The LinkedIn network is a free service for professionals that you can leverage to connect to other professionals in your field. LinkedIn works for project managers who intend to hire more staff as well as for people who are looking for a job. No matter which field you are working in you will find a bunch of groups you can sign up for. For example, if you are a Freelance Translator you should sign up for groups related to Translation or Localization. However, if you just want to connect to friends or family, then Facebook would be a better choice.
How do you find clients?
You can, of course, call agencies or companies by phone or send them an email to figure out if they are interested in your service. In most cases, it is easy to just go to their website and find their contact information.
However, it is a bit of an effort if you want to contact many companies/agencies and this is where LinkedIn can be of great help. A lot of individual professionals and companies are on LinkedIn and you can reach them all at the same time. And besides, those companies/agencies can find you as well to ask you for your service.
To be found on LinkedIn, your profile page (or home page) basically looks like a resume (CV). So you should spend some time to create a good profile page which attracts attention. After you created a decent profile page you can start participating in discussions in the groups you signed up for. You don’t have to do this, of course, but from my experience, it helps to increase your popularity and people might find you interesting enough to contact you or at least to check out your profile.
And if you are looking for a job then it might be a good idea to activate at least the option “Career interests”. This option lets recruiters know that you are available. And once activated you can also choose what type of opportunities you want to be connected with.
