Instagram, a mobile photo application, was launched in October 2010 by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom as a unique platform to share your world and your experiences with a few clicks. It allows Instagram followers and users to take a picture, apply a digital filter and share it on a variety of social platforms including on Instagram. With just 27 million users in March 2012, the burgeoning Instagram follower population worldwide has crossed more than 50 million after being acquired by Facebook.

      On April 9, 2012, Instagram was acquired by Facebook for a billion dollars turning the 13 employees of the San Francisco based startup into millionaires. The acquisition made Instagram $50 million dollars more valuable than New York Times within 2 years of its existence. Kevin Systrom, the co-founder of Instagram, now has an equity share of $400 million in the company as a result of the acquisition. Some of the employees at Instagram were only recently hired before the acquisition and are lucky to become millionaires in a short span of time.

      Out of these new hires, Maykel Loomans, serves as an inspiration for freelancers around the world who for their love of work could turn their fate around. Before joining Instagram, Loomans was working as a freelance software designer in Holland having graduated with a BA in Communication and Multimedia Design from Zuyd University in Holland. Not only is Loomans a self-confessed workaholic but also a keen amateur photographer who gave essential Instagram tips to its founders.

      Call it pure luck or sheer perseverance or a combination of the two for being noticed by Instagram and invited to become part of their team, Maykel Loomans stands out as an inspiration for other freelancers who might just be as lucky as him someday. Maykel Loomans, right from his freelancing days, loves his work and places it as first priority. With his eye for detail and extra care in every task, Loomans is able to come up with creative solutions. Moreover, Loomans also looks at things both from a designer perspective as well as an ordinary human being so that the fine details are not overlooked.

      Regardless of the fact that freelancers don’t have a proper job, they have to maintain discipline at all times and work persistently to polish their skills and create a niche of their own. In order to be recognized, you need to develop an attractive portfolio, pitch in for clients and aggressively market your services. Be patient and honest to yourself and your clients, and maintain a professional attitude at all times. Who knows that maybe in the future, Zuckerberg might notice you and offer a share in the giant social network! You just never know when you as an ambitious freelancer might hit a fortune!

        The field of Freelance Writing is as much difficult and tricky to endure, as it is fascinating to pursue by choice. It should be noted that there are certain grounds and standards a freelance writer should abide with. To collect all these norms and to present them in helpful and appropriate manner, Google launched a specific web spam, which is named as Google Penguin Update.

        As a Freelance Writer, one is ought to follow certain guidelines that ensure the high standards and the quality of writing. Considering the violations of these quality measures over a period of span by Freelance Copy Write, Google Penguin Update is an attempt to make sure that these things are kept under control. Google’s announcement read, “In the next few days, we are launching an important algorithm change targeted at web spam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines.” We will have a detailed analysis of what a Freelance Writer is expected do after the launch of this Google Penguin Update.

Specific Guidelines of Google Penguin Update

• Hidden Texts or Hidden Links should be avoided.
• Sneaky redirects or cloaking is not advised for a Freelance Writer.
• Sending automated queries to Google is strictly prohibited.
• Freelance Copy Writer is not supposed to load pages with irrelevant keywords.
• It should be followed that creation of subdomains, Multiple Pages or Duplicate Content Domains is not allowed.
• Creation of pages with malicious behavior like installing viruses should also be avoided.
• It is often noted that doorway pages are created just for search engines OR other cookie cutter approaches like affiliate Programs. Google Penguin Update strictly condemns that.
• Value addition through participation in an affiliate program is considered as an important virtue for a Freelance Copy Writer.

        When we consider all the above guidelines mentioned in Google Penguin Update, we notice some of them are obvious expectations, in fact, things that are assumed from a Freelance Writer. Apart from this bunch of the rules, there are four basic principles to be followed.

Basic Principles

• The concept of cloaking is at the heart of this first principle, which states that the focus should be at the Users and not at the Search Engine subsequently avoiding unnecessary deception.
• Thinking only from the user’s perspective is what expected and recommended for Freelance Copy Writer to avoid tricks of improving Search Engine Rankings.
• There is a practice observed, allowing outside links on the web page, a practice of Marketing. It advises not to follow it as it can affect your own ranking, as well.
• Performing authorized operations are essential as it minimizes the risk of violation of Google’s Terms and Services.

