Although you can purchase CS products individually through online and retail stores, Adobe believes that Creative Cloud is a better way to get your desktop tools because you get access to the latest updates and features as soon as they’re available. In addition to providing maximum flexibility, members benefit from significantly lower upfront costs. Creative Cloud also includes new Internet-based services and enables the delivery of high-impact content experiences such as interactive websites and stunning digital magazines…

                          

Writers-Network: Created in 2004, Writers-Network is a large online community devoted to pointing creative writers toward success. There’s an emphasis on poetry, but apparently writers of all creative genres and forms are welcome and active on the site.

Inked-In: If the wordplay of this site’s title doesn’t draw you in, there are plenty of other pros. Part of The Burry Man Writers Center (a resource for freelance writers and researchers), Inked-In is a network for writers, artists and musicians.

Gather: With the tagline “Fresh Perspective,” Gather offers just that. According to the site, thousands of journalists post original content, and millions of users join in conversation about various subjects.

Book-in-a-week: Book-in-a-Week’s motto is “BIC HOK TAM:” butt in chair, hands on keyboard, typing away madly. The first full week of every month, you can use BIW’s learning management system to reach goals you’ve set for yourself. The site promotes a “let’s work together” approach.

Trigger Street Labs: If you’re writing for the screen, Trigger Street Labs might be the network for you. It’s a community for writers and filmmakers, and it’s open to scouts looking for talent.

Suite 101: Suite101 is the premier place for online journalists, freelancers and experts on various topics. Writers can get paid for posting original content, and the site offers a big peer network.

Writertopia: Writertopia is determined to create the ultimate resource for the writing community, and it starts with making sure every member is serious about perfecting his or her professional writing skills. The network also bridges the gap between the virtual world and the real by listing dates for events, readings and workshops.

We Like to Write: We Like to Write is a new social network for writers and bloggers. Professional and amateur writers are welcome to connect and debate, as well as collaborate with each other on projects.

WritersCafe.org: WritersCafe.org makes it easy to make friends with other writers and enter writing contests. It also has topic forums that range from inspiration to publicity to marketing.

Zoetrope Virtual Studio: Francis Ford Coppola launched a version of this website in 1998 to encourage short story submissions for his magazine, Zoetrope: All-Story. The Virtual Studio was created when a large writing community formed around the original website. Virtual Studio not only accepts various genre submissions for the magazine, but also allows workshops and critiques.

                          

Many internet users do have a clearly defined image of a good advertisement in their heads:

• 40 percent like it humorous
• 35 percent like to see informative advertisements
• 18 percent like entertaining advertisements

What nobody likes are annoying and disturbing advertisements.

When asked what they think about trends in the online advertising market in a recent study, experts from the branch confirmed the desires of the users: 47 percent of those questioned really appreciate the creativity in online advertises. The creativity is even more important than Multi-Channel-Tracking or retargeting.

This survey was conducted among 6500 internet users. The survey was managed by Fitkau & Maaß on behalf of eprofessional.

Seen at: internetworld.de

                          

Today we introduce 10 keys to work successfully as a freelance designer:

1. Diciplin and commitment

Working as a freelancer is quiet diffrent as working as an employee. Everything is up to you: no one sets you working hours or gives you tasks to work on. Your career is your own responsibility now, wich can be great but also difficult sometimes. You need to work disciplined and hit it up. That’s why the first years as a freelancer are probably the most exhausting ones. Hold the line!

2. Time management

This is a pretty large topic, but to put it in a nutshell: A to-do-list seems old fashioned but helps you to work efficiantly. What I mean is, that it is important to organize your working hours. Being well organized also helps to maximize your strenghts and minimize your distractions.

3. Communication

It is a keenly important skill to be able to communicate effectively with clients and customers. Therefore it will help you to understand their needs and wants as well as to understand their business. In addition to that you need to land your business in first place. Here it is helpful to build up a customer service. Give your customers and clients the feeling of being reliable and accessable.

4. Financial management

Part of running your own business always involves financial management. You should have a grasp of your fanancial situation. Here are some typical financial issues, freelancer have to deal with:

• You will probably not have a consistent income
• You alone will be managing the business expenses
• You will need to track income and expenses yourself
• You need to keep the tax issues in mind
• You will have a certain impact on pricing your services
• You will be paying for insurance or other benefits, not your employer
• You must always have an eye on keeping your business and personal finances separate

5. Organization

Pretty important parts of organization are time and financial management. Beyond that you need to develop you own plan how to run your business. Which organizing system you use or which way of organization you choose is up to you. Different things work for different people. The most important thing is to keep your thoughts altoghether.

