Students That Freelance

Tips for Using Social Media as a Student Freelancer

Amber Leigh Turner — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:00:17 +0000

Social media, social media, social media. It is everywhere and becoming more and more integrated into our lives, the websites we visit, and how we conduct business. For some freelancers, including students, the use of social media can even assist in landing jobs or help them when they are stuck. So what are some of the common things you should know and learn about using social media as a student freelancer?

Keep business and personal separate

Stating the obvious here, but most student freelancers start everything under their name. I did that when I first started freelancing too. But social media is one of those things that you should really keep separate identities for.

Students often use Facebook and Twitter for personal usage: posting pictures of their friends, parties, events, etc. As a student freelancer, however, your clients aren’t interested in what you dressed up as for Halloween, or that you won a game of Beer Pong. Actually, your clients could be very put off by these things and go as far as to not hire you to work on their projects.

Thus, the solution to this (and this works if you are trying to get hired as a full time employee as well, even part time employee in some cases) is to keep separate identities in social media for different purposes. Keep your personal Facebook, Twitter, etc., but set them to private so only your friends and followers can see your posts and pictures. This will keep outside viewers from seeing your content and misconstruing what they are.

As for your freelancing identities, create a Facebook page and set up a new Twitter handle (and the equivalencies of these in other social media networks) that you will use only for freelancing, and of course keep these public. Post only professional content that you wouldn’t mind your clients (or potential employer) reading and making judgments based off your content.

Keep your friends/followers updated

It’s one thing to have social media accounts in various places, but it is quite a different thing to use them. One really great way to use social media is simply to keep your friends and followers updated. Post what projects you have been working on along with some images. If you are learning a new skill, brag about it a bit.

When you start to use social media in this way, always keep in mind that you are marketing yourself with every status and tweet you post. Those that are following these social media identities are wanting to know more about you on a professional level, so give it to them.

A word of caution: TOO much updating, and you start to become annoying. Be sure to not overwhelm those who follow you because they will quickly stop following you or stop being fans of yours on Facebook. And you don’t want that. Those that use social media alot tend to judge your presence by the number of followers and fans you have on social networks (even though this is a highly inaccurate way to judge such presence), so keeping that number on the rise can help your credibility and your reach as far as marketing yourself.

It’s all about community

Social media is meant to be social. It’s great if you have alot of followers and fans, but you should really build up those that you like on those social media networks as well, and talk to them from time to time. Follow some of your favorite freelancers or designers, or anyone that influences you. When they post something that really interests you, show them love and retweet/share it and send them a message letting them know how much you enjoyed their content.

This can work to your benefit later on. The larger the network you build through your professional identities on social networks, the larger that network is when you need help with something. I can’t tell you how many times I turned to Twitter to get advice on something I was working on, to ask a general question about freelancing, or needed to know where to find something. Most of the time I got really great help and was able to cut down on my time in struggling to find an answer. But always remember, reciprocity is a beautiful thing.

In what other ways can a student freelancer use social media?

Things to consider before you start freelancing as a student

Amber Leigh Turner — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:00:15 +0000

With the economy like it is and the fact that jobs are becoming harder and harder to find, more students are wanting to turn away from the future rat race of finding a job and become self employed as a freelancer. That is great and all, but are you cut out for it?

My students are shocked at what all is involved when they start freelancing, and often quitting before they get going good. So what are some things you can think about and consider before you start freelancing as a student?

Time

This is probably the #1 thing I tell any student before they start freelancing. Do you even have the time to put forth into gaining clients, maintaing projects, billing clients, and all of that admin work like taxes and invoicing? Most students are taking a full load, with some other major obligation (a part time job, campus job, athletics, clubs, etc), so finding time is tough. It is so much easier to hang out with friends instead of looking for a new client.

