It’s the catch 22 of starting a career — you need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience. Which is why, when you write your online copywriting resume for the first time, you need to think outside the box.

You Have More Skills Than You Think!

Established copywriters may have the edge when it comes to on-the-job experience, but any experience is valuable when it comes to finding a job. What I’m talking about here is transferable skills.

The key here not just to list your skills, but also to demonstrate how you have used them in a professional setting. Here, I’ll show you how to work out what those skills are, and how to apply them to your online copywriting job hunt.

Step 1: Figure Out What Your Skills Are

What’s been your defining life experience? When you’re applying for an job writing online, you can put anything to good use. Here are just some of the places you can take inspiration from:

• Traveling
  Remember at college when all the gap year brochures promised you’d get ‘life experience’ by going travelling? Well, it’s time put that experience to good use.Can you think of a time when you’ve had to think on your feet to get yourself out of a tricky situation? Did you survive on your own in a new country, or learn a new language? In today’s global market, your potential employer probably has connections overseas, so they will appreciate the skills you learned while you were away.
• Brand “You”
  Your Facebook profile, Twitter stream and everything else that goes with it says something about you. Can you draw any communication skills from your online profiles? It’s not enough to know about Facebook and Twitter — do you know how to manage your own personal brand, or can you write consistently strong content about a particular subject?
• University
  I’ve got news for you if you think that the student website means a one-way ticket to a media job. Unfortunately, every other applicant will have the same experience, so go one step further and explain what skills you picked up while doing it. Did you lead a team, help with publicity or increase readership? A magazine or website is useless if people don’t read it, so how can you demonstrate that you know how readerships work?
• Training and qualifications
  Have you done first aid training, or fire safety? Being nominated for these responsible positions shows trustworthiness, flexibility and commitment.
  How about shorthand training or touch-typing? These skills are often overlooked as they seem out of date, but they demonstrate that you’re more than a one-trick-pony.
• Extra-curricular activities
  Can you edit videos and upload them to YouTube, or wire up a PC with your eyes closed? Do you know your Holgas from your hot shoes (that’s photography speak)? A lot of online content jobs require some multimedia experience or some technical skills, especially in a small team.

Step 2: Group Your Skills In To Sections

Next, group the skills that you’ve listed above into sub-sections. For example, there are 3 sets of skills I use in my CV: communication skills, technical skills and creative skills. My transferable skills are mixed in with my practical skills, but split up into 3 clear sections to make them easier to read.

You can use sections like these, or think of your own. I’ve just listed my skills on my CV, but in the next couple of steps we’ll be expanding to include your pitch to employers and also adding the experiences that lead y0u to develop these skills in the first place.

Step 3: Decide Why Your Skills Are Employable

These skills might involve some research or some thought, so give yourself time to consider the skills that are right for the type of job you are going for. Carry a notepad with you and write each skill down as you think of it.

Next to each skill, write down how you can demonstrate it and also how it relates to your online writing career. Remember to look at it from the perspective of an employer: they want to know why they should hire you above anyone else, which often means telling them how you can save them money or improve their team.

• How would your skill boost profits or save them money?
• Could you save time or make the office more efficient using your skill?
• Can you save them money by teaching your skill to other staff members?
• Could your skill inspire others, or does it mean you can work better as a team?

If you really can’t think of a way to relate a skill back to your chosen career, consider leaving it out for now, or alternatively save it for the ‘Additional Information’ section.

Step 4: Develop Your Examples

You might not have an example for every skill you have, as some are developed in day-to-day life. That’s ok: in this next step you can pick out the skills that you think show the most about your personality, or that are most relevant to your online writing career.

Choose three or four skills from your list, and write down:

• Where and when did you learn your skill? What was the specific experience?
• Did you learn the skill off your own back, or through working with others?
• How does your skill benefit your employer?
• What does your skill say about your personality, that would bring something to a team?

Over to You!

I hope the steps above will help you develop your CV and get your dream online copywriting job. Let me know how you get on in the comments below!

Blogging is hard. Sometimes it can be really hard. The crushing disappointment and obligatory tantrum that follows your pitiful first week’s stats is one that all bloggers have to face. Every blog starts at nothing and it’s only through hard work, a lot of patience and some failures that you’ll start seeing the stats that most of us actually want.

But if only there was someone who could make all the hard work a little easier?

