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. 

#4 Am I networking?

If the internet ends tomorrow, human connections are still there. 

That’s really not likely, but regardless, your network exists without Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, or even LinkedIn. You can see a huge payoff from developing your freelance network through regular calls, speaking, even just helpful emails and showing up to in personal and local events. 

We’ve seen a lot of disruption and there’s honestly more coming. But there is absolutely opportunity in all this. Double down on value for yourself and your community and your path forward will be much clearer. 

Megan