6. Prioritization

That you havte to work on different things at the same time is one main reason why freelancing can be difficult. To avoid struggles it is important to prioritize between things which are urgent and things you can attend later on. To organize multi tasks a to-do-list is a helpful option again. A plan with which you have an eye on your deadlines and currently running project can be an akin facility.

7. Experience and ability

A problem of beeing a freelancing designer can be that talent is not the only skill you need for running you own business. Beeing a extraordinary designer is just one requirement. So it would be conducive to gain some decent experiences, e.g. at a design agency. You don’t need to jump into full-time-freelancing in the beginning. It might be easier to checkout how it can work and after beeing able to organize everything yourself dare the next step. Step by step you will reach your amins maybe slower but even more secure.

8. Marketing

There are noumerous ways to make your business become more established:

• You can get your work showcased in different design galleries
  
• An upcomeing strategy is Pay-Per-Click advertising online
• Or you choose the usual banner advertising on websites
• Blogging is a personal and cummunicative way for you and your business to become known
• If you don’t have the time to run you own blog, you can write articles for other blogs
• Attending local networking events is a good way to get to know your branch
• To network with providers of related services might be helpful as well
• You should distribute your own business cards
• and even cold calling local businesses is an option to get people to know you

9. Sales

If you take the upper points to your heart, you will not have a problem to land new customers. Especially the communication- and marketing-strategies are important here!

10. Continued improving

Designers should always stand on the top of the design industrie, epecially because it a constntly changeing business. So try to improve and develop new skills and ideas, or others will pass you by. For that you need to be able to dedicate to improve your skills and learn new things. Here the tutorials of other designer can be helpful. Rather you can start your personal projects which is administrable in the real world business.

Have some experiences as a freelancing designer or any other way of freelancing? We would be happy if you share your knowledge with us. Feel free to add a comment and leave a reply!

                          

Social networks are first and foremost a base for human relations. 82 percent of social networkers said that they use the networks predominantly for private contacts, 28 percent use social networks for business contacts.

The social network user count is constantly growing. Today 3 of 4 internet users are registered on a social network. Simultaneously with the growing of the user count, the attractiveness of the online-marketing and -sales grows. But are companies in social networks really so important? Do the users actually recognize them?

The new W3B report says yes, although maybe not at first glance. About 40 percent of the social networkers say that they have never dealt with company presences or their ads.

However: At least one of five has visited a fan-site. One in eight does visit fan sites often. Meanwhile, 46 percent of the social networkers indicated that they are already a “fan” or a “follower” of a brand, a product or a company.

Most of the fans and followers (55 percent) are related to just a few companies (not more than five), yet. Just a few (15 percent) are fans, followers or friends of more than 20 companies or brands. According to the W3B report, these persons come from different demographic groups. There seem to be no visible peculiarities. The only thing one can say about this group is that they are really active internet users – in the social web but also as online shoppers.

Motives
Why does someone become a fan of something? Of course, companies hope for concrete motives. The W3B report shows that most of the fans actually have a concrete reason why they became a fan, follower or friend. Only 3 percent of the respondent fans indicated they had no special reason.

About 60 percent of the respondents are a fan or follower because they are interested in the news from the company. Almost as important is the desire to show a bond. 44 percent just want to show that they like this brand or company. Thirty-eight percent hope for special offers. The same percentage just wants to show sympathy.

All in all, becoming a fan or follower mostly happens because of a concrete motive. To keep that motivation on a high level and even to boost it is the challenge for all companies who are active in the social web. This can only succeed when the requirements of potential fans are known. Of course it is also important to pick up the target group.

Quellen: media-treff.de

                          

So the is it really lucrative to call the customers attention on social media platforms?

The conclusion of the survey Value of a Fan by Millward Brown is that 23% of the members of the WFA think that it is profit-making to invest in advertisement on social media websites. There again 27% say that the cost-effectiveness is at an average or lower. Admittedly 96% of the respondents at last the investment in social media advertising but per contrast one quarter named that working on fan-pages claims more time and money than assessed.

The companies have nearly all the same aims: 85% said that they want to narrow the brand-loyalty of the people using social networks to their corporations as well as they are trying to get more information about their target audience. 80% want to heighten the number of their intercessors.

