Advertise here with BSA

There are many times when you may want to step away from your web design business.

You may be taking a vacation. You may need to schedule some medical procedures. Or, you may just need to take a break.

Stepping away from your freelancing web design business doesn’t mean that your online web presence that you’ve worked so hard to build up also needs to take a hit. In this post, I’ll share four simple tips for maintaining your web presence while getting your much-needed break. If you enjoy this post, you may also like the post, What Freelancers Really Do About Vacation.

Tip #1 Schedule Blog Posts

If you maintain a blog for your freelancing business, taking a break doesn’t mean that your blog has to go without being updated. (If you don’t have a freelancing blog, you really should…)

WordPress, for example, allows you to schedule posts for a future date and time. Prescheduling posts is a fairly simple procedure. You can learn how at the WordPress Support Site. (The instructions that work best for your blog may vary slightly depending on the version of WordPress you are using.)

Other blogging tools also allow you to schedule posts. Blogger, for example, also provides instructions for prescheduling posts in their question and answers section.

If you use another blogging tool, check in that tool’s support area to see if the tools supports scheduling posts.

Now that we’ve talked about scheduling posts, it’s time to talk about scheduling social media.

Tip #2 Schedule Social Media Participation

Active social media participation is a large part of maintaining a visible web presence for your freelance design business. However, you certainly don’t want to be chained to social media tools while you are taking a break.

Fortunately, there are many tools that will allow you preschedule your social media shares. Here are four good options:

• Do Share. This plug-in for Google Chrome lets you preschedule your Google+ posts. You can get it through the Chrome store.
• TweetDeck. TweetDeck is now owned by Twitter. You can schedule your Tweets in advance. TweetDeck also functions as a real-time Twitter browser.
• Hootsuite. This is a social media dashboard favored by many large corporations. It allows you to schedule Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn updates.
• Buffer. Buffer is another popular tool that allows you to preschedule posts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Next, let’s take a look at how to handle your email while you are taking a break.

Tip #3. Forward Emails to your SmartPhone

One of my biggest worries about taking time off has always been–what if a potential client contacts me during my break?

Fortunately, you don’t have to miss important emails while you are away from your home office. You can use your smart phone to check for important emails.

Remember not to check your email too often, or what you intended for a break may wind up being just another work day offsite. Usually, checking your email twice a day (once at noon and once at the close of your business day) is enough.

Of course, WiFi is also a terrific tool for freelancers who are away from their main office.

Tip #4. Take Advantage of Free WiFi

So, what if you do need to do a little work while you are out of the office?

Don’t worry. Free WiFi is widely available if you don’t have a smartphone. Plus, many hotels and restaurants now offer WiFi as a benefit to their customers. If you’re not sure if WiFi is available where you happen to be, just ask.

You can also use free WiFi to answer comments on your posts and statuses, keep up with breaking design or freelance news, and even to answer an email.

Just don’t overuse WiFi. After all, the idea of stepping away from work is to stop working.

A Final Word of Warning

If you are scheduling posts and status updates in advance, be sure to focus on evergreen content. Today’s hot topic may be quite stale tomorrow. Yesterday’s news is today’s yawn.

Evergreen content is something that remains helpful and relevant over time. Usually, the information changes very little. This is the safest type of content to preschedule.

Your Turn

It’s healthy to step away from work from time to time.

How do you maintain a web presence when you take a break?

Image by anmuell

Advertise here with BSA

Advertise here with BSA

The reality of cloud computing infographic by Rackspace UK

Advertise here with BSA

Advertise here with BSA

Using CSS3 media queries we can target a host of devices and browser settings. The mobile web has adjusted into a huge market where more people are accessing the Internet via phones and tablets. This trend is not slowing down, and in fact many web designers are jumping on board to see what all the fuss is about.

In this tutorial I’d like to introduce a few of the concepts behind mobile design. We’ll create a basic list view page with a top title bar and some navigation links. This can be coded in straight HTML/CSS and requires no JavaScript to function. Take a look at my demo below, and feel free to grab the tutorial source code as well.

