tips for journalists
