1.    Free Marketing.  Your work is seen by both clients and peers with little marketing effort from you.

2.    High Visitor Traffic.  More traffic comes to your portfolio on a social network site than that of  your own website. Think about it... Which location do you think sees more "walk by traffic".  A mall (social network with thousands of designers)  or a business located on a side street in a residential community (single design website)?

3.    No Setup Cost. Most social network portfolio websites have a free option which means you pay nothing to set up your design portfolio.  

4.    Multiple Design Services. Social network sites offers a wide variety of design services which makes it easier for clients to find what they are looking for in one place, which translates to more clients finding your business.

5.    Job Opportunities Sent To Your Email Inbox.  Design portfolio social network sites with an integrated job board will send you jobs that are posted on their job board which is a convenient way to find new clients.  Styleapple also has a membership option (Pro Membership) where designers can receive quote requests directly from potential clients.

6.    Social Marketing.  Your design portfolio will most likely get tweeted, dugged, fanned, bumped, floated and become delicious due to the convenience of social media icons on design portfolio social network websites.

7.    Feedback From Peers. By definition, social network websites have elaborate communication functionalities, which include various comments/ feedback/ and voting features.  Getting feedback from your peers can help build your strengths and fine tune your expertise.

8.    Networking For New Clients. Potential clients and customers can ask questions and inquire about your design services in a less formal environment.

9.    Flash Disable. Most design portfolio social network websites does not have flash which can hinder search engines ability to search and index a website. 

10.  Free Upgrades. The design portfolio social network websites does all the upgrades needed to stay current which in turn gives your design portfolio a free upgrade.

11.  Strength In Numbers.  Chances are good that you will show up on Google's top 10 search results  from your social network designer profile  than your own portfolio website for more general design service terms.

12.  Free Promotions.  If your design work is "feature worthy". Design portfolio social network websites will promote your work for free. By either making you a feature designer or for any marketing campaign they might be running to promote their social networking website.

13.  Collaboration Opportunities. Easy to meet potential business partners for collaborations on design projects and partnerships are formed when other designers are browsing and run into an intriguing design portfolio.

14.  Short Setup Time. Most design portfolio websites can be set up in less than 10 minutes. Whereas your own portfolio website may take months.

15.  Leveled Playing Field.  Clients won't judge you from your website layout and esthetics but rather your actual design work.

With all that said you might think that I'm against designers creating their own websites. On the contrary, I believe it's absolutely essential for designers to have their own websites.  The truth is, the majority of designer portfolio websites, though esthetically pleasing and optimized from a marketing perspective may not see a huge amount of traffic. For this reason, design portfolio social networks can be a very useful tool when promoting and searching  for new clients.  Once your potential client finds you, your personal website will serve as a closing argument to why you're the right designer for the job.  Your site says a great deal about you and will be an important factor on whether or not a client chooses you for their next big project.

Full Disclosure:  I'm the founder of the design portfolio social networking website, Styleapple.

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Today as I was driving home, I heard a song on the radio by Jay Z. Just when I thought that I had heard every record Jay Z will make, and signed him off as a rapper that had his moment, he came out with a collaboration with Kanye West and Rihanna called "Run This Town". A song and video that pulled me right back to bobbing my head to the music and feeling like Jay Z just got his swagger back.

As designers we have an advantage over many other professionals. We have the ability to completely lose ourselves in the imagination of possibilities, chase our creativity to new horizons, and seek new inspiration from the tiniest things. But even when that fails, we still have our creative colleagues to help us out.

Collaboration is becoming more and more important as we find ourselves surrounded by a world of talent. Yes, there are those that create genius by locking themselves away from the world and in 3 month produce miracles, but I'm guessing that they are in the minority. In my experience the best design work usually comes from the synergistic collaboration of the right creative design team.

As freelance designers, it can be hard sometimes to brainstorm when it's only you and the voice in your head at the round table. Try to find three to five creative pros like yourself whose expertise is different from yours and start building a killer A-Team to work on new design projects.

Competition is fierce today. Customers have many options to choose from. With everyone looking to be successful, the demand for quality and the bar for perfection have risen. You have to be effective, efficient, and frankly... damn good if you want your customers to talk about you or continue to give you new business.

Creating that shortlist of your top talents can lead to many new opportunities and design projects that may not have been possible otherwise.

Are You Looking For Designers To Collaborate With? 

Join The Styleapple Design Network: Build Your Design Team>>

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