Which Online Resources Do You Utilize To Develop Your Freelance Writing Business?

By Dan Smith

I’ve talked in the past about how important it is to be actively using various online resources, such as blogs and different social media websites and that by contributing regularly, you’ll do nothing but bolster your online presence and further yourself as a freelance writer.

Take Twitter as an example of an online resource.

Both Sharon and I are on Twitter (@SHurleyHall and @itsdansmith) and both of us use the resource regularly. Sharon may be the more active member and the one who engages on a more frequent basis, but I know that we have both seen the benefits — as I mentioned a few weeks back, the way I came about writing for Get Paid To Write Online is because I saw Sharon was looking for a blogger via Twitter.

Whilst I don’t use Facebook for business purposes myself, I do use it for business for several clients and I know that if it’s utilized properly, it can be a particularly useful resource for any business.

Couple this with my interaction on several blogs, a love for LinkedIn, Digg and StumbleUpon and a relatively new discovery of the joys of Reddit and I like to think that I use a good, varied amount of online resources to engage with others and promote my services as a freelance writer.

And then I realised the other day that I’m actually only using a tiny percentage of what’s available out there.

One of the problems with being self-employed is that your finances aren’t secure and you tend to always work towards that elusive point in your career where you’re earning a sum of money on a regular basis that you’re comfortable with.

Doing what you can to reach this point, when you start to get close, you begin to focus intently on what you’re currently doing, with the thought that if it’s worked getting you this far, a little bit more time will see your efforts push you towards your goal.

Although I’m not at my current ideal monthly income goal just yet, it is getting closer and over the last few weeks I’ve found that I’m focusing more on resources such as Twitter and LinkedIn to help me bring that income goal closer.

Whilst good in one sense, the issue with this is that, to a certain degree, I’ve started to ignore what other resources are available for me to utilize, somewhat naively, as although it might take some time to be able to implement these new resources initially, it could bring my income goal within reach a lot quicker than if I just carried on as I was.

And it’s for this reason why over the last week in particular I’ve started to look at what else I could be using.

I’ve come across Quora, the question and answer website; Tumblr, a blogging platform and I’ve rediscovered Technorati and del.icio.us — I used to use them a lot several years ago, put them to one side temporarily and never restarted their use.

Assuming that you already use the primary online resources that we talk about regularly, most notably Twitter and blogs, what other online resources do you use and more importantly, do you find that they help you as a freelance writer?

Image: alanagkelly (Flickr)