Dear Readers,

As social media is becoming more important, we would like to dedicate this Freelance-Market-News to the marketing role of social networks. In this news we include a social network survey which indicates that six percent of contractors already use Freelance-Market for project acquisition. We also show that one in ten companies now have a social media manager, and we speak about the growing number of our marketing experts.

Since after 2012, many social networks will no longer be able to use the free mapping service of Google-Maps, we also talk about free alternatives to Google. Furthermore, we include a report about the work of a brand expert. And finally our freelancer joke tells you how a hamster benefits from consulting.

As always, we wish you a busy and successful month.

According to a study conducted in July 2011 by the social media group 4Freelance, 5.9% of all 304 respondents use Freelance-Market for project acquisition. The group 4Freelance has over 5,000 professionals and is part of the Xing social network. The Freelance-Market team is excited about our increasing popularity and the high number of introductions within the contractor community.

Currently an increasing number of companies are creating the position of social media managers. Already one in ten companies have employees who care about Web 2.0 activities. A BITKOM-study in which 1,500 companies from different industries were interviewed found that one in ten companies have employees who care about Web 2.0 activities.

Social media specialists coordinate, manage and monitor the company's activities within the different online social media. These include online networks like Facebook or LinkedIn, information services like Twitter or blogs, and video and photo communities like YouTube or Flickr.

Social media experts are now mainly established within large companies. More than a quarter (28 percent) of the surveyed companies with annual sales of above 50 million have employees who care about communication in the Web 2.0. Another 20 percent of large companies specifically plan the creation of such a position within the next six months.

17 percent of the medium-sized companies (annual sales from one to 50 million) already have a social media manager. Interestingly, only 4 percent of small businesses have one.

At Freelance-Market we have a number of contractors who launch and maintain social media channels or are specialised in the so-called "social media monitoring". See also https://www.australiafreelancemarket.com.au/s/social+media .

Last October, our new staff member Ksenia Pribytkova has joined our customer administration team. Ksenia's academic background is in the field of civil engineering.

By strengthening our administration team, we intend to improve the quality and responsiveness of our customer service and also cope better with the increasing demand for our services. Under the supervision of Irene Kausmann from our customer admin team, Mrs. Pribytkova will initially focus on freelancer activation before taking over the responsibility for our engineering contractors. Ms. Pribytkova will also support our social media activities in the engineering field. We wish her lots of success in her new role in the Freelance-Market team.

The commercial use of the Internet mapping service Google Maps will cost money in the future. Each additional click beyond 25,000 page views per day each will cost between 0.4 and 1.0 U.S. cents. The new charging scheme will be in action no later than 1st of January 2012. Alternatively, Google will also offer a fixed price model for unrestricted usage for an annual fee of at least $ 10,000. However, this does not mean that Google will waive its small advertising logo on the map. For certain cases, Google reserves the right to charge fees already from 2,500 daily visits, raising the question whether the all maps users will ultimately have to pay a fee.

According to our survey, many site operators feel uneasy to be dependant on a single Internet map provider. Fortunately, there are alternatives to Google. For example, the network of volunteers behind Openstreetmap.org has created its own worldwide mapping system. Freelance-Market itself already uses the German based world mapping service www.GetMyPosition.com to display the locations of its registered freelancers. This way, the client can quickly see how far away the contractor is.

GetMyPosition.com will continue to be offered free of charge and can be integrated into any web site. The GetMyPosition service is based on 110,000 integrated maps that cover any point on earth with an accuracy of at least 500 m. The database includes all settlements with at least 2,000 residents from Svalbard to Patagonia (all together 70,000 locations).

Social media is becoming increasingly important and this is also reflected by the growing number of introduced projects in this area. In particular, there is an increasing demand for marketing experts. Many contractors are now responding to this growing demand and specialise as marketing experts. In the mean time, we have 15 marketing freelancers charging between 35 and 120 dollars per hour. Besides social media, our marketing experts also focus on market research, public relations, corporate communications, search engine optimisation and traditional advertising. Editorial, technical articles, business model development, branding and corporate design are also covered.

Registered contractors are welcome to present their business and services in a short article in this Freelance-Market-News. In this issue we introduce our marketing expert no. 591 who is listed for $110 per hour.
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Brands have been determining my life - both professionally and personally. A consistent brand management requires a fundamental analysis and a good strategy.

Contrary to popular belief, a target oriented approach is insufficient if the brand is not understood as a whole. The brand must be adapted to your corporate structure and should be designed to guide according to the desired client impact. Only a holistic approach can discover the components which are required to plan a strong brand in a strategic way.

Based on a holistic brand analysis and brand consulting, also your company can use strategic policies to increase its value. As a freelance brand researcher and consultant I am looking forward to your assignment!
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A hamster and a rat relaxing by the pool. Suddenly the rat asks the hamster: "My friend, I just do not understand why all people hate me, while everybody loves you and some are even are willing to pay money to have you? Why can you stroll freely in a heated house while I have to hide myself in a wet basement?". The hamster replies: "My dear friend, my marketing consultant calls it branding!"