Scheduling Social Media Updates While on Vacation: The Pros and Cons

By Susan Johnston 4 Comments

Last week, I returned from a 10-day vacation, which I haven’t taken in several years. Although an avalanche of unread emails and deadlines and catch-up work had accumulated in my absence and I returned with an unwanted souvenir (a cold), I felt refreshed and grateful for the chance to get away. A change of scenery and time away from my computer inspired some new story ideas, too. One of the ideas I pondered during my eight hour flight was this post.

In anticipation of the big trip, I alerted my clients well in advance and tried to schedule deadlines before or after my trip. But with the social media client, I’m responsible for posting daily tweets, Facebook status updates, and the like, so that got into messier territory.

I opted to schedule tweets and status updates to cover my vacation so our feed wouldn’t be dormant while I’m away. I also scheduled one tweet each weekday for my own Twitter feed–and surprisingly, my Klout score remained steady even though I wasn’t actively engaging while I was away. But in talking to other freelancers who have an active social media presence (either for themselves or their clients), I discovered some downsides to this approach. Here’s a look at the pros and cons of scheduling social media updates as well as some other options.

Pros:

No interruption to updates: Even if you run into spotty internet access while you’re away, you can be reasonably sure (see below) that your social media feed will remain active so you don’t lose momentum while you’re away.
Efficiency: Posting on social media several times per day eats up valuable time switching back and forth between tasks. Writing a batch social media updates at once but spacing them apart so you don’t overwhelm your followers is a more efficient use of time. I also found that scheduling 10 days worth of tweets made me think more big picture strategy instead of tweeting whatever caught my eye in that moment.
More control over timing: Scheduling updates in advance allows you to control when they appear in your feed. If you know that most of your followers check Twitter or Facebook first thing in the morning Eastern Standard Time, for instance, you can make sure you appear in their feeds at that time even if you’re not physically at your computer.

Cons:

Lack of timeliness: If you post about current events in your feed, scheduled tweets could feel stale by the time they actually appear in your feed. I tried to counter this concern by front-loading the feed with timely tweets at the beginning of my vacation and using more evergreen links towards the end. The other issue is that if something catastrophic happens while you’re away (think: Hurricane Sandy or the Sandy Hook massacre), you could look like a jerk for tweeting about fashion or luxury travel during a crisis. My plan was to find an internet cafe and disable scheduled tweets if something like that happened while I was away.
Lack of personal interaction: Personal interactions like @ mentions, DMs, or RTs go a long way towards building an online community. Not responding in real time could make you seem robotic or impersonal. One freelancer I spoke with schedules the majority of her tweets while she’s away and checks in periodically to make sure she’s also mixing in a few RTs or @ mentions.
Possible tech glitches: Sometimes scheduling software doesn’t work, and that can result in interruptions to your feed. If you’re not actively monitoring your accounts, you may not know about these issues until days later.

If you post on social media for clients, here are some alternatives to scheduling status updates during a vacation:

Subcontracting: If your client is cool with it, you may be able to subcontract social media responsibilities to a trusted colleague while you’re away. In my case, I knew that this client wouldn’t be keen on sharing account passwords and access with someone they hadn’t vetted. Of course, you can always reset the passwords once you return. The other issue is making sure that whoever is covering for you understands nuances of the client’s voice and any guidelines on what they should or shouldn’t tweet, because their mistakes could reflect poorly on you.
Having the client cover: Depending on how hands-on the client is, they may prefer to handle social media themselves while you’re away instead of handing off the reins to someone else. Of course, this probably means you’ll have to take a temporary pay cut if you’re on a monthly or weekly retainer. You could also send some suggested tweets in advance and have them post at their discretion to avoid the issue of context mentioned above.
Posting while away: Some people don’t mind spending a little time each or every other day of a vacation checking social media, especially if they could easily do it from a smartphone or tablet. The downsides of this are, of course, you still have to think about work while you’re away and make sure you have reliable internet access. I didn’t have consistent wifi access and my iPhone didn’t work, so if I’d planned to tweet, it would have created a lot of unnecessary stress. If you’re traveling to a different time zone, you’d either need to factor in the time change as you’re posting or reconcile yourself to the fact that your updates may not appear at the most optimal time for your followers (for instance, if you usually post at 9am ET most mornings and you’re traveling to the West Coast, you’d either have to get up at 6am PT to tweet to your East Coast followers or post later in the day). In my case, I felt it was important to completely unplug to avoid burnout and because I’d be in a foreign country, I wanted to avoid roaming charges or lugging around unnecessary stuff.

