Freelancers: You're Not Invincible

As a freelancer, it's easy to think that you can do anything. This is especially true when you've never failed on a project, have met all of your deadlines, and have been blessed with great clients.

Up until yesterday, I was pretty confident that if it had to do with writing, or social media, I was on it. I've done alright on oDesk and have taken on some big contracts for companies all over the country. But I had a contract practically handed to me in a Skype interview, and it just didn't feel right to accept it.

When you get an assignment for something that you aren't exactly qualified for, you have two choices. One, you can take it on and research like a crazy person to prepare for it. Or two, you can admit that you can't do it and move on.

I was so confident that I could take this contract as a Research Analyst that I pitched the guy everything I had. I matched the description perfectly, and I made a stellar impression. Then he explained the job, and the scope of it... just astounded me. I've done social media work before, managed entire accounts on my own, but I specialize in content and communities. So when he asked for projection plans and budgets, I was quick to point out that I'd not had the opportunity to control that side of an account before. He was so confident that I could make it happen that he said not to over-think it, and to get him a plan by the next day. I would be writing all the posts for the blog and social media, as well as managing the advertising and publicizing of the product. I'd track everything, propose costs and execute... Everything.

Now, I know people who do this kind of thing on a regular basis. One of my previous employers (Blue Volcano Media) can take an account already knowing the time frames and costs to get X amount of followers by X date. It's not rocket science once you've done it a few times, but I haven't! I've worked for a company like this where the goal of the account is to get followers and make sales, not to increase engagement and interaction with the brand. I wrote it about it in my blog post Social Media Marketing as a Science. Sadly, my part in that company was as a Community Manager, not as a strategist or scientist.

I signed out of the interview with the potential employer raving about my talents, and how much he trusted that I could get this done. It was fee-based, or fixed-priced, though, so I had to come up with how much to charge. I actually don't have the slightest idea of what to charge most of the time, so I asked for a ballpark price from a friend. That's when it really sunk in: I can't do it.

I'm not afraid of failure and I'm not afraid of turning down an account, but it was so hard letting this guy down. He was excited, but I had to tell him that I didn't have the experience needed for his project and would have to withdraw my application. He then switched tactics, asking for me to only do the research and writing aspect of it. Once I get the courage to turn something down, I'm pretty blocked off from it, so I had to do it again and explain that research and writing is so tied to the marketing side of things that it'd be best to hire someone who can do it all, or be prepared to have a team on it.

Not only was it best for me to turn this job down, even being as jobless as I am, it was better for the employer and his vision.

Hootsuite Analytics Tutorial

One of my first tasks as a Social Media Specialist was to create a tutorial for Hootsuite Analytics. I'd only just started using HootSuite for monitoring social media, let alone for tracking statistics, so who was I to create a presentation to be shown to clients?

I love Prezi. I can do anything on Prezi. I can create a presentation and think through the process with Prezi. When I'm given a task to make a PowerPoint, I run to Prezi to conceptualize it, plan it out, and get everything I want into it. There is nothing like being free of slides and just spreading out in an online space.

So I came up with this tutorial. Looking through it now, it's very simplified and dated, and almost comes off as a Social Media for Dummies lesson plan. It's very step by step and perfect for a business owner just venturing into Insights and scheduling tools like HootSuite, RavenTools, and Time.ly.

Layers By Scentsy

Layers By Scentsy[/caption]

Ever have someone walk past you who smelled so good that it seemed to emanate from their pores? Clothes, hair, car... Just a breath of fresh air from all angles. I've actually trailed people before, just trying to place their cologne or perfume to find at a Macy's.

In the past, every time that I'd come across one of these heavily fragrant people I'd light a bunch of candles and spritz body spray and soak in body wash. I'm a scent person, I can trace any scent, can remember things by smell from before I was in kindergarten. But I could never quite get that amazing, head-turning fragrance.

Layers by Scentsy answers that call with scent solutions to compliment your home Scensy system. Take a bath with bath tablets, moisturize with Shower Cream and Body Lotion, grace your pulse points with Solid Perfume, scent your clothes with Washer Whiffs... If you want to smell deliciously good everywhere you go, Scentsy Layers has you covered!

What Kind of Writer Am I?

When you go to school for Engineering, you come out an Engineer. If you follow a track to become a Medical Transcriptionist, you pick up a job as one. With a Nursing certification, you're automatically a nurse.

But when you have a degree in Communications, Writing, or English, there's a good chance that even your professors don't know what you'll be doing post-grad. Where you take your education is purely up to you... Which can be incredibly liberating, or beyond annoying.

I went through university angry at myself for going into Technical Communication. No one could answer the simple question, "What job am I trying to get?" with a simple answer. It was always, "You can be anything you want!" I learned how to take the initiative with my schedule and take the classes that interested me, that I could communicate and justify to others, and would get me to analyze content in a critical way. Discussion, preparation, evaluation, and presentation.

There was no hand to hold, no support system of advisors and coaches to get me through my classes, but the expectance of resourcefulness to handle my assignments. Technical report writing, usability writing, web design... Our entire major was holed up in the computer lab past midnight, nearly every night, researching and learning. We were creative in how we finished our work, relating each project to our own lives in some way. I've taken this creativity into my job search.

As a Technical Writer, my resume could be filled with clips in documentation, instruction writing, and manual writing. Instead, I've found myself accepting positions in multimedia. My first contract position was doing research and writing web copy for a software company, my second was researching and editing for Travelocity, and my third was writing 30+ page profiles of clients for Reputation.com. I could go down the list, but it's all the same: writing, just not strictly technical writing.

I'm pretty great with social media, do excellent work, and absorb myself in growing communities. But I want to be great with manual writing, documentation, etc. I've shaped myself into a creative writer, but it's time again for scientific writing.

How Pinterest Can Help Your Job Search

Get a job with Pinterest boards

Since the hype has died down and the exclusivity has passed, how are people using Pinterest? It's not all about crafts, home design, and fun dinner ideas!

I recently came across an article from Mashable, 5 Ways to Use Pinterest for Your Job Search, full of tips on how you can turn your resume into a set of boards. Did you know that there are thousands of print resumes just sitting on Pinterest? It sounds easy to just pin an image to your boards, tag it #design #resume, and hope for the best. But let's stop thinking so linearly, and put our Pinterest caps on!

Getting your resume out there is the first step, but the purpose of Pinterest is to share your ideas, your life, your experiences. Is a personal resume worth sharing? Not really, but pics from that internship at Intel are, or your trip to Mexico after graduation, or your first real job. Are you a graphic designer? Then your work should be in pinned, tagged, and linked back to your resume and related pinboard.

Stay active by following career-related boards, liking and re-pinning work similar to yours, and sharing pins by other job seekers. But, as with any platform, any movement at all (even just setting up your own boards) should get you enough visibility to gain a few followers of your own right off.

What have you been doing with your resume? Linking it on to your Twitter, LinkedIn, job applications and other profiles, right? Well, do the same thing with your "Resume" Pinboard!

What's different about a resume on Pinterest is that it's alive, active, broken up into shareable content. It's no longer a static document, but an ongoing trail of experiences and growths.