The constant challenge of freelancing lies in continually creating ways to market oneself and drum up repeat and new business. This is rarely, if ever, an easy thing to accomplish. The good news is, with the explosion in social media, this has become a slight bit easier.

We all know social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are fun networking and socializing platforms, but they, along with other social media tools, can also be used to enhance your job search and help you to land more clients. Don’t underestimate the usefulness of social media, you never know what you might find beyond the regular job boards.

Facebook holds the same networking and socializing benefits as those on Twitter and offers increased ability to build your social network through Facebook groups and fan pages. Many of the uses for these groups is job sharing so be sure you look beyond the obvious “freelancing” groups and fan pages.

So how should you use Facebook to find that next freelance job? First, you’ll need to know who to follow by simply searching your interests. If you’re a web designer, by all means, visit the various design groups but also branch out to the niches that interest you most like Flash design, CSS, etc.

Align Yourself with People Who:

• Hire freelancers
• Know people who hire freelancers
• Outsource to other freelancers
• Share the same ideas and interests
• Have the potential to collaborate on ideas
• Inspire you

Tips for Facebook Networking:

• Look for opportunities to share job opportunities: Have you ever come across a good freelance opportunity that wasn’t a good fit for your skill set? Find other freelancers in that niche and share the opportunity. You never know when the favor will be reciprocated.
• Share useful links: Every day yields new links to blog pots, news items, videos and cool tools for freelancers. How does this benefit freelancers? The constant opportunity to learn and become inspired by the world around us, so share those useful links!
• Offer support: Fellow freelancers are very supportive and are often willing to offer tips and advice. You’ll also find collaborators, conversationalists and fans by being one of those ‘friendly freelancers’.
• Offer camaraderie: Working from home can be a lonely existence. Facebook offers a means of escaping the solitude of a day spent alone in the home office.
• Linked In: provide a link to your Linkedin profile showcasing your work history and accomplishments. Most importantly, be sure to keep your Linkedin resume up to date
• Use your blog: Consider integrating your blog feed into your page or profile. Your content and ideas can help set you apart as an expert in your respective field.

Lastly, Be Careful What You Put Out There

We’ve all heard the horror stories. Remember that while using Facebook to find work, potential clients will also be using Facebook to check up on you. Build a professional profile and act appropriately so they feel as if can trust you with their brand. Create a separate profile if you tend to get a little crazy on the weekends.

What other tips do you have? Have you found jobs through your Facebook connections?

In December, Facebook implemented yet another round of controversial privacy updates and changes in an effort to compete more widely with the more open social networks like Twitter.

As part of this update, Facebook implemented a “transition tool” which appeared at the top of Facebook homepages this past month with its own selection of recommended settings. If you were one of the users who opted for the recommended settings, you may now be surprised to find that you have given Facebook the right to publicize your status updates, photos, and shared links.

There are definitely valid concerns behind privacy so should you want to change these settings back, read on to find out how.

1. Who Can See The Things You Share (Status Updates, Photo, Videos, etc.)

If you accepted the new recommended settings then you have given Facebook full rights to any information included in your status updates. Depending on your applied search settings, you may have also given Facebook the right to share that information with search engines, too.

To change this setting simply take the following steps:

1. From your Profile page, hover your mouse over the Settings menu in the top right hand corner and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
2. Select “Profile Information”
3. Scroll down to the setting “Posts by Me.” which includes status updates, links, notes, photos, and videos.
4. Choose your desired setting using the drop-down box on the right.

2. Who Can Access Your Personal Info

After last month’s changes, “personal info,” now includes other information such as your birthday, your religious and political views, and your relationship status. Facebook set the new defaults for this other information to viewable by either “Everyone” (for family and relationships, aka relationship status) or to “Friends of Friends” (birthday, religious and political views). To change this setting back to “Only Friends” complete the following steps:

1. From your Profile page, hover your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right and click “Privacy Settings”.
2. Click “Profile Information” from the list of choices on the next page.
3. The third, fourth, and fifth item listed on this page are as follows: “birthday,” “religious and political views,” and “family and relationship.” Perhaps the most important is updating birthday to “Only Friends” as this information is often used in identity theft.
4. Depending on your own personal preferences, you may or may not feel comfortable sharing your relationship status and/or religious and political views with complete strangers. Keep in mind, while “Friends of Friends” sounds simple enough, it actually refers to everyone your friends have added as friends. This can still represent a large group of users you may not know.

3. What Google Can See – Keep Your Data Off the Search Engines

When you visit Facebook’s Search Settings page, a warning message pops up that reads:

There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile. They will still only see a basic set of information.

The second setting listed on this Search Settings page refers to exactly what you’re allowing Google and the other search engines to index. If the box next to “Allow” is checked, you’re giving search engines the ability to access and index any information you’ve marked as visible by “Everyone.” As discussed above, there is definitely some information worth keeping to yourself. Keep your data out of search engines index by completing the following steps:

1. From your Profile page, hover your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
2. Click “Search” from the list of choices on the next page.
3. Click “Close” on the pop-up message that appears.
4. On this page, uncheck the box labeled “Allow” next to the second setting “Public Search Results.” That keeps all your publicly shared information (items set to viewable by “Everyone”) out of the search engines. If you want to see what the end result looks like, click the “see preview” link in blue underneath this setting.

There are obviously other privacy settings to be aware of as well, in our opinion however, these are the most critical. That said, it is important to review all of your privacy settings to be sure you are creating the privacy you feel most comfortable with.