Do you have the time to dedicate to your freelancing? If I had to put a rough number of hours you would have to spend a week to make freelancing viable enough to replace a part time job, you would have to work/put in roughly 20 hours a week minimum. Sure it is possible to freelance and only work 5 hours or 10 hours a week, but when you run out of projects, then you start scrambling to find that next project, which eats alot of time if you haven’t been doing it all along.  Resources

Resources ranges from current income, proper equipment, and other things like a portfolio and necessary business skills. Don’t have your own computer and you are a web designer? You could see where that would be problematic. You can’t start freelancing and rely on a school’s computer to be able to do the work.   Income is a major situation that varies from student to student, as we all have different situations. Are you living on your own or with your parents? If you are living on your own, then you will need to keep whatever job or source of income you currently have, or you will end up eating crackers. If you live with your parents, and depending on the situation at home, you may be able to float for a few months to a semester with very little income. Whatever the situation, you want to evaluate your income and what you can and cannot get by with for at least the first six months after you start freelancing.

Knowledge

Closely related to resources, do you have the knowhow to do what you want to do? Chances are if you are a freshman in college and haven’t taken any classes yet related to the field of freelancing you would like to do, and haven’t had any job experience, then your freelancing endeavor will be a dud.  Take some time and make an inventory of the skills you currently have, and the skills you need to complete client projects. One way to do this is to pay attention to things you are doing in your classes. Are you struggling with software to complete projects? Do you find it hard to finish projects to the best of your ability? If so then you may want to take some time to sharpen those skills. Once you can fly through school projects and get them done earlier than most students, then that is one indicator that you have the skills necessary to complete client projects.  Motivation

Last, but certainly not least. Motivation keeps you going. You have to be motivated on the start, and stay motivated. There are alot of reasons in freelancing to cause you to get discouraged or make you unmotivated. Heck, there are reasons outside of freelancing that could make you unmotivated, but it is important that you keep that motivation that you had to start throughout your entire freelancing endeavor if you would like for it to last.

Final note

These are just the high points of consideration you should think about before starting to freelance. There are thousands of considerations, but these are the main ones for student freelancers. Most freelancing blogs and books also cover some things to consider, but are usually catered to those that have full time jobs, a family, and other obligations. Take some mental notes about your current situation and the demands of freelancing before you start.

Hopefully this was more of a motivation post than a discouraging one, but research and enlightenment are beautiful things. Freelancing is one of those things that require time and energy to fully enjoy, and I hope every student gets the opportunity to freelance, with the right expectations in mind.

What are some other factors one should consider before starting to freelance as a student

Dribbble Invite Giveaway Winner!

Amber Leigh Turner — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:00:49 +0000

Well the day has finally come to announce who won the Dribbble invite. Man, let me tell you. It was tough! I had such a hard time narrowing down images.

To give you a rundown of the contest: 18 people entered a total of 54 images (3 each). I finally narrowed it down to 7 people with 9 images (of which you will see below).

This was not easy to judge at all. I went back and forth between the images I had and the same quality images that were on Dribbble to help narrow them down. I also looked for conventional design things such as color, line, details, typography, etc to help as well. I still ended up with the 9 images below that I felt were very strong. I then picked a couple out of the pack that stood above the others and made sure they followed all the instructions given in the original announcement post.

One stood out to me however, and they are the one who I will be drafting later today. However, all of the finalists below deserve Dribbble invites in my opinion. I wish I had 6 more invites to give away because all of these people would have been drafted by me today. With that said, if I ever hear of anyone giving any invites away, or if I get more in the near future, these are the people who I will help promote to get an invite.

Below will give all the finalists (in no particular order) and the winner is announced below!

Fahlur Rozzi

Caleb Pardick

Brittani Franco

Sittitsak Jiampotjaman (Notjiam)

Juan Camilo Prada Ojeda

Daniele Di Stanio

Simon Jackson

And the winner is…

Congrats Brittani! I will be drafting you later today to Dribbble!

I picked Brittani’s mainly because of the attention to detail in her work. In the particular image above, she really looked at every element and made sure it was well designed. Overall great color scheme, outstanding typography, and really gave me the feeling that I was at a coffee shop. I can’t wait to see more of these shots on Dribbble.

