As a freelancer, you have taken great care in marketing yourself and promoting yourself with a specific image created to best compliment your services and skills. Meticulous research has been done to find your target market, design your brand and lay the groundwork for a solid marketable foundation.

You have built your online networking site with each of your branding features in place. Your webpage is chock full of information to dazzle your potential clients. Life is good. Sit back, relax and reap the rewards.

Not so fast. Have you tidied up all loose ends?

Now that you have an online presence, it is important to remember all the different interactions and activities that you may also have on other networking sites.

Many a professional has seen their own downfall because of shenanigans on their personal-just-for-fun social networking site.

You are now a package deal.

Both your professional image and your private image are interchangeable and can influence a client. Always bringing your “A” game is a necessity for successful freelance survival.

Recently it was announced that Facebook now has more users than Google. If you aren’t already using Facebook to market yourself, get on it. The people are there. It is a marketing smorgasbord and it’s time to belly up to the buffet.

There isn’t anything wrong with having a professional social media page and a personal one, as long as you remember that in a client’s eyes, they are both you.

The photos from that great weekend you shared with your buddies in Vegas might be better off in an actual photo album on your coffee table in your living room. Unless you have clients lounging around at your home, the chances of them seeing that hilarious picture of you doing something borderline illegal drop considerably when you remove them from the online site.

Even comments and interaction with your “friends” is fair game for a shopping client that may be looking for one small thing to make or break their decision of hiring you. It would be very unfortunate to miss out on an opportunity because of an off color comment you made to a friend during “non working” hours.

As folks become more conscious of their spending habits and the value they get, decisions in the hiring process have had a bit of a transformation. The online resources available now allow them the ability to make a more informed decision of whose services they will select. Gone are the days where freelancers are afforded the luxury of identity and exposure coming solely from business cards, referrals and mainstream marketing.

The message here is not that you can’t cut loose and have a good time now and then.

Just remember to bring your “A” game at all times.

photo credit: Annie Mueller