Last summer, Microsoft founder Bill Gates made the somewhat surprising announcement that he was quitting Facebook after being inundated with friend requests, explaining “It was just way too much trouble so I gave it up”. It looks like he’s decided to give Facebook another try. A few days ago, Gates launched both a new Facebook Page and a Twitter account (@BillGates).

TheNextWeb noticed Gates first updates on Twitter – mostly related to the crisis in Haiti. Most importantly, Bill Gate’s new Twitter account has been verified by Twitter as the real deal.

Facebook has also confirmed that the account is real and appears to have been created last month. Bill Gate’s first update was a link to his charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation while, no surprise here,  his second shared item was a link to Microsoft.com. Other shared items include photo albums of his trips to Africa and India, and a link to the homepage of the prep school he attended.

By choosing to go the route of a Facebook page and Twitter account, Bill Gates won’t have to deal with the countless friend requests that caused his prior exit. Both Twitter and Facebook Pages use one sided connections — allowing anyone to follow him without any action required on Gate’s part.

For those of you with a Page on Facebook, you’d probably like to know how many people interacted with the stories you’ve posted. Luckily, Facebook is gradually rolling a new feature called Post Insights. This feature will allow  you to see the number of impressions and feedback for each post.

While were not yet seeting Insights on our pages, it is a very simple feature that will provide additional information besides the number of impressions. Feedback in the form of a percentage, will also show you how many visitors actually interacted with a particular post – such as ‘liked it’ or commented.

While this is definitely a step in the right direction, I think there is definitely a lot more data and insights to be pulled out of our page’s visitors.

When Microsoft invested $240 million to take a small stake in Facebook, the deal almost more about securing an ad deal as it was an equity investment. Now, almost two years later, Microsoft is starting to see some of its advertising pulled as Facebook continues to create its own ad options and revenue models.

According to BusinessWeek, Facebook has dropped Microsoft’s banner advertising in several international markets, and is now considering the same in the U.S. markets. Microsoft serves fairly generic banner advertising on Facebook. As the display advertising market continues to innovate, Facebook is also pushing more engaging formats, like brands promoting their Pages and encouraging Facebook users and their friends to become fans as well.

It seems that Facebook’s social ads are performing well and it is likely we’ll hear more news about advertising innovations and advertising options in the coming months. It will be interesting to see if these changes begin impacting Bing powering web search results on Facebook – which was included in the deal.

Xbox LIVE recently released a Dashboard Update that adds social networking integrations with Facebook, Twitter and last.fm. While not available to everyone the preview mode is being syndicated to beta testers and will go live to the public in short order. Perhaps trying to play catchup with Microsoft, Sony apparently has plans to add its own Facebook integration to the company’s flagship PlayStation 3 console in a coming firmware update.

Website Scrawl apparently found screenshots buried deep within a publicly available section of Sony’s European website showing off some sort of native Facebook integration, as evidenced by a Facebook settings subsection located in the User Accounts section of the PS3’s cross-media bar (XMB) main navigation interface.

Naturally, Sony refused to comment on the leaked shots or the Facebook integration rumour. However the screens do come from a legitimate Sony source, and it seems highly likely that they’d want to get in on some of the social media action considering they’re working diligently to portray the PlayStation 3 console as an all-in-one entertainment hub for the home.

Personally, I’m still not sold on the Verizon FIOS, Xbox, Playstation integration with social networks. What are your thoughts? Do you need social to be part of your video game experience?

• RT @mashable Verizon Holiday Ads Mock AT&T and the iPhone [VIDEOS] http://bit.ly/4m6cY1 #
• iPhone Coming to Verizon in 2010 [RUMOR] – http://bit.ly/4ionFt #

• Check out the Google Wave Guide: User Manual Released for Wave http://bit.ly/2kpbwD #
• heading out to #adtechny in a couple hours … #
• MASHABLE.COM – Microsoft Redesigns MSN, Adds Twitter and Facebook – http://bit.ly/VBcfd #
• OneRiot Confirms They’re Building Yahoo’s Real Time Search Engine http://bit.ly/2z3Zuk #
• RT BenjArriola 5 Screen Video Capture Tools You Can Use for Presentations http://digg.com/d3197EV Capture & save actions on your screen #
• Who said Andy Pettitte couldn't pitch on 3 days rest? #worldseries #
• Come on Yankees! One more out!!! #worldseries #champs #
• @Yankees win number 27!! #worldseries #
• LEAKED: Microsoft Courier Tablet User Interface Details http://bit.ly/3HZRsj #
• Shocking @Bing results on @nbcjay tonight – check 'em out! #
• RT @jonleeclark: pretty awesome free tool – optimize your blog posts as you write: http://labs.wordtracker.com/seo-blogger/ #

• LEAKED: Microsoft Courier Tablet User Interface Details http://bit.ly/3HZRsj #
• Shocking @Bing results on @nbcjay tonight – check 'em out! #

• heading out to #adtechny in a couple hours … #
• MASHABLE.COM – Microsoft Redesigns MSN, Adds Twitter and Facebook – http://bit.ly/VBcfd #
• OneRiot Confirms They’re Building Yahoo’s Real Time Search Engine http://bit.ly/2z3Zuk #
• RT BenjArriola 5 Screen Video Capture Tools You Can Use for Presentations http://digg.com/d3197EV Capture & save actions on your screen #
• Who said Andy Pettitte couldn't pitch on 3 days rest? #worldseries #
• Come on Yankees! One more out!!! #worldseries #champs #
• @Yankees win number 27!! #worldseries #