Final Words

As I said above, everyone had amazing work and it was so very hard for me to pick the winner. SO HARD. Being a judge of design work isn’t easy, even for designers who love critiquing other’s work. Every finalist had really strong work, and that is why I posted the finalists.

Overall I am so thrilled that we had so many people enter and so much great work submitted. I never thought it would be so highly competitive, but there are alot of great designers and illustrators out there, and many of which should be on Dribbble.

(Lovely Dribbble cookie image credit: hellogeri on Flickr)

Dribbble Invite Giveaway!

Amber Leigh Turner — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 11:00:00 +0000

We are back today with a great giveaway for all of our readers here on Students That Freelance! Today, we are opening up the giveaway for an invite to Dribbble, a “show and tell for creatives.”

Dribbble has become one of those prestigious communities online, mainly by its use of an invitation-only system. Anyone can sign up and become a spectator and a prospect (get the basketball theme yet?), but in order to post shots or become a Pro Player, you have to be drafted by a player already posting shots.

That is where I come in. I was lucky enough to be drafted about a year ago, and I am here to return the favor. For those who have been following me personally on Twitter and Facebook, you know that I had already given one invite away to someone that I know who has awesome work. This go around (since I had two invites), I am opening this one up to anyone.

So without further delay, below is how you can enter for your chance to be drafted into one of the best online design communities!

Here is how you enter

In order to be considered for this giveaway, you must do all of the below steps and follow all the details. Please note I am a stickler for directions, thus following them to the “t” is what will increase your chances!

1. Like Students That Freelance on Facebook. I get an email every time someone likes the page.

2. Follow Students That Freelance on Twitter I get an email every time we get a new follower.

3. Subscribe to Students That Freelance RSS feed.

4. Become a prospect on Dribbble by signing up as a spectator here: http://dribbble.com/signup and clicking “I would like to become a player, add me to the list of prospects.”
5. Gather three of your best pieces of work, and make a screenshot 400px by 300px (the size they require on Dribbble), and name them in the following convention firstlast1.jpg, firstlast2.jpg and firstlast3.jpg (for instance mine would be amberturner1.jpg, amberturner2.jpg, and amberturner3.jpg). They can be .jpg, .png, or .gif.

6. Send those three images to me at hello@studentsthatfreelance.com with the subject “Dribbble Invite Giveaway on STF” along with a link to your Dribbble profile (for instance, this is the link to my Dribbble profile: http://dribbble.com/amberleighturner).

7. Post a comment here, stating what articles you would like to see more of on Students That Freelance.

How the winner will be chosen

Dribbble is invite-only and they do this to keep the quality of the shots posted to very high standards. Thus, everyone who invites someone is responsible for the quality of work that person will be posting.

What I will be doing is taking all of the eligible entries (those that followed all of those steps above to a “T”), and putting all of the images in a folder (this is why it is important to follow the instructions). I will then look through the images and find the one that blows my socks off. Who ever name is attached to that image will be drafted by me on Dribbble. If the competition is really tough, I may bring in a few extra people to help me judge.

Giveaway duration

Since I can’t leave this thing open forever, I will be closing the giveaway on Sunday, October 16th, 2011 at 11:59 pm CST and will be announcing the winner here on the site Monday, October 17th, 2011, with the winner being drafted shortly after the announcement.

So good luck, and let me see some awesome work!

Winner of the UPrinting Custom Business Card Giveaway

Amber Leigh Turner — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:00:22 +0000

Last week, we featured a print giveaway from the fine folks at UPrinting. With three entries, everyone had a 33.333…% chance of winning (yes, I am a math nerd). Thus, who was the lucky winner?

As I stated in the original post, I was going to use a random number generator to tell me which person won! Below is a screenshot of the output of the random number generator.

This means that the second commenter won, which is Laura!

Congrats Laura! I will be sending you an email tomorrow with information about your prize!

This isn’t the only giveaway I have in store for our readers! Stay tuned next week when I announce a very exciting giveaway that will sure to be something you will want stick around for!

