Just Creative Design

How To Get Clients Using LinkedIn

Chris Green from Freelance For Money has put together a short video clip showing how you can get clients from LinkedIn. I’ve humbly been “picked on” for the ego boost.

If you do not see the video below, click through to view it on YouTube.

Please do connect with me on LinkedIn, or if you do not have a profile, I recommend you to sign up now - not only is it a great way to network, show your experience and recommendations, it also helps you get your name at the top of search engine rankings - plus a lot more.

As for my advice, I say fill out your profile, build your network up and get recommendations - it’s really as simple as that.

Also, please feel free to join the Just Creative Design LinkedIn Group - a group for design discussion, advice & promotion.

Recommended LinkedIn Resources

• Ten Ways To Use LinkedIn To Find A Job
• LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover
• 100+ Smart Ways To Use LinkedIn
• LinkedIn Resources on AllTop

How has LinkedIn worked for you? Have you any more LinkedIn advice to share?

News & Connections

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

This is a general update of my future plans, articles I’ve written elsewhere and links to connect with me.

It’s Official - I’m Moving to NYC!

I posted about my new job in NYC at Carrot Creative a few weeks ago though only on the weekend did I get my US Working Visa approved. Everything is set (except accommodation) and the flight is booked for January 2010 which is when I will begin work. An exciting move indeed!

Articles Written Elsewhere

I’ve written a rather extensive article on Vital Tips for Effective Logo Design over on Smashing Magazine.

In the latest issue of Computer Arts magazine (Issue 166), I wrote their feature cover article on Cross Media Design including tips for using Photoshop with Illustrator, Dreamweaver and InDesign. The tips for After Affects, Premiere & Flash were written by someone else. The magazine is on sale now. Stay tuned for the next issue of CA too, as I’ve written a logo design tutorial.

I’ve also got an article in the latest issue of Layers Magazine (August/ September Issue) that goes through the design process for my Vero logo and bottle design. I’ve previously written for Layers, including the cover article Negative Space back in January and an Illustrator tutorial on ‘How To Create A Font Monster‘ in July. I was also featured as their Designer In The Spotlight in the May / June issue.

I will post each of the articles on this blog after the magazines go off sale.

Connect With Me

• Add me on Twitter
  On Twitter, I post design links on a daily basis and keep you up to date with what I am up to in the design world. No pointless rabble.
• Add me on Facebook
  For those that prefer Facebook or just want to befriend, please do!
• Add me on LinkedIn
  Join my business networking profile.
• Browse my bookmarks on Delicious
  I use Delicious on a daily basis, why not share?

Just Creative Design

Join the JCD Facebook Fan Page to get updated each time I write a new post!

Join the JCD Facebook Group. You can leave links to your own portfolio & promote your own designs!

Favourite JCD on Technorati - Not sure how many of you use Technorati but the link is here anyway!

Logo Of The Day

For those of you who do not know, Logo Of The Day is my other website which features a new logo each day…

Logo Of The Day is now on Twitter so you can get updated each time a new logo is posted. Follow Logo Of The Day on Twitter.

Become a Fan of Logo Of The Day on Facebook to keep updated on Facebook.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

How To Get Sponsors For Giveaways & Competitions

A lot of people have been asking how I managed to get $11,000 worth of prizes in my latest competition so I thought I would share with you how I managed to do so… I present to you how to get sponsors for giveaways & competitions.

There are 3 ways that work best (in order):

1. Direct Email Likely Sponsors
2. Call For Sponsorship On Your Blog
3. Use Your Other Social Networks

1. Direct Email Likely Sponsors

This is by far the best way to get sponsorship, especially for the larger prizes. Below I will guide you through how I wrote one of my emails to Threadless when asking for sponsorship.

Example:

(1) Gday Bob,

(2) This is Jacob Cass here from Just Creative Design, I hope this email finds you well. (3) I am a big fan of Threadless and the T Shirt community and (4) I was wondering if you could help me out in regards to sponsoring a shirt or two for a MASSIVE prize giveaway that I am holding on Just Creative Design for my blog’s 1st birthday.

(5) I have a loyal fan base of about 8700+ subscribers and the site sees over 20,000 page views a day so you would get some great exposure if you could kindly donate a shirt (or something else?) to the cause.

(6) I really want to give back to the community and my readers… Of course credit and links would be given back.

(7) Anyway, if you do have something to offer please get back to me.