Enter… The Freddy Krueger Of Blogging

Imagine being able to get your hands on ready-made tuition from someone who grew his blog from nothing to one with over 23,000 visitors a month, in just 2 years. Enter Danny Iny from Firepole Marketing (otherwise known as The Freddy Krueger of Blogging).

This is a guy who has written over 80 guest posts for some of the world’s biggest blogs: Copyblogger, Problogger and Smashing Magazine, to name a few. His guest blogging strategy has brought him:

• Thousands of comments
• Tens of thousands of Tweets, likes and shares
• A position as one of the leaders in the marketing world.

Danny has acheived this in little more than 2 years and what’s more, he can write his dynamite posts in as little as 1 hour.

Luckily, Danny’s such a nice guy that he regularly gives advice away for free, most recently in his webinar on Tom Ewer’s Leaving Work Behind blog.

How The Hell Does He Do It?

As part of his webinar (which I strongly recommend you watch at Tom’s website here), Danny laid out his structure for an awesome blog post, which goes roughly like this:

• The Headline: get your readers interested.
• The Hook: convince them to start reading – what pain are they experiencing, or what pleasure are they not experiencing?
• Problem: go over the problem in more detail – what’s causing their pain?
• Root of the problem: what’s really going on?
• Solution: how can the problem be addressed?
  
• Implementing the solution: what should your readers do next?
• Engagement-building question: invite your readers to comment or share your post.
• Byline: who are you?

Danny Iny’s Blog Structure – In His Own Words

After watching the webinar I was keen to learn more about Danny’s blog structure and jumped at the chance of an interview with him. Here’s more about his strategy from the man himself:

CG: Which has been your most successful use of this blog structure? Why do you think this was?

DI: Easily one of my most successful posts was 21 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue, on Copyblogger, and it’s because I spent so much time researching the blog to see what the audience wants, and what headline structures they’d respond to.

People think that good writing is about inspiration, but it’s not true – not if you’re approaching it like a professional, at least. Good writing comes from research into what the reader will respond to.

CG: What’s the secret to a perfect hook?

DI: It’s all about connecting with the experience of the reader. The hook is the part of the post that has to grab their attention, right at the beginning, and the best way to do that is to either describe the pain that they’re currently experiencing, or the pleasure that they want to be experiencing, but aren’t.

Don’t try to get creative and talk about the problem, possible solutions, your ideas, or anything like that – just describe the pain or the pleasure in explicit, visceral, gut-wrenching detail.

CG: What makes you bookmark a post or think “this blogger has something special”?

DI: It’s the headline, the hook, and the sub-heads; I read so many blog posts that usually, I just skim – if the headline, hook, or sub-head don’t grab me and get me to read the rest, then the blogger hasn’t done it. When they get me to actually read the whole post, that’s when I know they’ve done a good job.

Want To Learn Danny’s Strategy, Right Now?

So, how do you create the posts that will work hard enough to get you traffic of Danny Iny proportions? As well as his webinar, Danny also offers his Write Like Freddy training. His curriculum promises to help you take action and bring in more traffic, more subscribers, just by putting some thought into your guest posting strategy.

What do you think of Danny’s blog structure? Will you be signing up to the course? Let me know in the comments!

If you’re looking for an online copywriting job, you may already have come up against the jurassic-dated notion that content just isn’t that important. But smart business people know that the reality is very different: content is king, and I was delighted to speak with some of those smart people at the meetup. These people genuinely care about their content because they know it’s now the most important part of their online presence.

In fact, what they asked me was so useful that I wanted to share it with you. If you were ever in doubt about the need for online copywriters who can create relevant, share-able and engaging content (ie. YOU), then this list should help…

Why The World Still Needs Online Copywriters

(Clue: because we can answer questions like these)

1. How do I blog? What do I write about? How the hell am I supposed to come up with ideas every day?
2. I keep hearing that I need to keep Google happy with better content. How do I do this? Are keywords still important?
3. How do I overcome writer’s block? I don’t know where to start!
4. Which social media platform is right? How do I put my personality across on Twitter without sounding silly?
5. I know I need to invest in my online content. How will an online copywriter help me make more money?

These are very real concerns of business owners who are aware that they need a stream of relevant content, but who are unsure of how to provide it.

How can you use these concerns to sell your skills to an employer? Can you use them to do some freelance work and build up your online writing portfolio?