        All the above Guidelines and Basic Principles are partly the old ones, which exist earlier. Google Penguin Update can be termed as an attempt to reinforce them again!

3 Things that hit your head again and again

• Focus on your core area: Don’t jump to whatever job you got to work on. Always focus on one area which you are expert in.
• Validate your skill set with current trends: Always get yourself out to check for any latest updates and trends that evolve in your field at regular intervals. Also make sure you equip yourself with latest technologies.
• Have a clear plan: Though you’re an expert in your field, if you don’t have a proper plan for upcoming days then it would be tough both financially and mentally.

10 items You should possess as a Freelancer:

       Make sure you have all these items with a common brand name, so your clients easily remember who you are.

• Item#1: Contact Information – Mail, Skype, Phone Number
• Item#2: Up-to-date Portfolio – Build your portfolio by adding images, prior work samples, clients review, etc. You can use any freelance websites, separate blog or web to showcase your skill set.
• Item#3: How much to charge? – Always be updated on the current trends. Don’t quote high and don’t be so cheap; both will affect your business.
• Item#4: Equipments – Telephone, Mac or computer, Internet etc. Make sure everything works perfectly.
• Item#5: Business Card – Share it with everyone you see, it will help you to get clients from places you ever imagine.
• Item#6: Bank Account – Bank account can be personal or business; it would be better to have a business account which may help you to leverage your service base.
• Item#7: Invoice – Bills and invoices are demanded by most of the clients so make sure you track your earnings and generate your bill on time.
  Check the list of invoice management softwares.
• Item#8: Tax Management – Tax differs based on the country you live, so it is good to plan before and get maximum benefit and refund from your bills.
  Check the list of tax and legal management resources.
• Item#9: Advertise and Manage Customers – It’s a good idea to market your business to a targeted audience and also get track on returns. Even though it’s hard to track each customer and their needs, still that would be the only way to help your business move to next level.
• Item#10: Social Media – Get clever and clear professional profiles in LinkedIn, facebook, twitter etc, Nowadays recruiters look into social media activities to understand the skill set of professionals.

       You can also check out the article “10 Page Guide on Freelance Start-up” to know in detail to kick start your freelance business.

        Like Facebook, Twitter & Groupon, Pinterest is getting more popularity in very short time especially in women circle. Similar to other social network which drives most of the freelancers, Pinterest helps freelancer in marketing, getting more inspiration on graphical images, sharing interest with new people which may be your future client.

        So it has all the same mantra what other social networking sites promises for freelancers.

What to know about Pinterest before getting in?

• First and foremost social network Pinterest took heavy weight on images/Pictures compared with Content.
• All other social networks put more interest on Content and images help it way to convey what they want to say. But Pinterest is the reverse of existing networks where it has “Image as the King” and content comes next.
• It acts like a pinboard, where anyone can pin their favorite stuff and others can repin it (similar to retweet), Like it and Comment on it. But have it in mind majority of users are women, so if your stuff focuses on women then it can go viral. Like Blog articles and tips are used for YouTube video for video marketing, Pinterest helps freelancer to convert their own writings into Images. But here images are designed vertically to fit the Pinterest Board.

        Add your suggestion below on how pinterest can affect your freelance business and day to day activity. Its worth to try a 3rd Biggest social network. Open for comments.

     Currently there are 40 million Facebook Pages approximately and facebook already made this timeline as mandatory. Just imagine the need for facebook timeline cover designs?Is not that huge?

     Yes it is! This article will help freelance graphic designers to know the basis of Facebook timeline cover designs, amazing samples to get impressed and finally to get clients on this.

There are 3 design scopes available for freelancers to get hands on with,

• Cover Image/Photo
• Profile Image/Picture
• Custom Tab Images

1. Cover Image:

Size: 851 X 315 Pixels
     Cover Image is going to be the first and foremost to show the brand’s identity, so make sure it works like “Love at first sight”. Keep in Mind, now Facebook has shared some bigger area for designs compared to earlier. So make sure you use this space in an innovative way to stand out from competitors.

2. Profile Image

Size: 125 X 125 Pixels
     Compared to earlier designs the size shrinks, but still it can do magic if you combine with Cover Image. Also this facebook profile image looks smaller in Mobile apps like 50 X 50 pixel so it would be good to consider that too.