(8) Thanks and hear from you soon.

Regards,

Jacob Cass
http://justcreativedesign.com

Reference:

1. Always address the person by name if you can find it. Look hard for it.
2. Introduce yourself.
3. Add a compliment relating to their business. Do not make it a generic email.
4. Ask for sponsorship.
5. Tell them what they will get out of it.
6. Tell them why you are doing it.
7. Don’t assume they will sponsor you.
8. Close nicely.

2. Call For Sponsorship On Your Blog

The second recommended way to get sponsorship is to write a blog post asking your readers if they will sponsor something for your competition or giveaway. Tell them what they will get in return. Make it easy for them to sponsor. You can see my original call for sponsorship below.

In a few weeks Just Creative Design is turning 1 year old and to celebrate I am holding a MASSIVE design group writing project with LOTS (I mean lots) of prizes. This is going to be huge!

Back in June I held my first group design project and I managed to gather $5000 worth of prizes (including an electric guitar) when I had less than 2000 subscribers so I wonder what can be done with 8300+ subscribers?

I am not going to tell you much more for now but if you want to sponsor you will get many links back to your website from this website and from other blogs posting about this contest - plus a warm giddy feeling that you are donating.

To Sponsor

To sponsor a prize please email me (jacobcass [AT] justcreativedesign [DOT] com) with the prize you are kindly willing to donate along with a link to your website so I can link back to your site and the value in $ of your prize. For prize ideas see what was donated last time.

Excited? I am.

3. Use Your Other Social Networks

If you have a good following in any social networks send out a request for sponsorship in that network. Everyone has their own preferred network (ie. Digg, SU, DesignFloat, Twitter) so use them to your advantage.

Personally I am quite active on Twitter and Facebook… I sent out numerous Twitter’s asking for sponsorship and then those messages then got retweeted by friends and so fourth. Follow Me On Twitter.

I also have a Just Creative Design group on Facebook of which I sent out a mass message to all of it’s members asking for sponsorship.

This mass message method doesn’t usually work as well so I would try doing the first two methods, it really does pay off.

Well there we have it, how to get sponsors for giveaways and competitions! What other tips do you have?

7 Secrets You MUST Know To Give Your Blog The Edge

Although these tips may sound common sense to some, for others it isn’t (hence the secret)… If blog owners implemented these 7 tips, their blog would certainly have an edge over the competition - The funny thing is, so many blogs don’t!

Here is a list of 7 things you can do to give your blog more of an edge… These are based on my observations and personal experience of dealing with blogs on a daily basis.

• Format your text - This is my biggest tip. The amount of blogs that I see with huge chunks of text is amazing. People on the internet do not read paragraphs, they read in sentences. Try to keep your paragraphs down to 3-4 lines tops. Use headings, sub headings and bullet points.

• Tell your reader the whole article in the first two sentences - This is another huge tip. People will decide if they want to read your article based on the opening two sentences. Ensure you make your opening paragraph a killer and of course, the headline.

• Always use quality images in your posts. An image will invite people to read your article so ensure it is not a crappy one… make it relevant to the post. Try to use a consistent image style / size for your blog posts so people know what to expect. Separate long articles with images. I use the free stock sites sxc.hu and compfight for my images (ensure creative commons is on).

• Put more time into your post. If you spend an hour crafting a post, why can’t you spend another 15 minutes spicing it up? Add relevant images and links throughout your post. Proof read at least 4 times.

• Give back to your readers. Hold competitions and giveaways. Offer prizes and give link love. Don’t offer crappy prizes like ‘advertise on my site’ - give something of value and ensure that they want it. For example, my latest book giveaway. Look at the prizes you give away as investments, not costs.

• Get onto as many blog rolls as possible - Ask blogs in your niche if you would like to do an exchange. Tell them what you have to offer and ask kindly. On that note would you like to be added to my blog roll? Use the form on that page if you would like to be considered for addition to my blog roll.

• Do to others as you would like done to you - I like this tip because it is so true. Ensure you reply to every comment and email. Link to other sites and articles just as you would like done to you. This applies to all aspects of blogging and life in general.

• Give more than expected - I wonder how many of you noticed that I gave you 8 tips, not 7? If you give your readers more than they expect they will always be pleased. Remember the saying “Under Promise, Over Deliver.”

I could go on forever but Daniel from Daily Blog Tips has already listed 101 more blog tips that you should implement. You may also like to read about how to boost your search engine rankings.