I hope this list helps – as always please feel free to get in touch and tell me what you think. Have you come up against

But nothing is happening. You’re getting few job alerts in your inbox and close to zero recruitment calls a week. When you do get put forward for a job that vaguely resembles online copywriting, you don’t get asked in for an interview. Why?

First of all, don’t panic. We’ve all been there. Everyone had to start somewhere, after all.

The simplest way to get more opportunities is to broaden your search. Stay too close to the main topic and you might miss out on the job that will kick off your career.

So, What Are They?

The 5 areas you need to know in order to get an online copywriting job are SEO, PPC, WordPress, HTML and email marketing. Let’s go through them one-by-one, and I’ll explain how they can help you find an online writing job.

If you’d rather read about what to do next, you can skip to the section helpfully titled “What To Do Next”.

• WordPress
  The brainiac little brother of all other CMS software, WordPress is ridiculously easy to learn (but seems complicated to anyone who has never used it) and will make you stand out. Many websites now use a CMS to upload content, so being able to say that you have practice or experience in one will give you an edge.
  Case in point: a previous employer of mine was quoted £800 for WordPress training from an external provider. If your next employer is getting similar ridiculous quotes, wouldn’t they love someone who can do it as part of their salary? If you know WordPress, shout about it!
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
  Mention PPC and many people think of Google Adwords, but learning how to write Facebook ads is just as important. There’s a real skill to writing very short copy that needs to sell a whole idea to potential customers.
  If you can practice writing for PPC ads on an existing site, then all the better. If you can’t, then some background research into how to write good PPC ad copy shows initiative and passion.
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
  Knowing something about SEO is a no-brainer if you want an online writing job. In fact, you probably have some knowledge in this already. But is it on your CV? Can you include the fact that you spend your spare time keeping up with the latest Google updates, SEO blogs and other search engine trends?
  If you have no experience in SEO but want something to put on your portfolio, I would definitely recommend starting a blog. When you’re starting out in SEO, what you think will happen normally doesn’t, and the other way round, so it’s far better to make a mistake on your own blog rather than an employer’s.
• HTML
  This one’s slightly more time-consuming to learn, but can be easily picked up on sites like W3Schools in a matter of days. Whether your new employer uses software like Dreamweaver to upload content or a CMS like WordPress, if you know some basic HTML then you’ll be able to edit your own code without bugging a developer too much (ultimate brownie points with your new boss!)
• Email Marketing
  Many beginners overlook email marketing when it comes to their online writing training, believing email campaigns to be a thing of the past. But social media hasn’t completely taken over yet: in fact many of the smartest marketing pros use email to support their social media strategy, so neglect it from your CV at your peril…

Why Do These Matter So Much?

Knowing what these terms mean, how they relate to your online writing career, how useful they are to potential employers and how you will use them once you do get a job adds value to your offer to employment proposition.

Another reason is that internet job sites run in the same way as traditional search engines. Whether your CV will be found or not depends on the keywords you include in it, and adding these 5 keywords will help recruiters find you.

A note of warning: in no way am I implying that you should lie on your CV! If you have experience in any of these 5 areas then great, but if not then be clear that you have knowledge in these areas and research them in your spare time. You’ll still come across as proactive and enthusiastic, without the awkward conversation when you come to interview.

What To Do Next

You might have noticed that you can practice most of the elements above (SEO, WordPress and HTML) by creating and managing your own blog. You can find a free guide for how to do this in my series called Blog Your Way To A Career In Online Copywriting.

You should also check out the ton of useful information available on the net about all of these CV additions. Some of my favourites include:

• My Jargon-Free WordPress Glossary and also the WordPress User Handbook.
• The Facebook for Business guide to Facebook ads, or Copyblogger’s How to Write Magnetic Headlines series (since all successful PPC and Facebook ads rely on a great headline).
• Google’s SEO Starter Guide (available as a handy PDF download) and the SEOmoz blog.
• W3Schools’ excellent HTML tutorials.
• Finally you can pick up a few pointers on writing great email copy here and also in Kate Toon’s blog here, then listen to Ben Settle’s advice on email marketing snowball effects at Copyblogger’s podcast.

These magic 5 elements don’t require downloading a fancy tool. They aren’t available on the App Store and don’t offer empty promises to find you a job within a week. Best of all, they’re free. And I’m confident that researching these 5 areas of online copywriting will get you more calls per week, more opportunities and more chances to show what you can do. What have you got to lose?

“You miss every opportunity you don’t take”

That quote got me thinking about a chance that I took a few years ago that ultimately changed the course of my online copywriting career.