3. Custom Tab Images

Maximum you can display 4 Tabs
Size: 111 X 74 Pixels

Top 10 amazing Facebook Timeline Covers:

We hope you got some basics of facebook timeline to kick start your journey on freelancing. Here you can find some quick tips to get clients who are in need of facebook covers.

Approach existing Clients:

     Since Facebook cover became mandatory, all business pages are in need of new cover designs. So it’s good to approach your old clients to get some freelance projects on this.

Cover your own page:

     As a freelance graphic designer, we know samples and portfolio works well than words or mails sent out from us. So make sure you design your own facebook profile before getting to clients. Also if you have one or two samples to show, it would be great to impress your clients.

Add this as Add on:

     You can also add this facebook timeline cover design work with little rise in cost to new clients. We have an evergreen rule on this “Ask for it even you feel you won’t get it”.
Do share your comments and also if you have any innovative Facebook timeline cover designs it helps everyone.

Without any doubt about this:

        2012 would be the great period for content marketing and as usual freelance writer will be of great demand everywhere. With the much attention centered on the creation and publication of contents that entrepreneurs did in the last year, no one is able to analyze what this year will bring. Since content marketing trends for 2012 are moving so quick, this is a glance at what would be in as well as out in 2012.

Forecasting for 2012

• 50% of Marketing Budget for Content Marketing in Small and Micro Businesses.
• Articles & Videos will top the Trends Just like last Year.
• Social Media Sharing and Reaching Via Content will Increase 2 times from now on.
• 20% More growth Rate on Mobile Content Marketing

        Firms that were quite new to the content marketing in the previous year have discovered that to draw the customer interest, they need to provide relevant and interesting content, not ads only. It is one of the best content marketing trends presently. Now entrepreneurs singularly are marketing their brands without keeping track of industry trends and news. Increasingly more, entrepreneurs will benefit while using another content marketing strategy that is the incorporation of their brands’ messages right into a bigger and lengthy story. Content created by companies will start to undertake a far more newspaper touch and individual entrepreneurs who are really using it in the right way can promote their businesses well through content marketing trends for 2012.

        This year, we had the major decline in existing content channels. Progressively, visitors seeking content are leaving sites, for example traditional news sites as they are attracting towards real-time social networking channels. However, the prediction of internet marketers regarding content marketing trends for 2012 is based on the fact that they need to find more emerging content channels for the establishment of their business identity well. One of the most effective content marketing ideas tends to be that firms that repurpose to the third-party content without correctly citing their source aren’t enjoying the entire advantages of content marketing trends for 2012. Linking towards the original source can bring customers to your site, but doing this enables you to have more quality and relevant contents to impress your customers.

        If you want to get back your customers to the quality contents, you need to engage them by knowing content marketing trends for 2012. It may works well from different marketing perspectives. In this respect, you can seek the assistance of some small business marketing contents services for more good results. There is need of writing contents based on the search engine queries and content marketing trends if you want to attract traffic towards your site. Based on marketing trends, there is need to create contents that customers usually research on the internet.

        Search engine optimization will still be a significant goal for entrepreneurs this year, but entrepreneurs will need to consider of how their obvious presence on social networking channels can impact Search engine optimization. Search engines like Google are now based on social media signals more once they generate results. For this reason, a business that’s not producing content on a number of platforms is going to be really missing out all these incentives. People need to know about content marketing trends of 2012 before starting any marketing strategy. For this reason, this year is also known the best time for content marketing wherein businesses needs to work in the right tract for long term marketing incentives. Content marketing is one of the best things you may employ as a weapon to slow down the reputation of your competitors too.

INTRODUCTION

This article tells about how twitter is useful for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME).Twitter is a marketing tool which acts as a media in having direct interaction with customers and clients. It provides an easier and quicker way of finding the interests of clients and promoting our products in market. It connects the people worldwide in marketing. As the followers in twitter, just follow us now to know more about it.

MARKETING TOOL WHY?

Twitter reduces the marketing and advertising costs for SME in market. SME can have direct interaction with the followers and clients. It is useful to involve ourselves fully in the areas where clients show much interest. It acts as a media for our company to connect with others in the world.

