Social Media Club Infographics Panel

Last night I had the opportunity to speak on the panel of the Social Media Club Austin. It was their monthly meeting and they were discussing Infographics. I think I did pretty well….a few of my comments were tweeted by the crowd, and I didn’t get overly nervous and puke on the table…bonus! It was a great event and really makes me want to go to more of these. A short writeup and photo about the meeting are below.

Infographics – the Long and the Short of It from Social Media Club ATX

Written by: @jmacofearth

I moderated a panel tonight to discuss infographics. You know those little pictograms or things you either love or hate. The USA Today chart that looks like a rain cloud or the really really long image and numbers about how awesome Facebook is. First a thanks to Kat Mandelstein, the chair of #smca for asking me to be a part of this lively discussion. And to Joey McGirr for tagging me in a photo even though I wasn’t in the photo. And thanks to the panel: StatesmanGrafix ekmedia the_infographic Fishco_Studios all worthy folks to follow.

Read the full article »

Austin indy Web designer snags overseas client — blog

Independent web designer Melissa Ek is flying high with her first international client — Saudi Arabian airline nasAir.

She founded ekMedia in 1999, and works primarily with local businesses, including HomeAway Inc., Convio Inc., DogBoy’s Dog Ranch and Tomlinson’s Pet Supplies.

“As a solopreneur, landing an airline client was a really big deal,” Ek said.

Read the full article on the Austin Business Journal »

Use LinkedIn Company Profile Pages to Promote Your Freelance Business

LinkedIn Company Profile Page

You’ve probably been using LinkedIn for a while as a way to personally connect with other like-minded business people via a personal profile. But did you know that LinkedIn has a Company Profile page that you can use to promote your freelance business as well?

How to Spot Difficult Clients BEFORE Signing a Contract

Have you ever gotten half way through a project with a new client, and then realized you never should have signed the project in the first place?

Have you ever recognized too late that this new client is a disaster to work with, and then kicked yourself for not listening to your initial gut reaction?

6 Simple Ways to Effectively Communicate with Your Client

I was talking with another freelancer yesterday, and he mentioned how professional he thought my proposal for an upcoming project was. I didn’t see anything to it…it’s just my standard outline of what I’m going to do for a project. So I started investigating what made it ‘professional.’ I had all the terms outlined, what I was going to do and when, what the client was responsible for, what the project consisted of, even an expiration date for the estimate.