Your turn! Do you schedule social media updates while you’re on vacation? How would you handle this situation? Do tell!

Flickr photo courtesy of Helga Weber

Filed Under: freelance writing, Uncategorized Tagged With: social media, Twitter

The 12 Days of Freelancing

By Susan Johnston 8 Comments

The holidays are upon us, so I have a blog tradition of rounding up posts from across the blogosphere ala The 12 Days of Christmas. Here’s a look at some memorable posts about writing and freelancing from the past year. Happy Holidays!

santa and computer One Simple Trick for Effective Self-Editing - Freelancedom

Legal Danger for Bloggers: Two Misconceptions, Three Resources, One Suggestion - ASJA’s The Word

Three Books Every Copywriter Must Read -Filthy Rich Writer

Four Ways to Find Your Business Voice - Words on a Page

Five Freelancing Lessons I Learned the Hard Way: Avoid These Career-Killers - Make a Living Writing

Six Ways Bloggers Can Earn More from Their Writing – The Renegade Writer

Seven Knows for Getting Started in Freelancing – Freelancers’ Union

Eight Ways to Master Cold Calls–or at Least Fear Them Less – Dollars and Deadlines

Nine Freelancing Tips for Handling Illness – Freelance Folder

Ten Ways to Use a Writer’s Conference to Market Your Work – WordCount: Freelancing in the Digital Age

Eleven Rookie Mistakes You Need to Stop Making NOW - Mridu Khullar Relph

Twelve Important Questions to Ask as a Freelance Subcontractor – FreelanceSwitch

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed Under: business of writing, freelance writing

Guest Post: 5 Ways Freelance Writers Can Protect Themselves Against Payment Issues

By Susan Johnston 4 Comments

By Max Cooper

You might think that simply finding clients, jobs or gigs is the hardest part of being self-employed. While it is true that this is a major hurdle, especially early in your freelance career, you may find yourself facing another one as well: dealing with clients who try to back out of agreements or avoid paying you for work after you have completed it. Unfortunately, every freelancer has to deal with this problem occasionally, but taking these precautions can help minimize how much it affects you.

Do Not Deliver Work Until the Payment Has Been Set Aside
Some clients will attempt to use your work without paying for it. It is more common, however, for a client to have second thoughts about holding up their end of their agreement with you after you have held up your end. To minimize the risk of this happening, use an escrow account or go-between service to have payment set aside before you start work. It can then be held until your client receives the work they ordered, then automatically sent to you. Of course, this might not be possible with some direct clients. However, many freelance writer associations are available that connect writers and clients and protect both parties. One service that these types of associations offer is holding payment until work is completed. (Ed. Note: This one would not fly with most of my clients so in cases where we’re using my contract, I stipulate that they do not own the copyright until I receive payment. That way, if they refuse to pay me, then they can’t use my content!)
Require an Initial Deposit
Simply requiring a portion of your payment in advance will significantly reduce the risk that your client will attempt to avoid paying you what you are owed. Between 25 and 50 percent of the entire project amount is typical for a deposit. Make it clear in the contract that this deposit is nonrefundable; if your client tries to abandon the project, you keep the money they have already paid you. You may decide that requiring a deposit is unnecessary with small or one-time clients, but it can be very helpful for ongoing or larger projects.
Be Patient and Professional
Dealing with a client who is attempting to avoid paying you the amount they agreed on can be extremely aggravating, especially since it can feel like they are trying to prevent you from providing for your family. Losing your temper, however, will not help the situation. Be patient and give yourself time to think before you say or write anything to the client. Communication is key to resolving the issue.
Offer Flexible Repayment Options
Of course, clients that have the best of intentions to pay you for your services may run into some type of financial difficulties that interferes with their ability to do so. Being flexible and understanding about this fact can improve your relationship with this client, as well as your odds of actually receiving the money you are owed. For example, you could offer some type of payment plan or a similar arrangement. (Ed. Note: I accept PayPal because it’s easier for some clients to send money through PayPal than write a paper check. And PayPal is faster, too.)
Support Efforts like the Freelancer Payment Protection Act
The Freelancer Payment Protection Act is a bill that was considered in the state of New York, although unfortunately the session ended without passing the bill. It would have facilitated enforcement of payment agreements between freelancers and their clients. If a client tried to get out of paying what they owed, the freelancer in question could report the issue to the New York State Department of Labor, which could then enforce the agreement. Many in the industry feel that this type of measure would help provide freelancers with the same protections other professionals already enjoy.