The combined members of the WMA represent 90% of the expenditures in marketing and public relations worldwide. Basis of the survey is a poll on marketing-guarantors of 24 multinational companies and 3.687 brand-fans of the companies. Questioned was the engagement they put on social media.

                          

Es ist mal wieder so weit: Die Ostertage stehen vor der Tür, die Sonne scheint und nicht nur die Kleinsten dürfen nach ihren Ostergeschenken suchen.

projektwerk schenkt Ihnen bei Abschluss einer Premium-Mitgliedschaft einen Osterbonus:
Auf die Buchung einer 3-Monats-Mitgliedschaft erhalten Sie 14 Tage Premium-Mitgliedschaft geschenkt. Auf eine 6-Monats-Buchung bekommen Sie 30 Tage extra. Und auf eine 12-Monats-Mitgliedschaft gibt es ganze 60 Tage geschenkt.

So einfach geht’s:
Nach der Registrierung buchen Sie den von Ihnen gewählten Zeitraum und teilen uns per E-Mail an feedback@projektwerk.de mit in welchem Versteck Sie Ihren letzten Projektpartner gefunden haben (bspw. über eine Projektbörse oder über einen privaten Kontakt). Wir schalten Ihnen dann schnellstmöglich Ihre persönliche Laufzeitverlängerung frei.

Die Aktion läuft ab sofort bis einschließlich Ostermontag, dem 25.04.2011 VERLÄNGERT BIS 30.04.2011.

Wir freuen uns von Ihren „Verstecken“ zu hören und wünschen Ihnen ein schönes Osterfest!

                          

Whom of you doesn’t have a friend that asked you to bring a parcel to the post office? Or wanted you to pick up his child? Most of them think you can decide when and how long you want to work. Mostly they don’t know that you also got meetings with your project partners or have to fulfil deadlines.

Another example is that they want you to do some little favours. They don’t realize that it costs money and time. But what would you say when a friend asks you: “Can you help me to design my homepage? Or: “Could you help us to build our wedding photo book?”

“Living the dream”? Now that you’re doing what you love, you might not love it so much. You don’t always get to use your creativity to make art – now you’re photographing uncooperative children or designing text-heavy web pages. And in your spare time, do you really want to sit at a computer or pick up a camera?

Besides there are other problems you have to deal with as a freelancer. For example the lack of social contact, that you would have in an ordinary office.

It is not good to work alone at home. Even if you don’t want to, there are always distractions: doing the laundry, washing the dishes, feeding the cat and more. People shouldn’t be by themselves all day… just think of Tom Hanks in “Cast Away”.

One solution against loneliness are coworking spaces. You’ve never heard of it? Visit projektwerks blog division coworking(LINK) to learn more about it.

Another point is that you are responsible for your work. Therefore you have to do self-marketing. You might be the best photograph, designer or graphic pro in town, but if no one knows about it, no one will hire you. So working as a freelancer means that you also have to know how to market yourself.

Aside from marketing, self-employed creatives also have to handle all kinds  of business affairs: IT and accounting, for example. Is there a freelancer that you couldn’t find in the internet today? I don’t think so.

That’s quite a list of gripes, but still, would you give up the freelancing life to go back to the 9-to-5 world? It seems that many freelancers value their freedom too much to return to having a boss and having to stuff their feet into close-toed shoes each day. Besides, the coffee you brew at home is usually far superior to that burned-tasting sludge in the office.

Do you always love to be a freelancer? Would you ever go back? We’re looking forward to your comments.

Inspired by: fuel your creativity

                          

To get an overview over the market I’ll shortly explain the field of work. It contains the work for daily and weekly newspapers, consumer-, trade- and professional-journals, private broadcast stations and those under public law, online services as well as press offices of companies administration departments. The functions of a freelancing journalist generally are e.g. furnishing informations, reportage (in text, pictures, radio-, film- and television-stories) or the realisation of newspapers, magazines or online-services. How freelancing journalists achieve their employment differs. They can supply extern articles, offer services or do both.

The minimum day rate should be over 250 Euro because nearly half of this amount deducts for the operating costs. Then the freelancing journalist still needs to pay the social insurances and taxes. Therefore a day rate from 250 Euro just seems to be quite high, it’s obvious that in the end there will only be left less than 90 Euro. If one works 20 days a moth the journalist will have a monthly income of 1.800 Euro. This is quite low for german income-standarts. Additional complicationg factors are off-times like illness or holidays.

Here you can see an calculation-example:

You will find the whole report here: DJV