Social Media Portfolios

Preface: I'm not a big social media user... so keep that in mind as you read. I find social media, in general, a waste of time and think it's only really useful as a marketing/advertising tool if you already have a following of some sort, such as being a celebrity or an existing, established, client base that is significant. But, that's all just my opinion. My clients, don't give a hoot what I'm doing on a daily basis, they just want their work as fast as I can turn it around. None of my client would be interested in a daily feed of my activities or thoughts. They simply wouldn't care. But those are my clients. Your audience may differ.

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What I've found, in general, is that a focused business does much better than a diversified business when the operating staff is limited. If you have 3 people you can assign to manage 3 social media accounts, then by all means that may be good for you. As a single individual spreading yourself across multiple accounts merely means no single account will get the attention it needs. If you aren't already a dedicated social media enthusiast then spending so much time managing accounts, for me, would become drudgery and I'd quickly grow to dislike the effort and then things would languish. That will do far more harm than if the account was never created in the first place.

As a sole proprietary, single member business, I find it is often best to focus attention into a primary area of desired work. This allows for much more dedicated advertising and targeting. Most freelancers, after a period of initial client acquisition, start to fall into a "niché" or area of specialty. It's rare that you find a freelancer working on absolutely anything and everything. Sure many can explore some broader areas based upon client requests. However, it's best to focus on where you want to work, not on what you can work on.

A common mistake, I feel, that those starting out make is trying to be everything to everyone. This may make for more work, but not necessarily better work or better clients. You may find you can fill your days with client requests, but they are often one-off, barely profitable, tasks which take so much time you are left struggling to find better paying work. And the smaller clients tend to not really be repeat customers. For me, the bread and butter of freelancing is the repeat business. It typically eliminates the need to do any broad advertising and often the need for any advertising.

My advice would be do one thing well. When that has a "life of its own" and is not something which needs constant attention, then start thinking about broadening the scope. If you excel at one thing, word-of-mouth will often be a catalyst for more work in that area and the need to advertise those skills diminishes. This frees you to start looking at advertising another area and attempt to grow that into a larger revenue stream.

In addition, clients will dictate where you may want to focus. It could easily be that no one you find is interested in the more NSFW content, so why bother advertising it? Or you could discover that most of the clients you come across ask about NSW type of content.. so dedicating some advertising there may be beneficial. You shouldn't assume that because you can do something there's an adequate market for you in that area. If you are starting out, leave the more risqué stuff for later, unless that's all you really want to do.

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Again, this is all merely my opinion based upon my experience as a freelancer over a couple of decades.