We're about to hit peak season for freelancers: now's the time that agencies start planning cover for when their staff take holiday leave. It's the best time of year to have a portfolio on Freelancentral. This month we are launching a new series of articles: 'What creative freelancers can learn from suits', which we trust you'll find useful and practical - do let us know what you think. Here's to a productive and sunny end-of-year rush!
issue 27 ::
October 2008
WE'RE HIRING
Freelancentral is expanding and we are looking for the following two people to join the team in Cape Town from early 2009:
- Placements consultant - 4+ years recruitment or agency account handling experience is required as well as a drive to be a 'marketing matchmaker'.
- Half-day admin assistant - you'll need to be organised, web-savvy, have awesome attention to detail and great client manner.
Contact Jo for job specs and information on how to apply
GET THE LATEST SENT TO YOU
Want the latest news, new member listings and placement ads sent to you as they are uploaded to Freelancentral? Simply sign up for our RSS feed - click on the link on our home page. If you don't already use a feed reader, we recommend Google Reader as an easy way of aggregating the latest posts from all the sites you read regularly.
FEATURED RESOURCE:
Seth Godin's blog
Seth is THE marketing guru and his blog is among the most popular in the world. His practical and pragmatic approach and extraordinary insights make for riveting reading, as do his books.
Got a resource you'd like to recommend to the Freelancentral community? Send your favourite blog or website links, book titles or software recommendations to info@freelancentral.co.za.
SITE STATS FOR SEPTEMBER
From Google Analytics:
- 2,640 visits
- 15,747 page views
- 5.95 pages per visit
- 36.47% bounce rate
- 10:00 average time on site
- 53.48% new visitors
PORTFOLIO CRITIQUES
Are you selling yourself effectively in your Lite or Full portfolio? Wouldn't it be great to have someone give you an honest assessment of your portfolio, and tips on how to improve it? Lite and Full members can get this by making use of our Portfolio Critique service, via our free Advice Line. Just call the Freelancentral team on 021 780 1364 or mail us on info@freelancentral.co.za
GET 25% OFF YOUR NEXT FULL PORTFOLIO
Don't forget that if you send us your Freelancentral success stories and we publish them in our newsletter or on the site, you'll get 25% off your next month's Full portfolio. Submit your stories by sending us a mail.
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Read how Freelancentral is helping South African freelancers
on our new Testimonials page - and do send us your success stories too.
If Freelancentral has connected you successfully,
whether you're a client or freelancer, we'd love to hear from you.
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** STOP PRESS ** PLACEMENT BRIEF: Bilingual (Eng/Afr) m/w proofreader for 1-2 month in-house contract, CT, starting Monday 03.11. Contact Jo for details. ** STOP PRESS **
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WHAT CREATIVE FREELANCERS CAN LEARN FROM SUITS:
PART 1: Put it in writing
This is the first in a series on the lessons that creatives can learn from account handlers (aka those in 'client service' - or 'suits'). Creative freelancers often come from protected studio environments and it can be quite a shock having to face clients, take criticism and do boring stuff like admin and chasing payments. We hope you'll find these articles useful and practical in helping you freelance more professionally.
If there's one lesson a freelancer should learn, it is to document everything. Most arguments, disputes and lost clients can be attributed to misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Communication is key to a successful freelancer's career - and putting this communication in writing is vital.
Read on for why you should keep a paper trail and what you should document.
FOUR REASONS TO PUT YOUR PORTFOLIO LIVE NOW
1. Google Analytics shows that visitors to the Freelancentral site spend on average slightly under 10 minutes browsing it. That's a long time! Make sure your portfolio is one of the ones they check out by reactivating it and updating it with your latest work.
2. The last few months of the year is the best time to have a portfolio with Freelancentral - now's when clients (a) rush to finish spending their budgets and (b) start planning cover for the holiday period.
3. Our year-end PR campaign on BizCommunity started in October - we're expecting a lot of traffic as a result. Great exposure for our portfolio members.
4. If you haven't yet made use of our Portfolio Critique service, call to request one once your listing is live. This entails an analysis to help you make your listing as attractive as possible. Currently a free service, there will be a small fee for this from 1 January, so get yours done now.
PIKE: On thin ice
So Wall Street looks a bit jittery lately. Never mind the Nikkei, Hang Seng, FTSE and the good old JSE. Even people who don't know finance are slinging around terms like "deficit" and "tipping point" over their Ricoffy (Nescafe? Sorry, I'm budgeting; you know). It all brings to mind a very useful survival tactic, whether we're talking investment or creative freelance: diversification. Read on for more...
CHRISTINE ONLINE: Internet marketing: Web 2.0 style
Facebook, Twitter, blogs... there's a lot of pressure on marketers to integrate 'web 2.0' technologies into traditional and 'old school' online media. But for many, the importance of web 2.0 and social media is still unclear. Christine explains...
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