Live Demo – Download Source Code

Default Heading Tags

Each HTML document requires a few different meta tags and other content inside the head element. There are so many interesting tags to include when you’re targeting mobile devices. I’ll go over some of the most important ones that you’ll need.

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
<meta name="HandheldFriendly" content="true">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1,
maximum-scale=1">
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style" content="black">

This snippet handles much of the blunt upfront work for us. X-UA-Compatible is designed specifically for Internet Explorer rendering engines. I set the value to “edge” which uses the most recent IE engine for HTML/CSS. Similarly HandheldFriendly is a proprietary tag for Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices.

The meta viewport tag is super important for every mobile environment. In this scenario I’m setting the website width at the same value as our maximum device width. This can adjust for Android and iOS devices. Additionally the initial-scale will keep a steady aspect ratio of 1:1 for graphics and text on the page.

<!-- APPLE TOUCH APP ICONS
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="72x72" href="apple-touch-icon-72x72.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="114x114"
href="apple-touch-icon-114x114.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="apple-touch-icon-57x57.png">
-->

The mobile web app capable meta tags go hand-in-hand with these app icons. I have commented out the HTML because for this example we don’t need iOS icons. But if you wish to run your website like a mobile app you can include images and settings for your home screen.

The Page Skeleton Markup

I have kept the whole page simple and easy to follow in the HTML. The top heading band is using an HTML5 header element set fixed position on the screen. This means as you scroll down the title bar will always appear on top.

<body>
  <header>
    <h1>Mobile Web App</h1>
  </header>

  <section id="content">
    <!-- home featured image credit: http://dribbble.com/shots/118515-Device-Icons -->
    <center><div id="home-feature"></div></center>

    <nav>
	  <ul id="nlists">

The other inner content is held inside a section element with a top image, mainly for aesthetic purposes. The full navigation is contained inside an unordered list with an HTML5 nav tag wrapper.

If we are looking at the list view on a desktop or laptop screen we can adjust the width for some extra padding. This may also work on Tablet PCs if the resolution width is greater than 700 pixels. This small responsive feature looks a lot better than spanning the entire screen.

Styling a List

Many of the background gradients for links I have created using CSS3. This saves us time developing images and moving them over onto the server. Although even with newer CSS3 gradient properties it’s still difficult gaining full browser support. Below is a snippet from the header properties list:

header {
  background: #6d83a1;
  height: 44px;
  width: 100%;
  position: fixed;
  top: 0;
  z-index: 9999;
  border: 1px solid #2d3033;
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0 2px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.40);
  -moz-box-shadow: 0 2px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.40);
  box-shadow: 0 2px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.40);
  text-align: center;
  border-left: 0px;
  border-right: 0px;
  border-top: 0px;
  border-bottom: 1px solid #554761;
  color: #fff;
  font-weight: bold;
  background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(#afbacd), color-stop(0.5, #869db7),
  color-stop(0.505, #7992ae), to(#6482a6));
  background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #afbacd, #869db7 50%, #7992ae 52%, #6482a6);
  background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #afbacd, #869db7 50%, #7992ae 52%, #6482a6);
  background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #afbacd, #869db7 50%, #7992ae 52%, #6482a6);
  background-image: -o-linear-gradient(top, #afbacd, #869db7 50%, #7992ae 52%, #6482a6);
  background-image: linear-gradient(top, #afbacd, #869db7 50%, #7992ae 52%, #6482a6);
}

Now down below in this same stylesheet I’ve put together special link styles inside the unordered list. All anchor elements are displayed as blocks and given extra padding on all sides. We need to set the box-sizing: border-box; property so this padding doesn’t add extra space on the side and create a horizontal scrollbar.

nav ul#nlists { list-style: none; font-family: "Calibri", Arial, sans-serif; }
nav ul#nlists li {
  border-bottom: 1px solid #d9e2eb;
  background: #fff;
  display: block;
  background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(#ffffff) to(#ecf1f5));
  background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #ffffff, #ecf1f5);
  background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #ffffff, #ecf1f5);
  background-image: -o-linear-gradient(top, #ffffff, #ecf1f5);
  background-image: linear-gradient(top, #ffffff, #ecf1f5);
}

nav ul#nlists li a {
  position: relative;
  display: block;
  box-sizing: border-box;
  width: 100%;
  padding: 15px 0px;
  padding-left: 10px;
  text-decoration: none;
  font-size: 1.4em;
  color: #787878;
  font-weight: bold;
  overflow: hidden;
}
nav ul#nlists li a:hover { color: #999; }