Fundamentals for your online freelance portfolio

David Sumner — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:00:54 +0000

In this economic climate thousands of freelance students are finding it tougher than ever to land their perfect job. After studying for many years and racking up a huge debt it can be utterly demoralizing to find that once you’ve graduated from University, you’ll be fighting it out with hundreds of thousands of other qualified and eager graduates in the search for work. Law and medical graduates have it far easier than most as it is common for Law firms and Hospital boards to actively target the University campus in search for talent. For the rest of us however, if we want to survive after University in a market saturated with qualified graduates, then freelancing represents an exciting opportunity to get some experience in a specific field and yet maintain control over your own life and finances.

Nevertheless, no matter what your field of expertise, chances are you’re going to stay an unemployed and penniless graduate if you don’t sell your skills effectively to potential clients. The solution? Creating a portfolio online is perhaps the fastest way to convince customers of your worth as it enables interested clients to view your biography, experience, skills, qualifications and past work with ease. Here are the most important points for your online portfolio;

List your skills;

The first step in any professional portfolio is to list your specific skills. After all, these skills are primarily what the customer is looking for in the first place. If the client is searching for a freelancer that can provide quality web design services then they will know that they are looking in the right place if the skill for web design is listed at the start of your portfolio. Your skills will be the hook that will draw the attention of the client in and don’t be afraid to give a long list of skills. In this section the more skilled qualities you have the better. If you can speak more than one language then here is the place to state this as it will catch the attention of internationally based clients.

A short biography;

The purpose of a biography in a portfolio is to give a snap-shot as to who you are and provide a face behind the work. However, the best places to give an in-depth biography are personal blogs and websites, where you can list your favorite hobbies and talk about your interests to your heart’s desire. Therefore, in your portfolio you should keep your personal info to a minimum and instead focus on your professional attributes. A name and location will typically suffice for details that need to be shared. Nevertheless, if you DO want to write a short introduction to you and your services keep the text short.

Build trust;

As a graduate freelancer there may be clients who are unsure as to the quality of your services and would rather hire the services of a professional agency with a recognized name and track history. Don’t worry, as a young freelancer you have the chance to show your potential clients that you can bring the personal touch and one-to-one services alongside your enthusiasm and expertise that the agencies cannot hope to provide. Nevertheless, to shore up your credentials provide a copy of any technical qualifications you have or relevant certificates that you have achieved. Another way to build trust is to include positive testimonies from any previous clients that you have had in the past as this will increase your credibility and reputation as a freelancer.

Show your brilliance;

Provide examples of past work and projects that you have undertaken. If your speciality is creating quality logo designs then it makes sense to include samples of your work into your portfolio. In fact, if you are a design freelancer then try to showcase a variety of past work including logo designs that you may have designed for companies or sports teams to show your diversity of talent. Now, if you are a student freelancer or have just graduated then it’s highly likely that you haven’t got a wide-ranging portfolio of previous work because your career is only just starting. Nevertheless, if you’ve only worked on a small number of projects then at least describe these projects in detail and give more in-depth examples of the type of work that you carried out in these projects, after all it’s quality that counts, not quantity.

Get your Portfolio out there!

As a student or graduate you probably won’t have a large budget with which you can market yourself and buying a website or outsourcing the task of its creation to an expert is expensive. That’s where online freelancing platforms like twago can come to the rescue. On this platform you can create an online portfolio of yourself and start bringing your talents to the people who need them most. The playing field is level and if you can make the most considered offer, emphasizing your talent, value for money and passion for your field of expertise then there’s nothing stopping you from success.

Author: David from twago, Europe’s largest online freelancing platform for experts in app programming, PHP development, graphic design, web design, translation and SEO.

UPrinting Custom Business Card Giveaway!

Amber Leigh Turner — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:00:39 +0000

Today we are pleased to offer a giveaway on behalf of UPrinting to Students That Freelance readers! Here is your chance to win one set of 250 Custom Business Cards!

UPrinting does awesome work. For students, it is a great way to print business cards for you or your clients. They don’t only offer business card printing, but they offer various types of online printing at affordable prices.

