Get more gigs in less time.

How many times have you been invited to like a page for your friend just to find that the page serves absolutely no purpose?

I'm not hating on FB pages.  I think they can be really awesome and do wonders for communicating to your audience (if you have one).  But for the most part, they're absolutely useless when it comes to generating work.

Things like Facebook, Twitter, websites, and other things like that have a lot of value, but they're not something that your joe-schmo student looking to freelance should be spending time on.  I have a FB page for my quintet and it serves absolutely no purpose other than acting as a place for my friends and family to see what's going on with the group.  

That's it.

I have never gotten a gig through that page (and probably never will), Twitter or even from the website.  

While they all have a purpose, the bulk of your time should be spent directly interacting with potential clients and other people that could potentially be paying you.

Think about what kind of work you're currently getting and then ask yourself these kinds questions:

-Where did those gigs come from?

-Could I be expanding my opportunities in this area?

-Are there other areas I could be aiming for?

For my quintet, we do a lot of work with churches.  So....I emailed every church I could find an email for about my group.  Then I realized that not only do these churches hire for their services, I should be doing concerts there too.  Once I started digging deeper and expanding on work I was already doing, it opened up a ton of new opportunities.  With a little time and a lot of emails, I started developing relationships with hundreds or people around the area that pretty regularly reach out to me inquiring about our services.

Same goes for my personal freelancing.  The majority of my work is schools.  So, I reached out to every conductor with a brief intro and a resume.  Nothing pushy, just planting a seed with them.  I was immediately hired to play.  Simple.

Do they always pan out?  No way.  But both of these things have directly led to making money playing horn.

It's all just something to keep in mind.  When starting off, it's best to get some quick wins to give that motivation to keep pushing.  Designing websites and spamming your FB friends probably won't lead to opportunities immediately, so try focusing your efforts on the things that will get the results you really want.