What are the biggest differences between the good freelance designers and the great freelance designers? If you are thinking raw design talent you are wrong. Yes it’s a plus if you have a talent in art and design, but that talent alone can only take you so far. Here are 5 hidden talents that make up a successful freelance designer.

1. Secretary/Accountant

Know your business. All great freelance business owners spend lots of their time running financial reports, tracking client payment schedules, answering calls, returning emails, scheduling appointments, and following up with prospects. You already know how to design, so why not take a little time to focus on the business tasks? This will greatly help you in the long run and ultimately lead you on an upward path to success.

2. The Salesman

All great freelance designers are salesman. You have to know how to sell yourself and your work! Don’t be afraid to go after the big clients either. The worst they can say is no. Use your professional knowledge and quote the client out properly. Also make sure to always ask for their business!! For more tips on how to close the deal check out 7 tips to help freelance designers close the deal.

3. Time Managment

All of the best freelancers have great time management skills. Let’s face it, being a freelancer leaves you with a lot of “free” time on your hands. Set aside your work schedule and stick to it. Something I love to do is set weekly and daily goals, working diligently until I have completed my tasks. Then I reward myself for all my hard work.

4. Administrative

Running day to day business administrative tasks can be extremely daunting but it is an understood practice amongst the great freelance designers. I would highly recommend spending lots of time on this section of the business before hiring someone else to do it for you.

5. PR/Marketing/Account Management

Every great designer out there is also a social butterfly and spends countless hours marketing themselves, going to social events, blogging,  promoting their company, and updated stats feeds on social media sites such as facebook and twitter. This is an absolute “have to” when it comes to being a successful freelance designer. You never know who you might bump into!

What about you?

I know there are multiple other hidden talents that us designers have so what is your secret weapon? I would love some feedback. Leave your comments below.

With the explosion of twitter users over the past few months there have been multiple applications that have been created to help manage your accounts. I have tried hundreds and everyone of them have pros and cons. Here is the simplest way I have found to set up multiple auto responses so you can focus on the content you posts.

Step 1 – Sign into your Twitter account

Make sure you sign into your twitter account. If you have multiple twitter accounts than you can set them up in a later step.

Step 2 – Create a FREE account with Socialoomph

Socialoomph is a very popular twitter management program with tons of features for free and pro users. There are a few different steps you need to take to create this account. It’s really simple and self explanatory. The user name you create does not have to be the same as your twitter account. Also, Socialoomph uses Oauthorize to link to your twitter account. Make sure to allow the connection in the set up process. After you have verified your email address you can login to your new Socialoomph account.

Step 3 – Add your twitter account info

On the left menu bar select social accounts – add new twitter account. Even though you have already authorized your twitter account you still need to set the account up in Socialoomph so you can activate the auto responder/follower for your account.

Step 4 – Type in your auto response

Make sure you select the auto welcome feature. Now you can type in the message to your new followers. You can add one message or there are simple direction on how to rotate through multiple messages. You can also auto follow back your new followers if you would like to return the love. When you are finished, click save and that’s it!

If you have multiple twitter accounts than repeat steps 3 and 4 with your other account information and there you go.  Now your twitter account will auto respond to your new followers. Hope you enjoyed this quick tip. Happy tweeting!!

By now you have probably started to use Twitter to your advantage. If not hopefully this article will help you out a bit. With the abundance of people promoting with their tweets you have to stay on top of your competition. Here are 8 tools that I use to manage accounts, track usage, search popular topics, and add friends on Twitter.

1. Hootsuite

By far my favorite Twitter client.  If you are managing multiple accounts I would highly recommend you check out this site.  You can schedule tweets, search by keywords, track usage, monitor your feed, and spark conversation with mentions all from the home screen dashboard. And best of all, its FREE.

2. TwtQpon

Enhance your social media marketing by offering exclusive coupons to your followers!

3. Twittley

I just found this the other day and I am highly impressed. Have something interested you think other people will enjoy? Send your tweets viral with a quick post.

4. TweetVolume

Want to know how much a key word is tweeted about? This site will tell you just that. Target the community that is interested in what you have to say.

5. Twitter Grader

How influential are your tweets? Keep your average ratings high and you will get more followers over time.

6. Twitt Geek

Need a little help following targeted users? If you’ re like most small business owners it’s hard enough to find time to update your site, that alone all the social media sites you have. How would you ever find time to generate a steady following? Check this site out…

7. Who’s Talkn

A great global way to search for important topics.

8. TwitterVision

This site is just fun to watch. Wanna know what’s being said live around the world? This site is in beta now but it works pretty nicely. 24-7 information at it’s best!

If you currently run a blog then you should already know that giving a user multiple options to share your posts is the most powerful way to get your content heard. If you are a newbie then now you know. When twitter came out people started implementing the retweet button in blog articles soon after.  Well, you can pretty much bet that Google Buzz will be just as popular soon, so there is no reason to wait. Here is a simple way to implement the “buzz this” icon in your posts.

Step 1 – Download the Wp Buzzer plugin.

This is one of the best Buzz plugins that I have found out there so far.  I am sure there will be more once Buzz starts to catch on. After you have downloaded the plugin, open up your WordPress dashboard.

Step 2 – Upload the plugin to the WordPress back end.

There are multiple ways to upload the plugin. The easiest way is to upload in wp-content/plugins folder on your server. After you have uploaded the files, head over to the WordPress dashboard and activate it.

Step 3 – Activate the plugin, adjust your settings and your done!

Below is a screen shot of the setting I use for the plugin.  You can also add your own CSS Style to adjust it to your post, and tell the plugin to place the icon at the top or at the bottom of your post.

This is a super easy way to implement the Google Buzz this icon on your blog post.  If you have any questions leave a comment or email me and I will be happy to help out. Keep checking back for more tutorials…