One lucky STF reader will receive the following:

250 Custom Business Cards
2 x 3.5” with Rounded Corners, 2 x 2” (square card) with Rounded Corners, or 1.75 x 3.5” (slim card) with rounded corners.
Also you have the additional options of die-cuts: 2 x 3.5″ Leaf, 2 x 3.5″ Rounded One Corner, 2 x 3.5″ Half Circle Side, 2 x 3.5″ Oval, or 2.5″ Circle die-cut.
These cards will be printed on the a choice of the following stock: 14 pt Cardstock Gloss/Matte/High Gloss UV, or 13 pt Cardstock Uncoated.
They also feature a 6 business day turn around with free shipping in the US.

So how do you enter?

To enter you must be at least 18 years old or older, be a resident of the US. Leave a comment below telling us how we can help improve the site, and what you would like to see us write more about! Only one post per person will be allowed. You must also provide a valid email address (which will remain private) in order to receive your prize.

You have until Friday September 23, 2011 at 11:59 PM CST to enter.

I will use a random number generator to pick a number of the winner based on the order of the comments. I will announce the winner Monday, September 26, 2011 on the site! Please note that if you do not include some information on how we can improve the site, you will not be eligible.

How will you know if you are the winner? Well, you better subscribe to our RSS feed or “like” us on Facebook so you don’t miss the big announcement!

*Note: The opinions expressed above are my opinion entirely. UPrinting has not provided any monetary compensation to provide the giveaway.

Five Great Examples of Student Portfolio Websites

Amber Leigh Turner — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:00:31 +0000

The student freelancer population is growing every year as students are nearing graduation and wanting to make a career for themselves. Recent grads also find themselves in a position where their best career move is to become a freelance designer. No matter what situation you are in, your portfolio will literally make or break you. Here is a handfull of great student portfolio websites for inspiration and motivation to get your portfolio in tip-top shape!

Jenny Pan

Caroline Brickell

Kristopher Leigh

Cory Etzkorn

Marco Manansala

So there you have it: five beautiful and well constructed student portfolio websites. Know of any student portfolio websites that blow your socks off?

Fall Semester About to Start? Tips and Tricks for Survival as a Student Freelancer

Amber Leigh Turner — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:22:36 +0000

I don’t know about you, but my fall semester–the busiest of my collegiate career–will begin two weeks from today. Where did summer break go? If you are like me, chances are you spent most of your summer working on freelance projects and building your business. Kudos to you my friend! But when school starts, the time we have to work on our freelance business and meet client needs dwindles. Fast. With two weeks (give or take a few depending on your college) before the school year starts up again, I am going to share with you some tips and tricks to make going back to school easier on the student freelancer who also has a business to run.

Get things done now

I know, I know. Seems cliche, but trust me, it works. Take a few moments to take an inventory of how your business is running right now. Do you have projects that you are working on? If so, what can you do now to help free your time when the semester starts? For instance, could you go ahead and work on other parts of the project now instead of when you scheduled them? Could you get the project finished before the semester starts? Do you have reoccurring invoices? If so, could you go ahead and get those ready to send out ahead of time? Of course, this questioning could go on forever.

Take a look at the aspects of your business (and personal life). If your freelance books are out of shape, get them up to date before school starts to reduce your stress later down the road. If your room looks like a tornado hit it, now is a good time to work and clean your room up to get ready for the semester. Just looking at everything you need to do and should do before the semester starts when it comes to your freelancing, then taking care of those things before the busy semester starts, can help reduce your stress when papers and tests start eating away at your time.

Plan ahead

Similar to the above, but crucial as well. Dust of your planner and start writing down things that will pop up during the course of the semester. Dates invoices are due, project deadlines, family events, etc are all important keep note of. When the semester starts, take all of those syllabi with schedules attached and write down important project and tests dates in that planner. And if you are all about your planner like yours truly, you should also look at your university’s academic calendar and make note of those all important days off.

Writing all of these dates down will help you not only help you to have to remember less as the semester rolls on, but allows you to see what is coming up and allow for better planning of your time. For instance, during your fall break, you could work to wrap up a client project, or get a head start on that term paper due at the end of the semester.

