Did you know that you can find writing clients on Facebook? In this post, I’ll detail how to do this, specifically in Facebook groups and how to behave inside them. Because the last thing you want to be… is annoying.
Find Your Facebook Groups
First, go find your people. Where do your ideal clients hang out on Facebook? What industry are they in and what groups does that industry have?
For example, if you want to write for realtors, look for realtor groups. If you want to write for mental health professionals, look for those groups.
You can parse it by gender or local area as well. Maybe women supporting entrepreneurial women. Or your state or local area chamber of commerce and business groups. (Groups like this, that aren’t organized by industry, are a great place to plug in if you’re leading with a service rather than a subject matter as your niche.)
Another important tip: make sure the group is active when you find it. If the latest posts are from a year ago, the group is not active and you won’t find leads from it. You want to see multiple posts in the past day or so.
Free Facebook Groups
Here are a few groups where your ideal clients may hang out (of course, there are tons more!):
- Boss-Moms and other groups like that
- blogger groups
- copywriter groups
- marketer groups
- faith-based entrepreneur groups
- local business owner groups (free ones)
- other writer groups (looking for colleagues who outsource and refer)
Paid Facebook Groups
Join these groups only if you’re qualified or have paid to join them. Make sure you can afford to join these groups or that it makes sense for your business to join them. Again, these are just a few of many.
- software users groups (ex., Teachable, ClickFunnels) (Please note: some of these Facebook groups don’t require you to buy in, even if they’re for a paid program or service.)
- conference attendees groups–these have been great sources of work for me, well worth the price of the ticket, in most cases. Sometimes you can get listed in a directory or do an introduction post in the Facebook group.
- local chambers or local business groups
- course members groups
- memberships groups
Be Super Helpful, Not Super Smarmy
Once you’re in the Facebook groups, free or paid, what do you do to find work?
The answer is you help everybody you can help any time someone posts a question about any topic that you know a lot about, but especially if they post anything that has to do with writing or content or digital marketing.
Make sure you hop into that discussion and offer something helpful even if it’s “Hey, I found this blog post that compares/explains/gives a tutorial.”
The more you are able to do this, the more you will be recognized. People are going to be looking at you and looking at your profile. Then it’s more likely they’ll be reaching out to you because you know your stuff and you’re really helpful.
This is what we call inbound marketing.
Obey the Rules
Make sure you read the group’s rules when you join. If you go against the rules, even unintentionally, you could get kicked out of the group (and maybe come across as smarmy).
Most groups don’t allow self-promotion, so by being helpful, as noted above, you can promote without promoting.
Some groups do have a certain day for promotion, like “Saturday Self-Promo” or a similar thread. If you do a promotion of your services there, it’s a good practice to like and comment on a few of the other people’s in the thread.
By both being helpful and lawfully self-promoting, you can get some decent attention. Pro tip: Have your Facebook profile optimized as a “freelance writer” so that when others in the group look up what you do, it’s easy for them to see and to contact you!
Nerd Out and Spreadsheet Your Helpfulness
You can leave your helpfulness as an organic being, or you can be more strategic and spreadsheet your progress. For example, if you join 10 or 15 Facebook groups, list them in a Google sheet. Each day, track the number of interactions that you have in these groups.
Maybe your goal is to leave 25 helpful comments a day, total. So you go into the Facebook groups, you look at your Google sheet list, and you try to find posts that you can helpfully comment on. Then note which groups you left comments on, so that you can spread out your helpful self and keep the groups aware of you.
That’s how you can generate leads.
What’s great about this strategy is most of us are already on Facebook. You can use your social media time a bit more effectively, and it doesn’t cost any money!
Questions? (and the Best Facebook Group)
If you aren’t already in my group, I invite you to join us! It’s called the Ink Well Guild. Ask your questions, offer advice to other people, grow, learn, and make some great connections.
Every now and then I do see people in there saying, “Hey, I’m looking for a writer who specializes in makeup [or whatever] and if that’s you, send me a PM because I have a job for you.”
This is a group to get to know your fellow writers. And when you have leads that for whatever reason, you can’t or won’t take, you can pass them on to another writer. It works both ways. People can pass work on to you as well.
You can ask for ideas for other groups in there as well, if the finding work on Facebook strategy interests you. See you there!
I have a friend who is so much interested in freelance writing and this post really gave some nice bullet points sequel to it so i will be sharing this post to her, Thanks alot.