The Year Was 2009…

In 2009 I was working as an Administrator and doing nothing with an MSc that I had just spent 2 years and thousands of pounds on. This basically boiled down to lack of ambition: I had a couple of years’ experience in a previous job but I thought I had left it too late to have a shot at my career and my lack of current experience would hold me back.

Then one night I got a call from a recruitment agent who wanted to put me forward for a job in email marketing (coding rather than writing). I flunked the interview, but it got me thinking. If a recruitment adviser thought I might be good enough, did I actually have a shot at a career in online copywriting?

How I Did It

That night, armed with a new sense of determination and confidence, I threw everything I had into my CV and put it on every job website I could find. Within 2 days I had an interview with ICUK, a web design company who wanted someone fresh out of uni (check) who wanted to learn (and check). The rest, as they say, is history.

To this day, I still can’t believe how quickly everything changed. If I hadn’t taken that call and reacted so quickly, the job would have gone to someone else and I would have missed out on the biggest opportunity I’d ever been given.

The Moral(s) Of The Story

While I will never profess to being an expert in getting a job, I do know that these 3 things will help you start your online copywriting career, just like they helped me.

• Be prepared to start at the bottom
  I started at ICUK prepared to do anything as long as it involved working on a website, and it paid off. I got to learn lots of different skills and got the online experience I needed.
  
• No one got anywhere being coy
  Have confidence in your abilities and shout about your skills, be that on your blog, on freelancing websites or via social media.
  
• If in doubt, get advice from an expert
  If you’re unsure whether you can make it, then ask someone who knows (a recruitment agent, mentor in the industry or professional LinkedIn forums) rather than presuming you can’t. You might be surprised at the results.
  

The subject matter will revolve around what I am trying to do, and what I have done. I hope that revealing my methods will in turn help you (that is certainly the aim). No “expert advice” – just one person telling another what they’re up to.

This got me thinking. While I have managed to carve out a modest online copywriting career, I never intended to come across as an expert. I still have a long way to go, which is why I started writing the blog for amateur writers trying to get their first online copywriting job.

So from now on I’ll be concentrating more on telling you the stuff that got me my first online copywriting jobs, and sharing what I am learning now along the way.  There are already thousands of excellent blogs about freelance writing and I know how hard it is to get a full-time online copywriting career off the ground.

This includes everything from writing your CV to how to use the main job sites, how to get that all-important portfolio together and how extras like meetups, networking and blogging can help you get your first online copywriting job. I hope they help you develop your own career skills and get the job you want.

If you want to keep up to date with the blog, you can follow me on Twitter, or subscribe via RSS or email to have the posts delivered straight to you, without you having to lift a finger… easy!

And don’t forget to update me on how you’re doing in your job searches, I love hearing your stories. Or let me know what problems you’re facing and I’ll see how I can help.

Good luck!

One of the most frustrating parts of getting your first online copywriting job is having to prove yourself before you’ve had the chance to build a portfolio. Employers want examples of your work, yet you could only get those if they gave you the job in the first place.

But there are ways to build an online copywriting portfolio before you step foot in your first full-time job. Here are 5 of my favourite ways to build on your online copywriting experience, however limited it is.

And they’re all tried-and-tested: I’ve done every one of these in the past and they’ve all helped in interviews or when putting together my portfolio.

Preparation

Put aside some time (maybe two or three evenings) in your week for guest blogging, freelancing websites like Peopleperhour.com and smaller projects so that you can build your portfolio before you go for jobs. By the time you start going to interviews you’ll have the experience, skills and portfolio snapshots that all employers are looking for. Working in your spare time also shows bags of initiative.

Step 1: Learn, Test, Experiment

Read some of my recommended reading for online copywriters, then start writing every day to test what you have learned.

Experiment with other people’s copy. How has the copywriter tried to get their message across? What can you take from their techniques or how do you think you could have done it better?

If you do this a few times a week, it should become second nature to analyse the copy you see every day.

Also remember that online copywriting is more than just web pages. Stand out from the crowd by learning about these other types of online copy:

• Email copy
• Blogging and social media
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Google Adwords, Facebook ads and other PPC advertising
• Writing for different audiences and tones of voice

This is all good stuff to put on your CV as these keywords will be picked up in recruiters’ searches on job sites.