Take care of yourself

Something I always have a hard time with. During the semester, you tend to start losing more and more sleep, and start not eating the way you should and it all starts to catch up with you. But what can you do now to prevent that from happening? Simple: think of things you can do now and get in the habit of doing those things. For me, it was exercise. I have started exercising at least four times a week so that it boosts my metabolism and helps me sleep better at night.

Some ways you can prep yourself for the upcoming semester include: start going to bed earlier and waking up earlier to help your body get adjusted to early-morning classes; start exercising and put that plan in place so that it is a habit before school starts; have set times of when you will work on client projects and when you will work on school work. Taking care of yourself is a huge way to keep your stress level down and keep from feeling burn out toward December.

Other tips

I have hit on a few above, but I have written some articles that can help you with your fall semester. The power of planning is definitely a powerful way to help you stay ahead of the curve. With holidays coming and going during the fall semester, I wrote about surviving the holidays as well. Last year I wrote on a similar topic to this post, but it involves how to prepare for the fall semester. If your schedule isn’t set in stone yet and you are still working on finding classes, give this article a read about taking business classes. I mentioned that your free time dwindles down to nothing during the semester, so I wrote how you can help maintain that school/work/life balance as well. Finally when December rolls around, insanity ensues! Here are ways you can work to keep sane during finals week.

Have any other tips that you use to prep for the busy semester ahead?

Fields of Freelancing for Student Freelancers

Amber Leigh Turner — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 20:27:42 +0000

When people often think about freelancers, most of the time the types of work they do are design work or writing work. This often casts a preconceived notion that if you aren’t a designer (or web developer) or writer that you can’t be a freelancer. Well, I am here to tell you that there are many fields in which the student-wanting-to-freelance can freelance in. In this article, you will see that the sky is the limit in what you can offer as your freelance service. And this article isn’t all-inclusive–let your imagination take you to freelance places you never though could be possible!

Photography

A quickly-becoming-popular field of freelancing is photography. For students who major in photography or even those that have a passion for it can benefit from indulging in the freelance life as a photographer. Freelance photographers range from portrait photographers, wedding photographers, even editorial photographers. Have a keen eye on how to take beautiful pictures of rooms in a house? You can offer your services to real estate agents and offer to take pictures for them of the properties they list. Know of a wedding planner? They always need photographers for events such as engagements, weddings, and rehearsal dinners.

Illustration

Probably one of the oldest freelancing fields, illustrators are still on demand. Matter of fact, for one of my most recent projects I had to hire a freelance illustrator to come in and illustrate figures for my client. Those students who are great drawers and animators can have a great career as a freelance illustrator illustrating things from comics, to editorial cartoons, to figures and mascots, to beautiful landscapes.

Mobile Application Development

A growing field, students who have the knowledge and experience to build mobile applications can find themselves in a growing freelance field. With so many people buying and using smart phones, the need to develop special applications on platforms such as iPhone and Android is growing among businesses. Student freelancers have the opportunity to get in while the field is booming out of control and take a piece of the pie when it comes to mobile app development.

Video Production and Editing

Yes, even those skilled in video production and editing can make a great freelancing career. I see many more students getting involved with video production and editing and more and more classes being offered at the college level for such work. Students who take these classes and start building on their skills can work from home editing videos and such for agencies and work on projects such as commercials and advertising videos that are found on websites.

Translations

Often students have to take a foreign language class (or two) while in college, and some of these students often take a passion for the foreign language. Those students who are pursing degrees in a foreign language can offer their services as a freelance translator for companies who need their marketing materials or website content translated for use in other countries.

Even though I only mentioned four different types of fields here, the sky really is the limit. Think about the things that you are passionate about, or even better the field you are majoring in, and start searching to see if there is a need for such services. Join freelancing forums and post topics about if a certain service is a viable freelancing career. Other freelancers can surely guide you in the right direction to help tailor your thinking about what field you are thinking of pursuing.

So what field of freelancing are you interested in?