The containing list items also have a small white-to-gray with a defining bottom border. My goal is to mimic some of the same styles from all the natural iOS applications. It keeps visitors interested in using your mobile layout time and time again. Plus when running as an HTML5 app it fits perfectly onto your iPhone or iPad.

Designing the Right Arrows

Those of you acute to detail may have noticed the arrows off on the right-hand side. This is actually a border element generated using CSS3 rotations. We could make this effect using icons and keep support for older browsers – but this option works better as a fallback method.

nav ul#nlists li a::after {
  content: '';
  display: block;
  width: 9px;
  height: 9px;
  border-right: 3px solid #adb46b;
  border-top: 3px solid #adb46b;
  position: absolute;
  right: 40px;
  top: 50%;
  margin-top: -5px;
  -webkit-transform: rotate(45deg);
  -moz-transform: rotate(45deg);
  -o-transform: rotate(45deg);
  transform: rotate(45deg);
}
nav ul#nlists li a:hover::after { border-color: #c3ca80; }

The width and height of this element define how it appears to the side. We’re using absolute positioning to keep the arrow on the right side. Through the border-width property we can make it thicker or thinner adjusting for the text size. This works so well because we don’t need any extra HTML markup on the page, and this icon is still included inside the anchor link.

Other Responsive Properties

I’ve only added a few media queries inside the attached responsive.css file. The first query limits if we are using a screen with more than 700px and appends some extra padding to the center list. But there are two other important mobile queries for fixing up the layout.

/** designs for iphone **/
@media only screen and (max-device-width: 480px) {
  #content nav {
    padding: 0px;
    border-radius: 0px;
    -moz-border-radius: 0px;
    -webkit-border-radius: 0px;
  }
  section#content {
    padding: 0;
    width: 100%;
  }
  nav ul#nlists li a {
    font-size: 1.2em;
  }
}
/** retina display **/
@media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),
  only screen and (min--moz-device-pixel-ratio: 1.5),
  only screen and (min-device-pixel-ratio: 1.5) {
    div#homeimg {
      background-image: url('images/devices-icon-home-feature@2x.png') no-repeat;
      background-size: 290px 250px;
    }
}

In the first section we’re checking for a maximum device width of 480px. This is limited to iPhone displays in portrait and landscape mode – plus other devices with a similarly small screen. I’m removing all the extra padding from the list and content section. Also I’ve toned down the text size a bit, because ems seem a lot larger on mobile phones.

The second piece is looking for retina screen devices. So far this will only apply to high-DPI Android screens and retina iPhones/iPads. I have supplied a double resolution image which we can rearrange using the background-size property. This is a necessary step for any mobile website with images, or else they will appear very blurry to the average iPhone 4/4S users.

Live Demo – Download Source Code

Conclusion

There is so much to cover for building a mobile web app. I’ve touted a lot of the mainstream ideas which are circulating the web. But there are dozens of other resources in Google to get you moving even further down the path of mobile web development. As I mentioned earlier my source code is free to download and open for edits on your own projects. If you have any ideas or questions feel free to respond in the post discussion area below.

Advertise here with BSA

Advertise here with BSA

When designing digital products you want to strive for the most compatible user experience for every visitor. Designing a product is very difficult – whether a website or mobile application. You need to understand current trends in the market. And most importantly you should be confident in your design skills!

But even very skilled artists can get hung up on big projects. This is why I suggest starting off any design with a prototype, or wireframe graphic. This will map out each unique piece of your user interface to explain how page layouts will appear and which buttons do what. It’s almost like a blueprint before you jump into Photoshop. For those unfamiliar with the process I’ve added a few tips in this article.