Guest post contributed by Max Cooper for InjurySettlementGuide.com, a site that explains your rights as an injury victim and how to deal with insurance companies.

Interested in contributing a guest blog post of your own? Check out the guest blogger guidelines.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed Under: business of writing, freelance writing

Guest Post: The Truth About Writing for SEO

By Susan Johnston 10 Comments

By Rebecca Joyner

It’s amazing what happens when you take a descriptive term and chop it down into an acronym. Consider “search engine optimization.” We all know what search engines are. And “optimize” is a familiar word. Most people can figure out that this phrase is about optimizing something so search engines like Google can find it. But once you turn an understandable phrase into alphabet soup – S…E…O… – it suddenly becomes technical. Difficult. Scary.

Writers should not be scared of SEO. They should, however, know what it is and how to wield it for their own benefit or that of their clients. Here are some truths I’ve learned aboutSEO during several years of writing copy that helps businesses get found online:

Writing for SEO starts with writing well. There are plenty of job postings out there for “SEO writers.” Companies are getting smarter about marketing their businesses through online content. That’s a good thing. However, organizations need to know that good SEO writing must first begood writing. Once readers are on your website, you better deliver something informative, entertaining, readable and actionable, or you’ve wasted your time.
Knowing your keywords is similar to knowing your business. Keywords are at the core of most SEOstrategies. These are the words and phrases that prospective readers type into search engines to find you or your client (or your client’s competition). Some simple research on Google Adwords can show you which short and long tail search terms website visitors use most often. But really – if you understand the market, the target customer, and the problem that customer needs to solve – you should have a pretty good idea of your top eight to 10 keywords and phrases.
Pay attention to headlines, subheads, tags and descriptions.Cheap content mills and self-appointedSEO gurus might stuff boring copy with keywords and call it a day. You can’t do that. You are a writer – a writer who happens to know a few things aboutSEO. Make sure you’ve used keywords in the places where they count most: headlines, subheads, blog post tags and meta descriptions. Because your keywords are intrinsically tied into your business and the problem you’re solving for customers, they will naturally appear in the body of your content, as well. Don’t cram them in where they don’t need to be. You’ll get pinged as spam (and you won’t feel good about yourself, either).
Be nice to SEO experts (but don’t compromise your core writing principles). If your client has enlisted the help of SEO consultants, be ready for detailed instructions about the number of keywords you should use and where you should put them. Most of the time, you can heed these instructions without abandoning what you know about how to appeal to readers and get your job done well.

SEO is no panacea for writers or the clients we serve. We still must create work that is clear, compelling and creative. That requirement hasn’t changed since the days of quill pens and parchment; the words mattered most then, and they matter most now. Modern-day realities demand, however, that we know something about distribution, since the words themselves are now part of the strategy for finding readers.

Rebecca Joyner works with small businesses and companies in high-tech, financial services and other industries to write and edit press releases, articles, newsletters, website copy, blog posts, case studies, e-books, marketing collateral and more. Her work has appeared under client bylines on Mashable, Businessweek, MarketingProfs, Computerworld, Search Engine Land and many other outlets, as well as on more than a dozen corporate blogs. Follow Rebecca on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.