In SMEs, twitter acts as a tool in discovering our ideas, contents, links and area where we are expertise. Using twitter, one can quickly find the vendors, partners and technical people in the social media. It helps in directly promoting the products of SME to the targeted people in the market.

It boosts the level of marketing to the next level such as,

• Small to Medium Enterprise
• Medium to Large Enterprise

ATTRACTING MEDIA FOR SMALL SIZED ENTERPRISES

Twitter is very much useful for alerting marketers in time as per the scheduled meeting in it. It enhances the marketing strategies and helps in showing our status to clients. Most of the small sized enterprises use twitter in increasing the visitors to their websites and showing their sites worth attractive to them.

Twitter helps small sized enterprises in offering some good ideas to their followers, so that they can refer others to the site. Small enterprises can get opinions about the concern from the audience in the market.

Small Sized Enterprises are benefited from twitter in following ways:

• Tweeting about their concern.
• Attracting clients with their innovative ideas.
• Getting positive feedbacks.
• Promoting their products.

PROMOTING BOND FOR MEDIUM ENTERPRISES – HOW?

In medium sized enterprises twitter is useful in maintaining the clients and followers of their enterprises. The most important thing in SME is to promote and have good relationship in twitter with the clients who are following, and also with the partners. Regular updates can be viewed in twitter about our vendors. It’s a best medium for SME in making lots of conversations with various people.

Medium Sized Enterprises are benefited from Twitter in following ways:

• Promoting their products.
• Maintaining long lasting relationship.
• Offering gifts to new followers.
• Updating new contents.

In SME, Twitter acts like a supporting magic tool. Simply we can say it is marketers’ play ground where only success strikes. It tempts the people to tweet more and share many kinds of information. To sustain in the field, research and maintain the relationship of the followers. Finally, always keep following your followers to reach your target.

• Flexible working time – Working as a freelancer allows you to decide your own work timings.
• Opportunity to grow financially within less span of time – Owning a successful freelance business can boost up your financial growth within fewer spans of time which is not otherwise easily achievable in a traditional job.
• Balance of work load - As a freelance worker, you can balance your work load. You can accept the work according to your conveniences.
• Self Boss - Freelancers are highly autonomous. They are not confined to any other deadlines except those from the clients and are not answerable to anybody else provided that they complete their agreed work in time.
• Quality of work – Being a freelancer you can decide your own methodology of work and hence can provide quality work to your clients.
• Opportunity to grow business globally - Freelancers can expand their business globally. They can work for clients across the country or across the globe. This global exposure allows them to find new clients and explore new opportunities.
• Opportunity to learn new skills - As a freelancer, you will learn new skills out of necessity to fulfill client demands. These skills may include technical or personal skills.
• No office politics – Freelancers are away from office politics which is existent in traditional jobs. As a result, a freelancer can grow and progress purely on the basis of his hard work and talent.
• Freedom to choose the kind of work that suits your expertise - As a freelancer, you can choose the projects that best suits your expertise and experience.
• Income control – Working as a freelancer allows you to control your income which is otherwise not possible in traditional jobs where you are entitled to a fixed salary.
• Balance between personal and professional life - Because they work from home, freelancers often have a better work-life balance.
• New opportunities - Freelancing can open doors to explore new opportunities. Moreover it allows you to update your current skills now and then and keep yourself up to date in latest trends and technologies.
• Increase your savings – Working as a freelancer can increase your savings as there are no traveling or other miscellaneous expenses.
• Freedom to choose the clients - As a freelancer, you can choose the clients you like to work with. You can accept work from trustworthy clients and turn down the offers from slow paying and less trustworthy clients.
• No fear of unemployment - In today’s job market, losing a job is very common. Hence people with traditional jobs are in constant fear of unemployment. Being a freelancer you can work with multiple clients simultaneously and hence losing a project from one client does not lead to unemployment.
• Entitled to full credit - When you work as a freelancer, you are entitled to full credit for your work which is otherwise highly dependable on the performances of co-workers in case of traditional jobs.
• Establishment of new connections - Freelancing will enable you to establish new connections thereby making you socially active.

Now, having known the pros of freelancing, let’s join in freelancing sites and start earning.

