How to Succeed as a Freelancer in the Attention Economy
If you're looking for a serious how-to guide, read my ultimate guide for beginner freelancers!This is more of a philosophical musing on personal branding and the necessary evil of making the "self" a brand to succeed as a freelancer.
Every word counts. By now, you've probably decided whether or not this article is worth your precious time. Am I right? In the attention economy, the amount of attention we're able to give is a precious, precious commodity. It's how we measure success, too- bounce rate on a page, impressions, views, click-through rate, and follows. How many people can we get to pick US in a sea of other people claiming to be just as unique as we are?
Remember: no one becomes a successful freelancer without help from others
While many people on social media, whether they work for a large corporation or work for themselves, claim to be "self-made," - think 'I dedicated x amount of time to growing my LinkedIn following to 6 million, and if you're consistent with posting, you can too!'- the reality is that success never happens in a vacuum.
As much as we need to be consistent with our content creation and have a working knowledge of best practices in SEO and user experience, the people who choose to pay attention to what we have to say play as much of a role in our success as we do.
After all, those who choose to sell their precious attention to us signal that they trust us when they engage with us. That's why many creators struggle to separate the "self" from the brand they've created.
We don't want to create an authentic display of the messy human experience for our trusted audience; we want to curate a message that people are responding to.
Creating a personal brand when going freelance
Most freelancers would probably say this is their least favorite part of the job. It's certainly mine. The thing about being a freelancer- whether you're a copywriter/SEO professional/website builder like me or practice another trade- is that there's pressure to market yourself constantly.
In theory, this makes sense. Marketing yourself gets your name out there. The more you talk about your expertise, the more you'll attract the type of clients you want to work with.
This is all well and good, except marketing is for brands. It really shouldn't be for people. As the inspirational Rachael Kay Albers says in her podcast, Marketing Muckracking, brands leave no room for the self. Evidence of this is littered across LinkedIn. Copywriters who only talk about the benefits of copywriting to a website and how it will drive sales. SEO experts who only talk about why you need a strong SEO strategy.
The list goes on, but so much of social media now is three dimensional humans who have compressed themselves into flat, two-dimensional forms to fit their audience's expectations. The kind of screwed up thing is, it works! Of course, it does. It's GOOD marketing, with an email list sign-up and freebie giveaway.
While I think a personal brand is a strong asset for any freelancer, I'm not here to answer whether you should do it because I do not have the answers, and I'm not afraid to say it.
Finding your niche: the brand of being human
What I do want is for any potential clients who find me on here to know that I delicately hold the two-dimensional nature of self-marketing with the truth that I'm a limitless human being living a limitless life, and that my posts about growing up in the South or going on a hike with my dog or comedically getting lost in another country are just as on-brand for me as writing about writing.
I'm human. You're human. Anything should be on-brand for a human being because the human experience should not be limited.
Asking the important questions: how to become a freelancer without losing yourself?
I'm here to ask the tough questions, too:
How can I continue to be a freelance copywriter as someone who is not interested in hustle culture? Freelance, especially in the earlier stages, demands building a brand/persona/presence and continually connecting with prospective clients. It can be exhausting.
How can I operate as a freelance copywriter as an anti-racist, anti-capitalist? Copywriting exists to sell things. Persuade people to take action, with a sense of urgency. If you don't do it now, you'll never do it! The chance will go away. I dream of a society that doesn't thrive on exploiting pain points in order to make more money with which to buy more things so that we can uphold a societal structure where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Can I use the tools in my toolbox to persuade people to act for the greater good of society instead of just to buy a new video game or a self-help course? Can I get other people to jump on this crazy train with me?
I hope you'll stick around to explore the not-talked-about parts of freelancing and writing with me. It's been a 3.5-year journey so far (relatively short but also full of high highs and low lows) and has exposed some of the worst working conditions and some of the best people I could have hoped to work with.
Perhaps we can burn the things that aren't serving us to the ground, like content mills, low wages, personal branding that keeps us in a box, uncompensated work, and AI detectors that tells us we aren't human, and rebuild a joyful future from the ashes.
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