Want to start working from home but don’t know where to start?

That’s what I want to help you with, in my new Series called: “How to start working from home when you don’t know where to start.” This is Step 4.

If you’re part of my email list at stephaniebrodt.com, you have already received the steps I believe are necessary for you to begin. What I want to do here, is to break down those steps a little further.

Hopefully, you’ll find new motivation and even more answers to your basic questions about starting to work from home (or from wherever you want to work).

NOTE:  If you missed Step 1, Step 2, or Step 3 in the Series, please read them first to get started.

Step 4 – Get Your Online Presence Ready

You’ve decided that you are ready to take your skills and use them working from home!

Yay for you!

You’ve also decided the type of clients you want to work with and the type of income you’ll need to receive.

Great!

You’re 10 steps ahead of the average person wishing they could start living a different life.

You’re ready to start talking with potential clients.

But …

Is your online presence ready as well?

What does “online presence” mean anyway?

According to interactivepalette.com, “online presence” means “the collective existence of a company or individual that can be found online via an online search.”

When you start applying for work with potential clients, the first thing they are going to do is look at your online presence.

They will try to determine – whether they realize it or not:

• Do you “look” dependable and capable?
• Are you going to be able to do the work they need?
• Have you been in arguments all the time with online friends and coworkers?
• Are you partying heavily every night talking about being hungover and too tired to work?

Everything you put online is fair game.

Politics a hot topic for you? That’s fine. We all have opinions. But you may want to think twice about yelling at the opposite party in tweets and posts if you’re looking to work online.

Trust me, there are lots of different clients: Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and everything in between. If you’re constantly yelling at one party online, it may just be the deciding factor on whether a client wishes to work with you.

Clients may search for your online presence everywhere, but here are the most popular ways:

1. Facebook
2. LinkedIn
3. Google
4. YouTube
5. Instagram

How to use them to your advantage

1. Facebook:
   • You can set your security so that only your friends and family can see your details. But, you’re profile can still be seen by those people searching.
   • Make sure your public profile sets the tone for what you want others to see.
   • Create an image you’d like for potential clients to see.
   • Make sure the taglines are acceptable and put you in a good spotlight.
2. LinkedIn:
   • If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, I’d strongly suggest you get one.
   • Most people looking for help online are looking to see that you have some sort of business presence.
   • They want to be sure you know how to actually work and LinkedIn is a great showcase for that type of knowledge.
   • LinkedIn profiles can do a tremendous amount of selling for you.
   • They tell the potential client the type of work you’ve done in the past, and how many years you’ve been doing it.
   • That means you also want to make sure the experience you’re sharing showcases how well you could do the job for potential clients.
3. Google:
   • Try it. Google your name. See what pops up. Is there anything there you wouldn’t want a potential client to see?
   • You can’t delete it (without a lot of effort and even then not completely) so the easiest thing would be to counter it however you can.
     • Address it in some way in your cover letter
     • Be ready to respond to questions about it in a call
     • Post something on your social media sites that answer the issue.
     • Anything that could help should be used. But at least you’ll know what others are going to see when they search.
4. YouTube: 
   • YouTube has become the next biggest search option for people behind Google. According to Mushroomnetworks.com, Youtube is “The 2nd Largest Search Engine (Infographic) YouTube processes more than 3 billion searches a month. 100 hours of video are uploaded every minute. It’s bigger than Bing, Yahoo!, Ask and AOL combined.”
   • We all go to YouTube to figure out how to do something.
   • And when we google something, anything on YouTube pops up, so we end up going there as well.
   • It’s a great way for people to hear how you talk, see you “in person” and get a feel for the type of person you are.
   • Remember that when you’re posting a video (or if someone posts a video with you in it.)
5. Instagram:
   • Instagram is growing.
   • Not everyone knows how to search for things on Instagram but those that work online are more likely to use it or at least have an account.
   • Be prepared to be searched for on this platform.
   • Remove anything you wouldn’t be proud for a potential client to see.

You may also want to check out a previous post, “How to Plan TODAY for the Life You Want Tomorrow – As a VA,” about other things you can do to get ready for an online career.

 

What if you have NO online presence?

That can sometimes hurt you just as much as a bad online presence can.

Especially when you’ll be working online with someone, they want to know that you understand HOW to work online.

If you have no presence at all, they might wonder if you are intimated by social media or the internet.

They may even begin to wonder if maybe you’re too …

Dare I say it?…

OLD!

Yep, I said it.

Not having an online presence can make you appear – to some – as if you’re too old to stay up with the current times.

Clients need to know that you can handle what they need to be done and that working with computers and communicating virtually does not scare you!

If I had to encourage you to manage or update just one medium, I’d choose LinkedIn.

It’s powerful and useful.

I also encourage you to read this post from Marc Miller at Career Pivot about LinkedIn titled “Do Others PreJudge You Based On Your LinkedIn Profile? He writes about this often – and he knows his stuff!

Conclusion:

You know you want to work from home, but have no idea how to start. That was me about four years ago.

I knew I wanted more flexibility to work from home, but didn’t know where to start. All of that has changed.

I now know exactly where to start.

And, I want to share that knowledge with you. Especially if you are like me and have the skills and talents, but not sure how to use those skills and talents from your own backyard.

Let me know what you think!

Talk soon!