How to get lucrative writing jobs on Twitter – The Ultimate Guide

Twitter is one of the most popular social media networks out there. As at July 7th, 2016, Twitter has 313 million users, 120 million unique monthly visitors and 100 million daily active twitter users.

A lot of us use it to reach out to friends and colleagues and to send out news stories.  But few writers know that Twitter is a good marketing tool.  You can land lucrative writing jobs on Twitter.

It will interest you to know that most of your prospective clients are on Twitter.  According to emarketer, 65.8% of US companies with 100+ employees use Twitter for marketing.

In this article, I will be showing you how to land lucrative writing jobs on Twitter.  But, first, I will like to show you how to set up your twitter profile in order so that clients will be attracted to you.

Twitter profile design

The first thing you need is a twitter profile for your writing business. So, go ahead and register a twitter account for your business.  Below are what you will need to consider while designing your profile:

1.   A useful Twitter handle

Your twitter handle is very important.  It needs to be short, relevant and unique. This will make it easy for people to add it to their tweets. It will also make it easy for potential clients to find your profile when they are looking for who to hire. A good example of a name combination is something like @ticewrites. Check out the profile below. It belongs to one of the top writers in the US – Carol Tice.

You can see her twitter handle – @ticewrites. It shows her name and what she does for a living.

2.   Profile photo

A lot of people don’t use pictures on Twitter.  You will find twitter accounts with the characteristic egg graphic default.  You cannot afford to do this if you really want to get writing jobs on twitter.

You need to upload a photo of yourself that people can relate with. Use a clear photo of you smiling.  Check out Elna Cain‘s profile photo below:

I am sure you can do something like that.

3.   Background design

You need a background/header for your twitter profile. The dimension is 125 x 625.  This is a place where you showcase your writing business. You can include your photo, business logo, web address, services , where you have been featured as a writer, etc. The aim of the background is to help you create a branding for your business. You can use a mixture of images and text to produce an attractive header.  You can use Canva to design it for free.  Sign up for a free account and search for twitter header.

They have free pictures you can use or you can upload your own as you want it.

Look at Bamidele Onibalusi’s background / header below.  It looks cool and it portrays his business very well.

If you look at the background, you will see the name of his website, where he has been featured, what he does, a great quote and his picture.  It looks look cool.  You can design something like this for your own Twitter page.

4.   Twitter Bio

This is a very important part of your twitter profile. Twitter gives you 160 characters to explain what you or your business does. As you write your Twitter bio, make sure you add keywords with hashtags in it.  It will help your profile to be easily found in twitter search or other search engines. You can also add your services, qualifications, where you have been featured as a writer etc.

Check out my bio below:

Don’t forget to add a link to your website if you have one. If you cannot afford one, for now, you can simply create a free BlogSpot or wordpress.com account to use for now.

Now that you know the basics, it is time to look for prospective clients to follow:

Following prospective clients on Twitter:

Now that your profile is set up, you need to start adding prospective clients to your list.  The first thing you can do is to start with digital marketing companies or SEO agencies.  These are broad niche agencies that hire writers regularly. So we will start by searching for them on Managefliter.com.

Managefliter is an app you can use to sift through 330 million users on Twitter to locate your prospective client. It is an app that will help you to identify users / clients you can start following. You can follow 50 people per day with the free account.

So, get a free account and sign up on Managefliter.com.  When you log in, click on “search”.  Then type in either SEO agency, SEO company, digital marketing agency, etc. I typed in SEO agency and 4,989 people/companies matches the search as shown below:

Scroll to check for authentic companies, then follow them. The rule here is to follow companies who are active on twitter. The first thing you need to do is to check the last tweet’s date. In the picture above, you can see that the last post on Xtremesocial was 313 days ago, so they may not be the right fit for this assignment because it shows the company is not active.

The next thing you need to do is to start writing on your free Blogspot blog and tweeting your posts.  Most importantly, retweet important posts from the company’s twitter page to get familiar with their write-ups. It is also a good way to position yourself in front of the company.

Now, that your account is getting populated, it is time to start the actual marketing.

5 Ways to get prospective clients on Twitter

1. Build a relationship with prospective clients

The list of prospective clients you acquired from Managefliters will be useful here. You will build relationships with your prospective clients. You can start by sharing their articles on your twitter page.  This will show that you are a genuine reader and that you are familiar with their blog/publication. Do this for a couple of time, then you can pitch to them.  You can send a message like “I love what your company does. Do you work with freelance writers“?

Some prospects will respond to your tweets, while some will not. For the ones that respond, tell them what you do and how you can help them to attract visitors, convert them to customers and engage them.

Just keep doing it. All you need is a good paying client and it will be worthwhile.

2.  Use Twitter search feature

The twitter search feature is located at the top right corner of your twitter page as shown below.

Now, you need to type keywords that clients will likely use in searching for writers to hire, such as:

#freelancewriter
#freelancewriting
#writing
#writer
#copywriter
#copywriting
#travelwriter
#travelwriting
#webwriter
#contentwriting
#contentwriter
#blogger
#freelanceblogger
#featurewriting
#ghostwriter
#ghostwriting
#grantwriting
#businesswriting
#technicalwriting
#technicalwriter
#resumewriting
#speechwriting
#speechwriter

When I typed in #contentwriter, I got the following result:

Can you see a  job advertisement in the screenshot above?  It was posted just a few hours ago. Here is another one below:

So, pick each keyword and search for them daily, you will surely get writing jobs on twitter.

3.  Search for companies and people who collect and tweets freelance writer job opportunities

There are people who share freelance writing jobs on twitter. Below are some of them:

@mediabistro
@freelancewj
@tweelancewriter
@writing_jobs
@jjobs_tweets
@writing_gigs
@WajJobAgency
@whopayswriters
@write_jobs

Follow each one of the accounts so you will be able to see new writing opportunities as they come. You can create a list on twitter for the handles so you can always have a place to scan for writing jobs on twitter.

4.  Share useful content

Here, you have to determine who you want to reach out to and attract.  You need to share content that your followers would find useful and like to read. They may not like all you write, just make sure you are sharing valuable information. Then, your prospective clients might start following you.  I have many people following me that way.  As they follow you, they might offer you writing gigs that will lead to exposure for you and paying gigs.

5.  Search for requests for help

Most often than not, Twitter users post request for help.  Here, you need to think about the challenges your target market is facing.  For a prospective client , it can be ‘having trouble writing my website content’, ‘finding it difficult to complete my e-book’, ‘updating my website’, ‘creating a new brochure’. You can type all these search queries in the search bar to uncover opportunities.  When you do, keep your approach simple.  Send a short tweet explaining what you do and how you can be of help. You can include a link to your portfolio or website.  You can also search for the prospect contact details on their website and send them emails to establish formal contact.

There you have it, a step by step action plan for you to get lucrative writing jobs on Twitter.  What are you waiting for?  Start it now!

Hephzibah Asaolu

I am Hephzy Asaolu (aka Ladywriter), a professional Freelance content writer and blogger.

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