IPhone applications are not only used for entertainment purpose but also in business now-a-days. Purpose of using Iphone is more in current trend than the time when Iphone has been launched. Iphone is used in almost all applications starting from simple applications like adding contacts to address book, assigning speed dial to chat with your friends and many more advanced applications. IPhone uses Wi-Fi and 3G to connect to internet which can be used for several other purposes.

The usage of IPhone is vital in business. That too it’s most important if you are into online business. People need IPhone applications to handle their business using advanced methods by which they can outstand in high competition.

Why people prefer Iphone apps:

• Navigation through website pages is easy through Iphone.
• Helpful and informative.
• Easy to acquire information.
• By using international data plan in Iphone, you can check emails.
• You can also have an international travel using your Iphone through which you can see the business updates.

Apart from this there are more and more real time applications which help in leading successful business. Since the demand is high, the need for IPhone development is also high. Businesses require IPhone developers to handle their IPhone based projects.

How to get best IPhone developers:

There are two ways to get IPhone developers. Many skilled IPhone developers work as team in IPhone based projects. Getting help from them is one of the possible ways. Big organization, who purely concentrates on Iphone based projects, can seek help from those developers team. But small or medium scale organizations cannot afford help from those teams since they charge high for each application work. Other best and easy way is getting help from freelancers. You may have a question of where to find freelancer to do your Iphone based projects.

It is reliable and safety method to find freelancer from freelancing sites. You can sign into freelancing sites like greatlance.com, and post your Iphone project requirements. Skilled freelancers will start bidding for it. Finally go ahead and choose a freelancer by viewing their profile and who has experience in this domain.

The selected freelancer will start working on your project by knowing your requirements. The collaboration with freelancers is quite easy through freelancing sites. Thus it serves dual purpose; you get your work done in easy way. They get freelancing jobs to enhance their freelancing career.

I started my freelancing career last year on 9th June. On that note I like to write this article on same date through which I could share my one year of experience in freelancing.

Short description about myself: I am into freelancing business from my college final year and now I have completed my degree. I started working as full time freelancer. I handled nearly 100 freelancing jobs including article writing, proof reading, content writing, EBooks preparation, PPT preparation, report writing, PDF preparation etc. via Greatlance.com which is a freelancing website. I have ability to learn things easily and reproduce them to show best results. My hobbies are reading magazines, updating my writing skills, listening to music which I love to hear often.

Well, being a freelancer and working on freelancing jobs are amazing. I heard many people say that we should be serious while working. No coffee break, sit hours together in work room and do freelancing jobs one after the other. But according to me, we should work with enjoyment. If a person takes a job with stress, he/she CANNOT complete the work successfully. We need to have fun in between work, drink coffee, and refresh ourselves to give best quality results.

I would like to say few points to my fellow freelancers which will help them in their freelancing profession.

Updated Portfolio Win New clients:

        Updating portfolio periodically is a most important factor. One of my friends likes to work on creative freelancer jobs. He worked for more than 10 projects past months but forgot to update the resume. Finally he updated the resume on day before interview with the new client. He left few important points on resume because of last minute stress and interview resulted in complete mess and unhappiness.
       Update the portfolio after completing each freelancing work. After sending reports to clients and getting paid for your work, just take extra few minutes and update the work done in your resume. Be conscious of the resume format you use. You can avoid simple tasks done, but don’t forget to update the huge projects you handled.

I’m Still Not a Student Freelancer, I Can Learn from Mistakes:

        When I was a student freelancer, I made many mistakes due to lack of experience and guidance. It’s time for me to rectify my freelancing mistakes and to produce quality output.
        You may feel difficulties for first few freelancing jobs. But later you can learn from mistakes and work accordingly. This shows you are hard worker and brings good reputation.

Moving to International Standards:

        This would be a puzzling question to all freelancers, ”How to make my work reach international standards?”
         But answer is very simple, “Analyze from your work done”. Initially I started to write articles about business. I surfed internet and just reproduced the content. But later on I started reading many magazines, short stories, story books, poems etc which molded me as a good writer. I could see a vast difference from my old article and recent ones which I wrote. I use many online writing tools (of course free of cost) which adds flavor to my work.
        Therefore analyze your current work with previous one. And strive hard to bring best results out of that.
         Thus I shared about my journey on freelancing. And I invite my freelancer friends to showcase their experience on freelancer jobs.