The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2020 - 21

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How much time can you realistically
devote to making improvements?

■	

What can you do to make the time you
spend more efficient?

■	

What actions can you take to see the
biggest return over time?

Look at your weekly schedule and
figure out a time when you can fit in
an hour or so to work on your online
presence, whether it's making updates
to your website, searching for articles
clients might find useful that you can
share throughout the following week, or
engaging with colleagues and clients on
social media platforms.
Clarify how you will engage
with others online. Part of
honing your online presence
is determining how you'll engage with
others online, including clients and
colleagues. While clients and colleagues
are two different audiences, both are
essential to growing your career. That
said, they are different so the way you
engage with them online should be
authentic and effective. Here are some
questions to help you brainstorm how to
do this:

4

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What can you share with clients to
help them in their daily work?

■	

What can you share with colleagues
that will help them but still reflect
your professional expertise?

■	

What are the best places to engage
with these groups online?

■	

How can you support clients and
colleagues and their goals when you
engage with them?

■	

What do you want clients and
colleagues to remember about their
experiences engaging with you online?

A few colleagues have told me that
they don't believe you should connect
with other colleagues on social networks
like LinkedIn, but I could not disagree
more. By engaging professionally and in a
supportive way, your colleagues can be the
source of some of your greatest "helping
hands," referring you for new projects,
new clients, and other opportunities.
However, it's important to know
where to delineate what you share
www.atanet.org

with clients and what you share with
colleagues and the purpose behind
both. For example, if you write a blog
aimed at colleagues, don't put it on
the same website where you would
direct clients. Blogging for colleagues
on a client-facing website can cause
confusion for clients. After all, the goal
of a client-facing website is to appeal to
your clients, not your colleagues.

Part of honing your online
presence is determining how
you'll engage with others online,
including clients and colleagues.

Choose one to three platforms
and commit to them. While
it would be nice to show up
everywhere online for your clients, it's
also true that we're busy professionals
who are pulled in many directions. By
choosing one to three platforms and
devoting time and effort to them, you
have a much better chance of reaching
your ideal clients in a noisy online world.
These platforms (one of which should be
your website!) should all be client-facing.
Once you determine which platforms are
the most strategic places for you to show
up for clients online, then you can also
devote time and effort to engage with
colleagues. While it's good to be in touch
with colleagues and nice to interact
with them online, they are not usually
the ones who pay your invoices. So, be
mindful of how much time you spend
engaging with colleagues versus clients.

5

START SMALL AND BUILD ON
YOUR FOUNDATION
Take these strategies and implement
them in small steps. This will ensure you
have a better chance of following through
on your plan and creating a sustainable
online presence you can continue to
refine over time.
■	

Start with your website (your online
home) and work on the other pieces
(the roads leading to it) next.

■	

Your online presence is something to
continuously refine. It's not a one-anddone project or effort.

■	

Your website will continue to need
updates to fit your ideal clients
(who may evolve over time). Your
LinkedIn profile should reflect the
same changes you make to your
résumé or the "About" page of your
website. Likewise, your professional
association directory profile should
be a reflection of your website and
your résumé.

To summarize, a solid online presence
is a cohesive image of your expertise
and a clear message of what it's like to
work with you. Continue to experiment
with your online presence and make
updates as your business and client
base evolve.
It's more important than ever to make
sure you have a strong online presence,
and that's not going to change anytime
soon! How do you plan to improve your
presence? What's already working for
you and what would you like to tackle
this year?
NOTES
1.	
If you need a little LinkedIn jumpstart,
check out my article, "Four Things You
Didn't Know LinkedIn Could Do for Your
Business," http://bit.ly/LinkedIn-strategies.
2.	

Aboulhosn, Sarah. "8 Facebook Statistics
Every Marketer Should Know in 2020,"
http://bit.ly/Facebook-stats.

Madalena Sánchez Zampaulo, CT
is ATA president-elect and
chairs the Membership
Committee and Governance and
Communications Committee.
She is the owner of Accessible
Translation Solutions and a Spanish>English and
Portuguese>English translator. She served as chair
of ATA's Public Relations Committee (2014-2018)
and administrator of ATA's Medical Division (2011-
2015). She has a BA in Spanish from the University
of Southern Mississippi and an MA in Spanish from
the University of Louisville. She is also a consultant
for the University of Louisville Graduate Certificate
in Translation. You can read more of her articles
on her blog at www.madalenazampaulo.com/blog.
Contact: madalena@accessibletranslations.com.
American Translators Association

21
http://www.bit.ly/LinkedIn-strategies http://www.bit.ly/Facebook-stats http://www.madalenazampaulo.com/blog http://www.atanet.org
The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2020

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