How to Find Freelance work at LinkedIn?
Everyone knows that LinkedIn is a useful platform for recruiters and job seekers.
But what about freelancers?
How they can use LinkedIn to find freelance clients?
As a freelancer myself, I am very aware of the benefits of getting LinkedIn profile right. Many of the clients I have worked for initially found me via LinkedIn. And they had checked out my profile before getting in touch about work.
What most freelancers do is that they make a LinkedIn account and spend two weeks exploring the platform and hope that they’d end up getting a lead.
When they don’t see that happening, they tend to ignore LinkedIn and stick with other ways that may have worked for them in the past.
Look, LinkedIn has worked for me as well as for others. I’ll share some of the basics that most freelancers miss out on LinkedIn, and perhaps that’s why they can’t find freelance clients on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is a professional network that connects job seekers and employers. It has over 700 million registered members in 150 countries. LinkedIn has become a mainstream social media platform alongside Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
The point is that LinkedIn has got a lot of attention, and the best part is that the majority of the users are professionals who’re either job seekers or business owners. If you know how to get attention on LinkedIn, the chances are, you’re going to find clients on LinkedIn.
I’m so confident about this because I have been there. After Facebook, LinkedIn has been the most useful social media platform to find work. It’s about profile according to your professional position.
If you little bit of coding, should invest in a professional website to showcase your work, it will best for clients to find it.
So I really believe that if you’re a freelancer, you need to get your LinkedIn profile right.
That’s how you can use LinkedIn to find freelance clients
So, if LinkedIn is a must-have for freelancers, what do you need to know about the platform to maximize your chances of finding work through it?
1) Profile Include that you’re freelancer
When people found some good blog on LinkedIn, what word do you think they always want to act next?
Some want to get hire right away for your good piece of writing.
So if you want yourself to get hired, make sure you use freelance as one of your keywords. here are some of the places in your profile you can use it:
- Your headline
- Your URL
- Your summary
- Your experience
- Your endorsements
- Projects, volunteering and other sections
Optimizing a LinkedIn profile means to fill in the loopholes and provide with the right information to prepare it for appearing in LinkedIn. If you haven’t written a concise yet meaningful about section on your LinkedIn profile, then you’re wasting social media real estate.
If you want to find clients on LinkedIn, optimizing your LinkedIn profile would be a stepping stone.
2) Sell your services in your summary
Your LinkedIn summary is the perfect place to set out your stall, and explain exactly what you can do for people. The option to add rich media files makes it an even more important chance to establish an online portfolio.
So make sure you spend the time to get this section right. As a quick guide to how you may want to lay it out, here’s a suggestion for structuring it:
- Start out with a line summing up what you offer.
- List three to five bullet points highlighting your services/benefits to clients.
- Give specific examples of results you have achieved.
- Include a call to action.
3) Mention Projects in your experience section
If you work on lots of small freelance projects for a wide range of clients, group them into one experience entry. Title the entry with your business name and dates. Use the section to describe the type of work you did and clients you work for.
If you’re stuck for structure, use the same principle from your summary.
4) List Big Projects
If you have worked on significant projects or for one client for a period of time, list that as a separate experience.
Again, you can structure the text like your summary, or you can write it as a case study. Remember to include a quote from your happy client if you have one.
Just a word of caution here though. Beware of listing your client as an ’employer’. Large companies often do routine searches of the people who say they work for them, and they may well get in touch if you add yourself as having worked for them.
Instead, make it clear you worked for them on a freelance or consultancy basis.
5) Build up your LinkedIn skills and endorsements
Make a habit of asking clients to give you a LinkedIn endorsement and recommend you for skills once you’ve completed a project. Be proactive, and even go as far as asking them to use specific terms (the keywords you have identified you want to be found for).
And remember to properly manage your skills section to highlight the ones you most want to be known for.
6) Be active on LinkedIn
Once you’re happy with your profile, increase your chance of it getting noticed by being active on LinkedIn. Make good use of your LinkedIn updates and LinkedIn groups to establish yourself as knowledgeable in your area of expertise, and stay front of mind.
One of the main reasons why I have been able to generate leads and acquire clients through LinkedIn is that I only connect with the relevant people. It’s hard to say NO sometimes if it increases your followers or connections on social media, but I’m trying to develop a thick skin when it comes to business.
It does sound so simple that we should connect with the right people, but when it comes to adding a connection or following a person on social media, we mostly overlook this phenomenon. Try creating a hidden filter to ensure that you connect with like-minded professionals and prospective clients. I tend to network with founders, CEOs, digital marketers, and social media managers on LinkedIn. It’s key to finding clients on LinkedIn.
7) Ask for referrals
If work is quiet, don’t be shy about asking people for referrals. Reach out to people in your network and send them a quick message explaining what you are doing now (that you’re currently freelance, what you offer and what type of clients you work for) and ask them to forward your details to anyone who may need you.
All it takes is one person to know somebody looking for your skills right now for the effort to pay off. And even if you don’t hear back immediately, people are more likely to remember you in future if you’ve made contact.
8) Be ‘actively looking’
If you’re available for work, you need to let potential freelance clients know. And there are a few ways you can do this.
It’s challenging to create and post useful and relevant content regularly. I have not been able to keep up with the content calendar whatsoever. I post a wide range of content on LinkedIn, for example, the latest blog post, a screenshot with some explanatory-text on it, sometimes, it’s a text-based image, and often it’s a text-only status.
I try to post meaningful content whenever I get a chance to share something. What it does is that it makes my profile stand out from the crowd. As a result, the follower who benefits once pays attention to the content the next time it shows up on the timeline.
9) Connections according to your skills
Don’t just wait for potential clients to find you — go out and connect with people who may need your services.
So, for example, if you’re a freelance content writer, find content or marketing managers and connect with them.
An easy way to find the perfect people to connect with is to look at your existing clients’ profiles. How do they describe themselves on LinkedIn? Are there any common job titles that crop up? And what level of experience do they have?
If you can profile your ideal client based on your existing ones, you can then go out and find other people who are similar.
10) Complete your profile
According to LinkedIn, complete profiles get 40% more opportunities. Even just adding a profile photo will get you 21 times more profile views (and make it 36 times more likely you’ll get a message).
So even if you do just one thing on LinkedIn to boost your chances of finding freelance work through it, get your profile right!
Make sure you complete each section required to achieve LinkedIn’s All Star Status, and create a profile you’re proud of and that potential clients will love.
And
I am available for “freelance” writing work.
Mention in comments if you want me to write for You.
