Twitter Users: You’re not as popular as you may think

Truthfully, when is the last time you sat down and sifted through the long list of followers you have amassed on Twitter? Checking the accounts one by one? When is the last time you sorted through the people you are following? What you find may surprise you.

Twitter, like most other social networking sites, is full of dormant accounts. People lose interest and walk away from them. Most of the time, they do so unnoticed. Chances are, some of these people were once your followers and vice versa. You may think you have two thousand followers and carry some degree of clout. You must, right? Two thousand people aren’t diggin’ your tweets for nothin’.

In reality, many of those “followers” haven’t been active on Twitter in months. This same reality applies to the people you are following. We get so caught up in the more prolific Twitter users that we lose sight of those who aren’t very posty. This gives us the impression that we’re more popular than we actually are.

Culling your follower and following list is a must-do for any Twitter user. Aside from giving you the chance to gauge your real popularity on the site, purging the inactive users from your list makes room for people who are actually reading and passing on your tweets.

Which is why you started tweeting in the first place, right?

When is the last time you wrote for you?

As freelancers, we all get bogged down in the rut of, “Must write to survive”. That’s true – to a point, if freelance writing is your only source of income. It pays the bills, buys the groceries, and provides all the other needful things.

But what about other kinds of needful things? The need to escape every now and then to do something  just for you?

Tonight, while finishing up some projects with fast approaching deadlines, I stopped to ask myself when is the last time I wrote for me? I couldn’t remember! I had fallen in the rut of “Must write to survive” and totally forgotten why I started writing in the first place.

So I stopped what I was working on and went off in search of something to write “for me”.  Something. Anything. A long lost passion, a pet peeve, some random post on a website that accepts commentary.

Mine ended up being Spooftimes.  It allows me to do so many of the things I enjoy! Writing…researching current events…voicing my opinion…making fun of celebrity scapegoats..debunking nonsense theories. And! The whole idea is to do it with sarcasm! O, how I love sarcasm. It’s one of the very few things in life I have mastered the fine art of.

So..ask yourself when is the last time you wrote for you.

If you can’t recall, it’s been too long.

Freelancing in Second Life

Business is booming in Second Life and writers are in high demand. SL business owners are reaching out to “real life” for advertising and building their customer base. They are doing this in the form of websites and blogs devoted to their in-world businesses. SL business owners are finding themselves in dire need of written content on a daily basis to keep up with the competition.

Writers, do you value yourselves?

Do you value your skills and your talent?

Do the jobs that you take on reflect this?

If not, you should re-think your approach.

This article, Value of a Writer, will teach you some things about yourself and your talents that you may not already know.

Brand Name Writers

A question to the freelance writers out there:

Are you making a name for yourself?

You’re a commodity. You have your own brand. Your style of writing is unique and no one else can offer the exact services that you do. So are you utilizing your uniqueness to your full advantage by branding yourself and your name?

If you’re not, you should start.

This article, Brand Name Writers, will help lead you in the right direction to making your brand a household (business-hold?) name.

Internships vs Free Labor

Freelance writers know how frustrating it can be to sift through hundreds of leads each week, searching for the perfect gig. This frustration is compounded by the number of gigs written to attract ‘interns’.

When you think of an internship, the first thing that comes to mind is no pay. The second thing that comes to mind is learning something useful. The third thing that comes to mind is garnering experience in your chosen field. While internships can be invaluable tools for writers in some niches and fields of journalism, the kind that are typically offered online don’t qualify as being such an asset.

What most online ads are wanting is someone to write their copy for free. The (obscure) website owners may truly believe that, by offering this chance, they are doing the writer a service by providing ‘exposure’. In today’s technologically advanced era, anyone can get exposure, they can get it themselves, and they can get it for free.

Here are some questions to ask yourself before you decide to accept an internship.

*What can this gig teach me that I don’t already know?
*Can this gig expose me to people and markets who would have, otherwise, been out of my reach?
*Will this gig help my resume’?
*What will I gain from this experience?

Value yourself and your talents by not settling for less than what you deserve.