Step 2: Start Blogging

Writing your own blog gives you the chance to test your skills, practice your SEO and also gives you something to put on your CV. It’s.a major tool for any online copywriter.

Try my series of posts on Blogging Your Way To An Online Copywriting Career for a complete guide to setting up your blog.

And don’t forget about guest blogging, too. There are thousands of chances to write for other people out there – it’s just a case of finding them. Guest blogging website myblogguest.com is a great start.

Step 3: Work Experience and Internships

Internships can be a great way to get your foot in the door and get that all-important first testimonial.

They’re also a sure-fire way to test whether you actually want to write for a living rather than just a hobby. Writing copy as a freelancer or as a full-time job is a world away from writing as a hobby. A couple of weeks is enough to figure out whether you want to do it every day for the next 30 or 40 years.

If however you come out of the experience thinking you’d do it for free all the time if only they’d let you, then you’re all set!

Step 4: Volunteer for a Charity

Most charities know that they need a simple website and a Facebook profile but they have neither the time nor the money to do it. If you have some online copywriting skills, why not give them a call and offer your help? They may be desperate for some publicity but put off by the thought of going online, so explain how you could benefit them spread the word.

A word of caution when contacting charities. Volunteering can work wonders for both your professional and personal life, but you will still have to put some time and hard work into creating a quality product. You’ll also have to maintain the site afterwards — this is a long-term commitment, not a quick win.

Step 5: Partnerships and Networking

Create some business cards, then start attending meetups – there should be plenty of creative events in your area.

Partner with photographers, videographers and web developers; build relationships with them and ask them to keep you in mind if they hear of any opportunities (and return the favour, of course).

Introduce yourself as a copywriter and hand out your business card to anyone who will take it. Be genuine, confident and chatty — make sure they know you’re available for work when they need you. The more you do this, the better your chances of getting to the right people.

Did these work for you? Let us know in the comments or feel free to send us a tweet @cavatica_copy!

Steve did point out one thing in his introduction: there is a shortage of talent at the moment. So finding a job in social media – just like in any other sector – is actually about being the best in the job. It’s about those factors that make you the best in your sector.

So to kick off the meetup, Steve started off with a few questions and answered them with keywords:

What Defines A Good Social Media Job Search?

• Standing out - having something others don’t have.
• Being relevant
• Creativity - it’s about doing what others don’t do.
• Knowledge
• Communication - which is a key factor especially in social media.
• Experience
• Suitability
• Connectivity - the ability to talk about your knowledge of the industry and connect with others.
• Likability
• Flexibility
• Capability
• Authenticity

What Defines A Social Media Job?

• Connectivity - it’s about how you connect with other people, since one main point of social media is raising connectivity.
• Reputation
• Communication
• Marketing (and PR)
• Writing - most people who get a job in social media, especially at an entry level, get involved in a lot of creating writing.
• Listening
• Sociability – the willingness to communicate to other people, and the industry is struggling to get people with this quality.
• Engagement
• Credibility
• Creativity - being able to come up with big ideas and engaging, bringing something new to the table
• Authenticity – this is important, especially since social media is not a place to hide ourselves but to expose ourselves and our strong features.
• Sharing
• Advocacy

So now that we have keywords for both questions, we can quickly see the common keywords:

• Creativity
• Communication
• Connectivity
• Authenticity

These are the main qualities that an applicant for any social media job should have.

Applying For A Job

Steve showed us a few examples of creative job applications, some of which have been quite successful. We saw good examples and bad examples too. Some people use their blogs as a CV or even incorporate their CV in their blog. Others use graphic CVs, but those who want to go for this type of CV should tread carefully: graphic CVs can often portray too much information too clumsily, in a format that most people won’t recognise. The key is this: be short, sharp and concise.

• Create a buzz to get people interested in you.
• Promote yourself on Twitter and create a Twitter campaign if you wish, like Ulrike Schulz did with @thelondonjob.
• Have a look in the papers too – The Guardian appears to be the paper of choice when it comes to social media applications and job hunting.

So How Do We Get Ourselves Known?