Start with The Basics

A strong web prototype should be used as merely a blueprint for the final plans. You can’t build a house without the original specs – and although the same can’t be said for web design, your layout will be much better if you plan ahead. Except this can be fun as the details are up to you.

Consider what type of website you’re looking to build. Is it a social network, an informational business page? Or maybe a new online storage and file hosting service? Whatever you’re trying to build will probably have very different requirements for each case.

You could even start by sketching a few rough draft ideas. See how many sidebars you would want. Maybe try shifting the navigation towards the top vs. to the side. Browsing inspirational HTML/CSS galleries may offer a more clear idea of what your final product should look like.

Understanding Goals

A prototype is used to explain what the process of using your website should be like. Where do dropdown menus appear? Will there be any animations? Consider the “end game” for your visitor’s ultimate goals. Some web designers struggle with figuring out each part of these elements in a prototype.

There is no correct answer for the amount of detail you need. A simple wireframe mockup may just include a sketch with labeled boxes for content. But you may also include the total width of some sections on the page. Or write in how many different links or tabs you would need inside a navigation panel.

Pencil or HTML?

If you have artistic talent drawing on pencil and paper then I have to suggest starting here first. This grants you limitless potential to create whatever you’d like, and you are not restricted to quirks running inside a web browser. But there is good reason to use HTML as well.

Coding out a simple prototype means you can have the basic page structure already setup. You will not have any colors or images – in fact it would be smart to use filler images like dark grey rectangles. These can easily be removed and replaced for the final draft.

Another reason to code out your prototype is the possible time you can save. I know plenty of web designers who feel more comfortable coding in HTML rather than writing down their ideas. If this sounds like you then a hard-coded prototype is often a great solution. You can implement the math in CSS and setup pixels, ems, or percentages, then tune your design to fit this model.

Provide User Solutions

Taking the user experience into consideration should be your #1 priority. You should be able to speak the language of UI/UX within your prototype. If you have specific ideas for menus or search forms then plan these out in advance.

If you’re really into the design, consider jumping right into jQuery with your current draft. Then you can setup even the most basic animations for auto-suggest, nav menus, sliding panels, etc.

A great example is placing a large photo slideshow onto your homepage. Even if you don’t have any content to add inside, it can’t hurt to have the gallery panning through. You can size out the dimensions and create dummy content, maybe 2-3 images at most. You can then mold this feature and even apply new design styles which suit your website.

Routing Mobile Views

As much as the web is simple to handle, mobile devices couldn’t be easier. The screens are so small that you are practically forced to work with a minimalist mindset. Because of this it should be no problem mapping different mobile views and user actions.

This process is actually best done on paper compared to hard-coding in HTML. You want the prototype to flow and explain how the app would run. Even if you are building a mobile HTML5/CSS3 application, it doesn’t hurt to write out a content strategy. Advanced placement is what separates the great apps from phenomenal ones.

Conclusion

I hope these few tips can get you started on the right path to prototyping. Both web and mobile platforms offer a similar interface. But how users interact with your site will be completely different – and you will need to plan for this in advance.

But don’t get stressed or discouraged if your first plans don’t work out. It can be tough getting into the system when you have little practice building the user experience. Check out other similar articles in Google, and if you have prototyping ideas feel free to share them with us in the post discussion area.

Advertise here with BSA

Advertise here with BSA

The App Store has been growing at an exceptionally fast pace. Ever since we rolled into 2012 there have been more iPhone and iPad apps released from developers all around the world. And this isn’t mentioning the build-up of applications since the store originally launched in July 2008.

In this gallery I’ve put together some outstanding iOS app icons. Use these for inspiration on parts of your website, or even when designing your own iPhone app. There are so many creative ideas that it’s tough to nail down one particular designer. But going through some of these examples will surely offer a glimpse into professional icon design techniques.

