Every month we run through a series of questions to help you run your freelance business like a bigger business—“self-coaching” your way to better results and a better life. 

Hey!

I was going to start us off this year with a systems check, but after seeing so many people in tears over the risk of lost income from TikTok, I think it’s a good time to revisit the dangers of digital sharecropping. 

In short, digital sharecropping is like the real world version—working on land that isn’t yours. You might be getting paid, but your risk exposure is high because you have little to no control over what happens with the land. (The concept’s always resonated with me since my grandparents were sharecroppers who left Georgia during the tail end of the Great Migration. They had to find opportunity and safety elsewhere.) 

Examples would be having all your income or leads coming from TikTok, or Vine (remember Vine??), or Twitter, or organic Facebook traffic…you get where I’m going. 

So this month, I want to go over four questions to ask to make sure we’re minimizing our digital sharecropping risk. 

#2 Am I leaning too heavily on LinkedIn?

So I always push LinkedIn as the best place for B2B freelancers. I stand by that, mostly because it’s such a staple of social media, so widely used, and these days, run by long-standing tech pillar, Microsoft. 

But even with all that, it’s possible to over-rely on them. I’m honestly in that position myself, which is why I’ve been investing more in content marketing and my newsletter. I’ve never completely relied on LinkedIn, but I hit a point where 90% of my content marketing was on that site.

I’ve had to turn that around. If you’re in a similar situation, you should consider doing the same. 

For me that’s meant investing in paid ads that point to my website, workshops, and looking into speaking engagements. For you it might mean something else. 

Want some help exploring what your other options might be? Stop by the BF Mastermind Facebook group and let us know.

Megan