Following the success of the Freelance Forum, and in particular the contributions on online journalism, I’ve been asked to put together a brief guide to creating an online profile for freelance journalists.
The brief is simple: How to use online tools, be it LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or creating your own blog or website, in order to display your wares to the world. The target audience, people who can switch on a computer and type an email, and not much more.
So this post exists to ask your help.
If you were creating your online identity today from scratch, where would you start? What three things would you make sure of? What three mistakes would you avoid? What three rules would you write in large letters above your desk, never to be forgotten?
LinkedIn is a professional networking tool, but is it worth joining Facebook? Is twitter a valuable resource, or a time consuming distraction?
What blogging software would you recommend? Would you bother with a blog at all? Should you just go with a website?
And don’t forget even more basic questions? Should you set up your own email, or just get a Gmail account?
Well, what would you advise?
* Assume everything you put on the net is visible to everybody in the world. That includes your wife, your boss, the police, your ex. If you don’t want them to know, keep it to yourself.