PhotoPlace Pro

Smartr Contacts

Canada Sales Tax Calculator

PicToon

San Francisco Way

Los Angeles Way

Superstash

Pay with Square

Ancestry

Baby Accordeon

Food Guide

The Photo Cookbook

Groceries

Chocolate Mania HD

iWallet

Shape-O ABC’s

Lil’ Birds

ProPlayer

Cinema – The Beautiful Movie Database

Alan Rogers Camping

TunesMate

Timenotes

Wall of Memories

Weather Router

On This Day…

Advertise here with BSA

Advertise here with BSA

Web designers are moving forward with many of the different content management systems. WordPress is certainly a popular option – but when it comes to discussion boards I have to go with vBulletin. Their web software has been around for years and powers many of the infamous forums you can find through Google.

Although these are common place with some web communities, it can be difficult to find some of the really great designs. That’s why in this showcase I have put together a collection of vBulletin forums running their own custom themes. You can use these for inspiration on your own projects in the future. vBulletin is likely to be around for the long haul. Having this gallery of vB designs at your disposal makes templating all the more easier.

Web Developer

HTML Forums

Talk Freelance

Website Babble

Concept Art Forums

Photoshop Gurus

iPhone Dev SDK Forum

MacNN Forums

Apple Insider

Windows 7 Forums

Ubuntu Forums

Dev Shed

Zelda Universe

Harvest Moon Otaku

DigitalPoint

Pligg CMS

KH-Vids Forum

Webmaster Forums

iPhone Developers

HTC Forums

Audio Junkies

SingleHop Discussion Board

Estetica Design Forum

Web Hosting Talk

The Admin Zone

Cisco Mania

Sleepy Wood

Final Fantasy XIII Forums

Bell Tree Forums

I Make Money Easy

Advertise here with BSA

Advertise here with BSA

In this post we have put together some beautiful iPhone/iPad application websites. If you like these designs you might also want to check out our previous posts below.

30 Beautiful iPhone Application Websites

26 fantastic iPhone & Android apps for managing your website

paper


 

listbook

getpocket

irisapp

Stocks

domino-box

savethemom

instamatch

instagallery

letterlearner

savageinteractive

pistachioapp

taskmasterapp

anthmapp

cheddarapp

wunderkit

duet

impending

sipp

stamped

banca

saver

popset

thecocktailapp

thehitlist

thefontain

piictu

broadcast

culturedcode

sprw

dayoneapp

beachweather

makefac.es

calcbot

istudentpro

Advertise here with BSA

Advertise here with BSA

On almost every Apache server you will find different plugins and tools you can work with. One of these modules is mod_rewrite which allows you to redirect URLs according to matched regular expressions. These can range from extremely simple commands to very complex lines of code. The URL rewriting scheme is perfect for web developers trying to customize their site.

In this tutorial I’ll introduce a few commands that beginners can start with right away. All you need is Apache, which you can install on your local machine or work off a remote server.

How Does it Work?

When a visitor first requests your webpage it’ll connect to your online web host. This server then looks for a file named .htaccess which is basically a hidden configuration file.

In here we can write a whole set of rules to match for whenever a visitor is requesting a URL. Then using the Apache mod_rewrite module it’s possible to redirect their requests behind-the-scenes and create the illusion of “pretty URLs”. As an example let’s look at the two following URL schemes:

# http://www.example.com/blog/1181/
# http://www.example.com/blog.php?type=post&id=1181

These are two completely valid URLs which could be matched on your website. The first example is much easier to recognize and share on other websites, while the second targets a specific script file(blog.php) and appends some post data. Let’s look into how we could redirect this using an .htaccess file.

Setting Up the Server

When first creating your file we need to include some standard rules. These will setup the server environment and allow for http traffic to be redirected. Include these few lines at the top of your new .htaccess file:

AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /

We first set the character type as UTF-8 so there aren’t any parsing issues. RewriteEngine on is probably the most important line you must include. This lets Apache know we need to use the mod_rewrite functionality and is required for any rewrite rule statement. Additionally I’ve included the RewriteBase statement setting our remote directory to the root folder.

This should be changed if your application is running within another directory. For example, I setup my addon domains in a file structure such as /public_html/domains/mydomain.com. When creating an .htaccess file in this folder I would reset the config to RewriteBase /domains/mydomain.com/.