This is how social media works: it’s all through connectivity. It’s about who you connect with, who you share with. Here are a few tips that Steve gave:

• Do a lot of job searches
• Use LinkedIn and especially Twitter – Twitter is currently the most accessible tool for finding people and interacting with them.
• Go to events and meetups
• Listen to people
• Read what people write – a lot of people who are interested in social media have a blog. In fact, the majority of the attendants at the Social Media Meetup were bloggers.
• Ask people things
• Be brave
• Be sociable
• If you want answers, ask questions; if you want an instant answer, ask Twitter.
• Comment and share good blogs, after all it’s easy to do.
• Interact online – this comes with a dual benefit: the owner of the blog will thank you for sharing and commenting, and in the meantime you also become more visible and more relevant.
• Be creative and original.
• Make sure you have an active social presence – this is extremely important, as you need to be an active part of the industry. This doesn’t mean that you must have a blog, but it helps as it provides your potential employer with some examples of your writing. You can use Posterous or WordPress to start with.
• Your LinkedIn profile needs to look good, and it needs to tell a story about your job search.
• Make sure your Facebook profile looks right, but don’t make it public as people WILL find you and among them your potential employers too.
• Communicate positively. Don’t swear or have aggressive opinion on your twitter and be concise with how people recognise you on social profiles.
• Be thoughtful and conscious.
• Be generous – share blogs, share content. Everyone writes on Twitter to get some feedback.
• Find people and find mutual ground with them. The mutual ground does not necessarily have to be your current job search; as important as it is, your job search shouldn’t be your sole topic of the conversation.
• Be authentic, be real, enthusiastic and energetic.
• Connect well – it’s not just about following people on Twitter or adding them to your contact list on LinkedIn.

Question Time

To conclude, Steve gave the audience a chance to ask some questions. Here are the questions and answers in a nutshell.

Q. What is your view on people who open Twitter accounts just tweet job posts?
A. The problem with that is the automation behind it. It actually does not feel like there’s a person sitting behind it tweeting those posts. If you really want to use Twitter to find a job in Social Media, find the right people. Here’s a tip: look for the keywords in people’s Twitter bios, especially in their job titles. Once you’ve found the right ones, connect with them.

Q. How do I get a job in social media with my present marketing skills?
A. Look out for the skills that you need. Social media is a broad area, so you might want to find a niche or a particular sector within social media that you’re interested. Be aware of marketing too and broaden your skills set – this will attract more job prospects.

Q. I’d like to find a job in social media AND analytics. What are your views on it?
A. Right now the majority of social media jobs focus on the actual communicative aspect of social media more than the analytical aspect. This is mainly because lots of companies don’t fully understand the need of analytics in their sector. Have a look on LinkedIn for people who are interested in your niche. In the end it all comes down to finding the people relevant to what you need. By all means connect with them on LinkedIn and don’t be scared to ask them for help if you have any questions or any doubts.

Q. What are your views on changing market?
A. Keep finding whether greatest relevance, find people and target the, find out the relevance. The key is persistance. It’s often difficult in a very competitive market for companies to exclude people very quickly. This is not discrimination but recruiters need to choose the people most relevant for the job. So be individual in the way you apply to jobs and persist.

Q. What are the best tools you would recommend to someone who’s applying to work in social media?
A. Employees and recruiters don’t expect applicants to have a profile on every social media site that’s out there. However, it is important that you are aware of those tools: see if they are relevant to you, but focus and engage on the main sites. Fish where the fish are but don’t get caught up too much. Remember: you don’t have to try everything that’s out there.

My Views

I really enjoyed this meetup, especially since I’m currently looking for a job in social media. This has definitely helped me to look at the way I’ve been looking for a job. This meetup definitely inspired me with some fresh new ideas to use for my current job search. Those four main keywords (Creativity, Communication, Connectivity and Authenticity) are now going to be the cardinal attributes I need to “perfect”.

Were you there? Or perhaps you followed the event on Twitter? We would love to hear what you thought in the comment section below!

And if you’re not a member of the Social Media London meetup group, feel free to request to join the group at the official meetup.com page, where you can keep up to date with new Social Media London meetups. Check out the Social Media London Twitter page for more info.

Our guest blogger is Ben, an Italian-born blogger at Techlume.com. Ben is also a Linguistics student, working in IT, with a passion for anything geeky, techy and social media-related.

During the night I spoke with lots of freelancers who raved about PPH and had all found plenty of freelancing work through it. They had some great advice for me, so here are some of the top freelancing tips I picked up from professional freelancers at the event.

