How to Market Yourself Using Social Media in eLearning

Social media. It’s become an almost inescapable presence in our lives. Figuring out how to market yourself using social media is an ever bigger conundrum. Sure, it may bring about the decline of western civilization and spark a future war between humans and robots—BUT—it can also be a great way to get your name out there as an ID freelie. Isn’t that fun!

Since we were all just a bunch of apes hanging around the watering hole, we’ve been looking for ways to connect with one another and feel seen. Our great and powerful ancestor “Ook Ook the bone sharpening Ape” walked so Tik Tok’ers could run. Show some respect!

All joking aside, social media has made that connection very possible for many of us. What’s more, it’s a wonderful way for you to advertise yourself and your super cool expertise as an instructional designer to potential clients all over the world!

In our last blog, we talked about creating a bomb portfolio. Now, we’re going to explore some ways to get your work seen by as many people as possible. Social media is an invaluable (for the most part free) tool you should absolutely take advantage of as a freelancer. We know, it feels a little bit icky to think of yourself as a brand (more on this later) but there’s no shame in the game! If you’re not a fan of your own work, then why should anyone else be? And as usual, we’re here for you along with the almighty spirit of “Ook Ook” to guide you through how to market yourself using social media.

Social Media Ground Rules

Before we get into some of the best platforms for self-marketing, there are a few ground rules that apply across all your social media postin’.

Keep it professional. The most helpful thing you can do as a newbie is to be your best, professional self. For that reason, be sure to keep your personal accounts and your professional accounts separate! It’s ok to show off your personality when you’re marketing yourself professionally, but it’s smart practice to keep your personal life, well, personal.

Potential clients don’t need to know you have the world’s largest collection of potato chips shaped like Abraham Lincoln (that’s awesome though).

Be consistent. ABC. Always Be Consistent. That goes for your brand messaging, your posting schedule and making sure to regularly update and refresh all your accounts. You want to be easily recognizable so you can gain traction!

Know your hashtags. While it’s not something that you “must” have in order to get your freelance biz going, hashtags are like sprinkles on a sundae. They’re fun and they add a little pizazz! They’re the new taglines. If it happens organically – through your dealings on LinkedIn or other parts of the instructional design industry – go for it! You could come up with a catchy hashtag(s) to put in all your posts and articles.

Stay on brand. What kind of image do you want to portray to the world? Are you going for elegance, like Lindor chocolate? Or are you aiming for something a bit more fun like a crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery Butterfinger? As you embark on your freelance business journey, you’ll be making small decisions along the way as to what “personality” you want to be known for when working with clients.

Don’t try to force yourself into some prescribed mold as to what you “think” a “good” business person is like… if that’s not really you. You do you, and the rest will follow.

The Platforms

Now we’re going to talk about the best way to utilize a handful of specific platforms. These are “the big ones,” but of course, there are other options out there and new things are always popping up! In addition to the platforms listed below, you may also consider Tik Tok, Youtube, and Pinterest to name a few.

You may also consider completely making up a social media platform just to sound cool and exclusive in front of your fellow freelies and friends. Let us demonstrate. “Oh, you’re not on Freelancezilla yet?! That’s cool. I mean, I got a personal invitation but…that’s cool.” Got em!

Even if you don’t want to use these things right away, register the accounts now before someone else takes the username you want. It would be totally awkward if people were to look you up on those things and found less than savory content accidentally associated with your name or business.

LinkedIn

What if we told you there was a free tool out there that could help you boost your industry reputation, provide a home base for all your experience, education, and affiliations but also help you meet cool people, and even land gigs that help you afford your LARPing addiction? Sounds too good to be true, right?

Seriously, though, LinkedIn is cool because it’s a place to promote yourself, keep tabs on your competition, and learn about new opportunities in a place that’s actually meant for it. LinkedIn is a respectable, professional meeting place meant for business. But, don’t be intimidated by other businesses or “thought leaders” on LinkedIn. Everyone has to start somewhere, and at the end of the day, we’re all human.