Making Pretty URL Schemes

With the configuration settings in place we can look into changing up the URL structure. I’m going to use the same example I pointed out earlier and direct to a similar page. First take a peek at the line of code below:

RewriteRule ^blog/([0-9]+)/?$ blog.php?type=post&id=$1 [L]

There’s a lot to understand here so we can break it down piece-by-piece. The segment enclosed within ^ and $ are the rules to be matched. This means we need to match a URL structure starting with /blog/ and followed by a set of numbers 0-9. The + sign means we can have more than one number, possibly unlimited! Then finally we have a closing forward slash with a question mark, imposing this is optional(ie. /blog/1181 will work).

Now the latter piece of the rewrite rule contains our behind the scenes redirect. In this case we are targeting a file called blog.php located in the document root. We already know the type of content is a post, but we do not know the post ID yet. This is why we can set it dynamically with the $1 variable.

Every time you open a set of parentheses this creates a new match rule. You can open many of these in a single URL, but in this case we only have one which happens to be our post ID number. If you create more match variables you can reference them in numerical order like $2, $3, etc.

Understanding Flags

Another bit I should explain is the use of flags. These can be found in brackets at the end of your rewrite line. In the example above we are using the [L] flag which means the Last flag. This will force Apache will stop looking for other rules once it matches this one.

I highly recommend this online cheat sheet as a mod_rewrite syntax guide. It has a table listing of all the possible flags you can include in your rewrite rules. Additionally there are flags & operators you can use inside the regular expression. These rules will take months to memorize, so having a bookmark like this will come in handy quite often.

Directing www and non-www Traffic

Another classic trick to custom URLs is the www subdomain. When you purchase a domain name it does not automatically disable or enable the root www subdomain which is typical of the modern Internet. Generally both the URLs will work at first – however it’s bad practice to leave both of them open.

Google and other Search Engines really like when you specify one or the other. If all your backlinks point towards either www or non-www traffic then it should work out okay. But instead we should use .htaccess rules to always direct traffic either towards www or non-www. Check out my example code below directing all traffic to non-www:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.dzineblog\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ http://dzineblog.com/$1 [R=301,L]

This will check if the user is coming in from the www subdomain and redirect to the standard URL instead. You can switch it up so that all users coming in from the regular URL are instead directed to the www subdomain every time. Notice that all the rest of the URI (/blog/whatever/) is always appended back onto the redirected domain.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.dzineblog\.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.dzineblog.com/$1 [R=301,L]

This new rule above will check the HTTP request and only pulls a match if the domain does NOT have a www attached. If that is the case the whole URL is directed towards the www subdomain and continues along just fine. You can directly copy/paste either of these codes into your own file and change the domain name to reflect yours. It should work perfectly every time you access the website.

Related Readings

1. mod_rewrite Cheat Sheet (V2)
2. Ultimate Guide to htaccess and mod_rewrite
3. How to use mod_rewrite to create clean URLs
4. More .htaccess mod_rewrite examples
5. Redirecting and Remapping with mod_rewrite – Apache Docs
6. URL Rewriting – Redirecting URLs with Apache’s mod_rewrite

Conclusion

I hope this introduction to .htaccess rewrites hasn’t been too confusing. There is a lot to understand and you won’t be able to process all of this syntax with just a few hours time. But try following along with the examples above and possibly build a practice file for yourself.

URL routing schemes are extremely important to any web application. Consider all of the different user profile pages, story submissions, and blog posts to be found online. Your website should be just as easy to navigate and share around to your friends & family. If you have ideas or suggestions for coding rewrite rules in .htaccess feel free to share with us in the post discussion area.

Advertise here with BSA

Advertise here with BSA

If you’re a freelance designer and you’re not currently using social media, you could be missing out on a lot.

Social media can be a great way to get the word out about your freelance design business for little or no cost (other than the time you spend). You can also connect with fellow designers, potential clients, and maybe even find a mentor or two.

While there’s an active community of designers who do use social media, there are also those designers who don’t yet have a social media presence. If you’re one of those, this post will help.

In this post, I’ll provides some simple tips for using social media effectively. Whether you’re just getting started on social media or have been on it for a while, you should find a tip you can use. If you like this post, you may also enjoy reading How to Devise the Perfect Social Media Strategy for You.