Top Tips For Freelance Copywriters

• Talk to people whenever you can — you never know where it might lead.
• Be patient — prepare to wait for networking to pay off. The effort you put in now could lead to something valuable in the next few days, weeks or even months, but could then turn into a working relationship that lasts for years.
• Write a freelancing bid like you’re speaking to the recipient face-to-face. Be friendly and approachable: invite the client to get in touch to chat about their job.
• Update your PPH Profile with as much detail as possible. A profile picture, portfolio snapshots and your work experience all help clients to build up an impressive picture.
• Use the PPH forums to pick up tips from other freelancers, promote your profile and even speak to potential clients.
• Get some business cards printed and carry them with you. If you can’t afford bespoke designs, Vistaprint.co.uk do some good deals on template designs — I got 250 for just under £6.
• Link your PPH profile to your blog or website — you can view mine on the right hand side of this page. For the ready-made code, you can use PeoplePerHour’s button generator here.
• Ask for recommendations via PeoplePerHour to add to your profile (just like the ones on LinkedIn). A glowing reference from a previous employer will impress the people you bid for in the future.
• Use Twitter. Almost everyone I spoke to asked for my Twitter username as well as a business card. If you’re a freelancer and not currently tweeting, this should be top of your to-do list.
• Freelancing doesn’t have to be from home: the PeoplePerHour ‘We Mean Business’ meetup was hosted at Club Workspace, a co-working space in Farringdon available for freelancers to use.

Does It Work?

Judging by the comments from the freelancers I spoke to, PeoplePerHour is the best online source of freelancing work out there. PPH genuinely care about creating valuable connections between professionals and understand the issues faced by freelancers in all professions.

PeoplePerHour.com currently lists over 120,000 freelancing jobs and it’s about to get even better. Apparently their developers  couldn’t join the meetup as they were back at the PPH offices getting ready for some exciting new developments!

If you’re a freelance copywriter looking for work, get involved: create your PeoplePerHour profile, start using the online resources and chatting in the forums. Give it a try and let me know if it works for you!

Were You There?

Were you at the PeoplePerHour meetup? What did you think? Let me know in the comments, or you can tweet me @cavatica_copy.

Check out the PeoplePerHour Facebook page for pictures from the event and more updates as they happen!

Why Go To Copywriting Meetups?

• They’re full of potential copywriting clients, blog subscribers and social media contacts.
• They give you the chance to talk to other writers/bloggers and get ideas from them.
• You’ll get to talk to the biggest names in your field. For example, the Manchester WordPress User Group is organised by none other than Mike Little, co-founder of WordPress. The London Bloggers Meetup also recently held How Blogging Changed My Life, a panel session with four of the most established bloggers in the country.
• They give you great content for your blog or social media presence.
• They’re a great way to beat writer’s or blogger’s block — talking to people is my favourite source of inspiration.
• You get to talk to your peers face-to-face. Useful if you’re a freelancer who spends their days blinking silently at a computer screen.

Copywriting Meetups Near You

Here are some of the best blogging and copywriting meetups to get you started. In the interests of keeping this list short I’ve only included meetups in London or in major UK cities, but you can also search for copywriting meetups in your area.

London Bloggers Meetup — this popular London meetup group brings hundreds of bloggers together to share stories and talk about blogging, often featuring talks with established bloggers.

Write Club London — networking and meetup events for all sorts of writers: bloggers, creative writers, novelists, journalists and copywriters.

The Glasgow Writers Meetup Group — for writers in all sectors in Scotland.

London Blog Club — networking, training and seminars for bloggers in London.

Manchester WordPress User Group — run by WordPress Co-founder Matt Little, this meetup aims to share technical and marketing tips with others who blog, design and develop using WordPress.

The Meandering Catalysts Society — brings together travel bloggers, travel companies, PR and tourism boards in the London area.

The Smart Marketing Warriors — for all internet marketers in and around London, from web developers and online copywriters to SEO specialists.

Joining Meetup.com

Joining Meetup is easy: just register quickly online and search for the type of meetup you want then Answer the group’s questions in order to join. Some meetup groups may moderate your answers before you’re officially “let in” to avoid spammers and time-wasters.

Once you’re part of the group you’ll get an email every time a new meetup is planned and you can RSVP either way. A word of caution: only RSVP yes if you genuinely plan on making it. It’s not only basic politeness, but if you then don’t attend you’ll be marked as a no-show and you could even get kicked out of the group.

Over To You…

I would love to hear your experiences with Meetup.com. Which are your favourites? Have your meetups lead to anything — new friends, blog traffic, possibly even a new job or sales lead?

You can let me know in the comments or tweet me @cavatica_copy.