What else would you add?

The Power Of Being An Active Twitter Member

This morning I woke up and found this error message on my site:

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare security_update() (previously declared in /home/justcrea/public_html/index.php:28) in /home/justcrea/public_html/index.php on line 53

It was there for about 5 hours which I apologise for but I found this extremely bizzare as I had went to bed about 7 hours earlier with the site being A-OK so something mysterious happened while I was sleeping. Anyway, the point that I really want to make in this post is the real value of being an active member of Twitter (follow me) which I will do by showing you my experience this morning.

Site Down

As usual, in the morning I check my email, twitter and website while having breakfast, however, this morning I totally forgot about eating my breakfast… I awoke to about 15 messages spread over Twitter, Email, LinkedIn & Facebook letting me know that my website was displaying an error message. The first thing I did without thinking was write a message on Twitter asking for help… PHP is not my strongest forte.

Anyone able to help me out with some PHP? My site is displaying an error. www.justcreativedesign.com

Twitter To The Rescue

Within 1 minute I had over 10 responses, which lead me to upload my index.php (the file with the error) onto the web so people could have a look at what was wrong and within 3 minutes of doing that I had so many people trying to help, I couldn’t even keep up with them!

I decided to talk to owenj2o on Skype, who kindly requested to add him (so did many others) and within 4 minutes he had sent back the new php file with the changes. I uploaded the new file to my server and it was fixed just like that… all within the space of 10 minutes.

The Problem

No one seems to know the reason behind this strange occurrence (a function was defined 4 times for some reason) which mysteriously happened overnight but I am glad there is a community out there that can help when something like this happens.

Update: Just Creative Design Hacked

There still seems to be some problem with a javascript that has somehow installed itself onto this site, which in some cases creates a popup or in some reported cases, crashes FireFox… some of my twitter friends believe it was hacked… I am doing my best to get this sorted.

The script has been removed and we are in the process of going through the logs to find out how this script was installed. My host has let me know of the problem:

The javascript insert happened due to a number of reasons, mostly however due to a permission based issue on the account.

Sorry for any inconvenience it has caused.

Thank You

Thank you to those who have helped this morning, in no particular order:

• owenj2o
• keryp
• gurnk
• snipeyhead
• inf0rmer
• mbavio
• codymckibb
• metadan
• dreamspeaker
• aleksandar_k
• kristarella
• dcloud
• patareco
• cryode
• dtsn
• justasungod
• thetylerhayes
• bluewavemedia
• gavinelliott

Anyway, this was just one example of the true power of Twitter. If you need some more followers check out this huge twitter list of creatives / geeks / designers or Naldz’s list of 150 most active designers on Twitter.

Designer? Creative? Geek? Leave Your Twitter Username & Bio Below

Twitter is everywhere. It’s not to late to sign up. Personally, I love it and I think you should get on the band wagon if you haven’t already.

Benefits

Benefits I get from the Twitter community: Free viral marketing, free advice, industry insights, great tips, great links, friendly conversation.

Benefits I give others: Free marketing, free giveaways, free advice, inspirational quotes, friendly conversation.

Twitter & Just Creative Design

• Follow Me On Twitter
• You will find my twitter feed in the right sidebar of this website.
• You will also find my Twitter feed in my facebook profile which is automatically redirected to my Facebook Status.

More Twitter Follow Lists

• Uber Twitter Follow List for Creatives
• 100 Web Designers To Follow On Twitter
• Graphic Artists On JustTweetIt

Leave your Twitter username and bio below.

Do You Have Enough Friends?

No one ever can have enough friends so why don’t you befriend me on some of these social media sites.

• Add Me On Twitter - I twit about design and reply to all direct messages too. I’m very active here.
• Add Me On FaceBook - Befriend me on Facebook. I am very active here.
  • Also Join The Just Creative Design Facebook Group.
• Add Me On LinkedIn - Business Networking Site.
• Favourite JCD On Technorati - Favourite Just Creative Design on Technorati.
• Add Me On StumbleUpon - Articles and websites I find useful and great. I’m very active here.
• Add Me On Digg - More articles and websites I find useful and great. I’m very active here.
• Add Me On DesignFloat - Design related articles and websites that I find useful and great. I’m very active here.

Why don’t you also leave your own profile links below so more people can befriend you too?

This was just a quick post, another quality article is coming for you tomorrow.