Seven Social Media Dos and Don’ts

Are you active on social media?

There’s a wrong way and a right way to go about using social media to promote your freelance design business. While too many freelance designers don’t really understand how to make the most of social media, fortunately good social media habits are not too difficult to develop.

Here are some easy “dos and don’ts” to help you make sure that you are using social media the right way:

1. Do Participate. If you’re not promoting your freelancing business through social media, you’re missing out on a lot. Social media can make it easier for prospective clients to find you–especially since search engines now include social media links in their ranking calculations. It’s not enough to just have a profile, though. Take some time to participate in social media each day.
2. Don’t Friend and Follow Designers Only. One mistake that many designers make is to only interact with other designers on social media. While it can be good to be a part of the social media design community (and you will enjoy communicating with your design colleagues), you should also interact with companies and individuals who have the potential to become clients.
3. Do Remember Your Online Reputation. It’s easy to get carried away on social media, but remember that not everyone shares your sense of humor. What seems funny to you might seem offensive to your client or prospect. If you’re hesitant to post something, that’s a good indication that maybe you shouldn’t share it publicly. Don’t let negative social media buzz derail you.
4. Do Be Polite. Social media interaction may seem less personal than face-to-face interaction, but remember that there’s a real person (at least in most cases) at the other end of the connection. Be as polite to the contacts that you make through social media as you are to those you make in person. Good manners are always a good idea.
5. Don’t Just Broadcast. Too many social media users only share links to their own information and projects. However, social media is largely about sharing information that is useful, regardless of the source. So yes, do share your own stuff, but share links from others too. You’d be surprised at how many more interactions you will have. Also, remember to comment on links and information that you find interesting.
6. Do Pay Attention to Your Profiles. Regardless of the social media platform, your profile should be filled out completely. If possible, you should link to your business website from your profile. You can learn more about creating a strong and effective social media profile here. Your profile may be the very first place a prospective client looks.
7. Don’t Let Social Media Take All Your Time. Set a limit on how much time you devote to social media and stick to it. Social media is a good tool, but you also need to get your work done on time. You can use automation tools to schedule tweets and posts if you need to when you are busy. Above all, don’t let social media enthusiasm cause you to miss a project deadline.

Your Turn

I’ve shared seven simple tips for using social media effectively. How do you use social media to promote your freelance design business? What tips would you add?

Image by KateMonkey

Advertise here with BSA

Advertise here with BSA

Minimalist print ads are always popular for there simplicity. In this collection we have compiled some simple advertisements to inspire you. Enjoy!!

If you like this post you might also enjoy our previous related posts below:

30 Creative Print Advertisements

41 Funny Print Ads for Inspiration

37 Creative Shoes Advertisements

Volkswagen: Shift,


Nescafé: Safari

Weleda Body Care: Skin Jewelry, Ring

Toto 3: Bulb

Phoenix Metro Light Rail: Your Life On Track Silhouettes, Jazz

Portfolio Night: Pin

Suavitel Goodbye Ironing: Shark

Colsubsidio Book Exchange: Snow white and Sherlock Holmes

Vimm-Bill-Dann: Grass

Rage Mobile Phones: Mobile Tracker Coordinates

Audi VAESA: Wake up!

Gol Televisión: Theatre

Lego: Green Brick

Scrabble: Baseball (Beisbol)

Rochebobois: Rabbit

Garden Cafe: Opening

Nestle Kit Kat: Break

Durex: Maze

Oreo

Honda Dorvalino Motos: Beep

Guinness: Pint Pass

BMW: Hockey

Revista Ecológica: Green

Corre Cutia Bookstore: Catchy Stories, 2

MADS creative thinking courses: You’re in, BBDO

VW SpaceFox: Tariff Notebook

Lighting Networks: Shadows, Bear

Bank Forum, Commerzbank: Chaos

Faber Castell: Night

Hubba Bubba: Mouth

Etisalat Yellow Pages: Stand Out, Car rental

Smart Center Rio de Janeiro: Evolution always compacts, Mastodon

Aljazeera Network: The Arabic source, broadcasted in English, 3

Advertise here with BSA