It’s important to keep all your social media accounts up to date but it’s especially true for LinkedIn! You’re going to want an official page for your business where you can grow a following, share your expertise, and engage with the online instructional design community. Maintaining a business page will give you a competitive marketing edge and show that you’re serious about stuff!

Twitter

Oh, Twitter. A hellscape so dystopian that it gave birth to the phrase “doom scrolling.” But, you can’t spell “doom scrolling” without an “I” and a “D.” Hey, that’s you! Listen guys, we’re trying to make Twitter as palatable for you as possible!

Seriously though, Twitter is popular in the ID world to share news, make connections, and follow orgs and conference events. If your current Twitter account is mostly hot takes on Netflix shows and politics, you should probably make a new one just for freelie and freelie adjacent purposes.

The best thing about Twitter is getting to see what’s trending in real time which is a great way to stay on top of news specific to your niche and the ID world at large. It’s also a good place to follow prospective clients or other like-minded freelies. Plus there’s like a 10% chance that Alan Alda will like one of your tweets and that's worth its weight in gold, friends.

Finally, Twitter is a cool place to create threads that show off your know-how. A thread is a series of connected tweets from one person.

Let’s say your eLearning niche is designing courses for a fancy schmancy film academy. Wouldn’t it be fun to create a thread on the many, many directors Orson Welles trashed over the course of his career. You may even end the thread with a link to a sample from your portfolio.

The bottom line is, you never know who is going to read, like or share your tweets! Plus, you may even trend and then people will really be talkin’ about you!

Facebook

Ok, Gen Z’ers and elder millennials, rise up! It’s your time to shine! Facebook, which was once a thriving hub for all of us to share duck-faced selfies, has become something of a business network over the years as more and more of the “youths” have ditched it.

Facebook has launched a number of tools when it comes to self-marketing, including the ability to establish a business page. It’s an official way to showcase your skills and also garner fans and maybe some prospective clients.

From there, you can share links to your work, create events, book appointments, and schedule content. Plus, you can utilize the site’s “insights” analytical tool to gather a number of data points on your business— how many likes you have, how the number of likes changes over time, and where they come from. It’s all a great way to understand the reach of your content and who it’s resonating with. And best of all, it’s all free!

Additionally, Facebook is a great place to join various instructional design groups or even support groups for freelancers in general. You can even follow job posts and manage them all from one place with ease.

Instagram

You may not immediately think of Instagram as a place to market yourself as a freelancer, but it can actually be quite effective and allow you the opportunity to represent yourself a bit more creatively. While substance is always important when you’re representing your personal brand, this is the place where you really want to razzle dazzle ‘em with your visuals!

Using graphic editing tools like Adobe Photoshop or Canva, you can quickly whip up eye-catching graphics for your feed. That might include motivational quotes, infographics, testimonials, or posts from your other social media platforms.

Did you drop a dank tweet about your authoring tool preferences? Don’t be shy, take a screen cap and share it to your instagram too! Maybe you can jazz it up with some stickers of cats in sunglasses! And speaking of cross-posting, Instagram and Facebook are integrated for super easy sharing across both platforms. And as an ID freelie, anywhere you can save some time or knock two tasks out at once is a big win.

You can also use Instagram’s story feature to share short videos of yourself with your followers. This is a great opportunity to showcase samples of work, brief tutorials or even just chats about your field of expertise. It’s all about engaging your audience and delighting the eyeballs!

Conclusion

Whew, all that socializing was exhausting! We know this is a lot of information to take in and it can be stressful to think about setting up and maintaining all of these different accounts. But keep in mind, this is a long-term project and not something you’re going to perfect overnight. It may take a minute to find your unique voice and that’s perfectly OK!

And while you’re doing all this connecting and communicating and coalescing, keep in mind that IDLance offers a wonderful community of empathetic, like-minded ID freelancers that would love to chit chat with you around our watering hole.

We see you.