Online Self Promotion Tips?

[liannamaydesign]

Hi all, not sure if this is the right place to be posting this.

I'm currently in my second year at university and one of my modules is all about online self promotion. We have been given a brief in which we have to devise five ways to promote ourselves online (eg. via twitter, blogs, etc) in order to help us during our search for placements. I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions on the best ways to go about this? As you can see from my signature, I've already tried to come up with various ways to promote myself as a designer and get my work out there into this massive industry but I'm not sure if they are the best outlets. Are certain websites perceived as more professional than others? Any tips?

All help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

[djb]

I’d say the most important thing you should have is your own website to show your portfolio. In my opinion, things like Twitter, Flickr & blogs are secondary to this but then I’m getting on a bit!

[liannamaydesign]

Thanks for your reply David. I'm currently in the process of creating my own website, just looking into host, domains etc. Do you have any further pointers on this as I have yet to have really explore the world of web design?

[djb]

Well I’d grab your domain name to start with, maybe get liannamay and liannamaydesign - go with a .co.uk initially. There's a million companies out there you can register domains with but I always use 123-reg.co.uk. A .co.uk will only cost you £3 a year so you could always get your full name too.

As for hosts, everyone has one they can recommend. Personally I use Cirtex Hosting for my own website as they are very cheap but you get a lot of features for the money.

Perhaps you could just have a holding page initially, with links to all the other social media thingies you have and a simple portfolio? Probably worth waiting for a few more answers!

[bogfrog]

Get a site. Try google maps and go out and promote face to face.

a good option may be yell.com and other paid listing sites.
Knotch up loads of posts on forums like this and link back from your site.

Also specialising in niche and offering a print service too (see my signature )

[Minuteman Press]

Portfolio online (highly optimised)
High quality conent (text / images) and relevant to your target audience/s
Forums
Twitter
Blogs
Backlinks

Always remember target audience - profile the audience and consider routes they use to locate service providers

[bogfrog]

Twitter

i seriously do not get Twitter. I have an account for my DJing but fail to see why people will be interested in it.
I suppose when you have built up enough good contacts you can then advertise to them?

[Minuteman Press]

Write content regularly (but only when you have interesting content), build up a following, keep at it and add advertising infrequently.

You'll find people contact you having seen you on Twitter (email, via Twitter, phone, visit, at events).

Relationship marketing.

[bogfrog]

I will get on to this I think as it is more of a tool for the print business. Thanks

[Minuteman Press]

A tool for design, print and more more more.