When I decided to write this article I was inspired by all the people I knew that were having trouble finding work; some for a few months, others moving into a year.  It got me thinking about the extended length of time it takes to find a job these days.  I thought,  with all the qualified designers out there in resume databases and design portfolio websites, why are recruiters still having difficulty finding designers to hire. 

The reason is that recruiters seldom look for designers that are looking for work.  Instead they look for designers that are not looking for work.  Confused? Well, there are two phrases in the recruiter’s lexicon that are used constantly, “active” and “passive candidates”.  They prefer to hire the latter, simply because of the perception that good people are always employed and employed people are usually talented.   

 It’s kind of like that girl you liked in high school-- you chased her around to find out that she was not interested… that is -- until you got busy, ignored her, spend time working out, playing sports and becoming popular, and voila – Now she wants to hang out. 

Same is true for recruiters.  They want to discover you and not the other way around… So if that’s the case, let them.  Instead of wasting your time searching job boards and adding your resume to bottomless databases, how about coming up with a plan to build up your personal brand, showcasing your talents so they can find you.  Yes!  the personal branding talk yet again :)

To help you get started:  I’ve outlined a plan of action or blueprint with the necessary steps you’ll need to take  to find your next design job.  This will take some time to implement, so the quicker you get started the better.

First, I’ll create a fake designer persona (profile) so I can better address the designer specific needs:

Fictitious Designer Profile: 

Title: Fashion Designer

Experience:  3 years experience

Expertise: Great at design and illustration

Location:  Looking for a design job in New York City

Target Company to work for:   Donna Karen, Calvin Klein, Michael Kors

Next, I’ll outline the necessary steps you’ll need to take to establish your online presence.

The Design Job Getter Social Networking Blueprint

 (this plan assumes that you’re starting from scratch)

Steps to building your online personal brand

1.     Create a design portfolio website – If you don’t have the resources to do it yourself or pay someone, use a design portfolio website like Styleapple or Carbonmade to upload your work.   To maximize your exposure on these websites I recommend filling out your designer profile completely. 

Most portfolio websites search engines search keywords, disciplines and categories.  You’ll show up in more search results by simply taking the time to fully complete your profile. Generally speaking, images will not help to get  you found in a keyword search.

2.     Start a blog – preferably on Wordpress (free) or Hubspot (monthly fee - SEO assistance)

a.     Frequency of blog postings – 2 to 3 times per week.

b.     What do you blog about?  At least once a week you should have a new illustration or design work in which you demonstrate your creative process step by step from inspiration to sketch to fabric selection.

What you’re looking to accomplish here is  to share how you go about developing a collection or pieces in a collection.  It’s important that your future employer knows how you work. 

Other ideas for blogging include unconventional inspiration, fashion shows you like, your trips to the fabric store,  cool fabrics you discovered, designers you admire (hopefully one of which is the company(s) you’d like to work for. 

This is necessary for one important reason: companies are actively monitoring their brands online (utilizing brand monitoring tools) by subscribing to a number of  keywords that they deem important to their brands. Company name, head designer’s name, competitors names,  and product names are keywords you can expect to trigger a response or a review of what is being said online.   So why not talk about them!

This can be an effective strategy when job hunting. With that said, doing your research about the company, finding out what they are up to and writing blog articles about what’s important to them is a great way to get noticed.  So when your potential employer is searching the internet to find out who’s talking…. Well-- you’re talking and you’re saying “nice” things about them.

3.     Start accounts on the following social networking websites: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

a.     Twitter (To Do List)

                           i.      Tweet Frequency – 2 to 3 times per day.

                          ii.      Twitter Profile URL - Link your Twitter profile URL to your blog or Facebook business page, NOT your personal profile page

                         iii.      Whom Should I Follow? Start following designers from all disciplines including interior designers, web designers, industrial designers, illustrators, fashion designers, fashion companies, fashion schools, fashion editors, fashion bloggers, graphic designers, advertising agencies,  etc. – Anyone that may have some connections in your industry.

                         iv.      Twitter Bio –  Your twitter bio should be witty yet informative i.e.  Young Fashion Designer Looking For His Next Big Break – Will work for fabrics...

                          v.      Tweet Content – Let you personality shine here. Talk about things you find interesting personally and professionally.  Have your blog feed attached to your twitter account.  Retweet and comment on tweets from companies that you have an interest in. 

b.     Facebook (To Do List)

                            i.      Facebook Accounts - Start a personal profile as well as a business page (this will allow you to post design related content and get a fan base going.

                           ii.      Blog Feed On Facebook - Have your blog feed attach to your Facebook business page.  You can use the Social RSS application to do this.

                          iii.      Facebook Fans - Ask all your friends, family and associates to become fans on your business page, the more fans the better.

c.      LinkedIn

                           i.      LinkedIn Accounts - Start a LinkedIn account – Take the time to complete your profile (above 90%) for reasons mentioned above.

                          ii.      Get recommendations – Ask your colleagues or previous employers to write you a recommendation, at least three(3) recommendations will give you a leg up when being considered for a job.  I’ve gotten many jobs purely on a recommendation.

                          iii.      LinkedIn Groups - Join all the groups you have an interest in.  LinkedIn’s limit is 50 groups.  Join 50 LinkedIn Groups.  There are many design and recruiter groups you can join including Creative Design Pros,  Designers Talk and Fashion and Lifestyle.

                         iv.      Connection Selection - Find designers and recruiters in these groups and ask to network with them.    Be sure when asking to  connect with recruiters not to be pushy by asking them if they have any jobs available.  They’ll likely ignore your request simply because they get these requests all day, every day.  It’s better to start building a professional relationship first. 

It’s also important when networking and finding connections that you do not only ask fashion designers or designers in your discipline to connect with you.  It’s better to connect with designers outside your discipline as well. This is so if someone approaches an interior designer looking for a fashion designer, chances are good that they’ll only know one(1) fashion designer, YOU!

Once you’ve set up the above accounts, now you’re ready to look for a job or rather have your job find you.  Which, I will discuss in my next post where you’ll learn how to work these networks  and contacts to get your next design job.

Feel free to leave your questions and advice in the comments below, I would like to get your feedback.

--

Step 1 in finding a design job is creating a design portfolio of your best work.  Start by creating your design portfolio on the Styleapple Designers Network!  It's free and simple.

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Your Blog Articles Are Your Design Company's Assets. They Must Be Protected At All Cost.

Last week I received a Google Alert for my domain name styleapple.com. I use Google Alerts to follow my brand online. Great tool to use to get updates on keywords, people, products.... Need I say it... competitors... you know the important stuff.

Anyway Google Alerts usually gives you a summary of the content and selected keyword with a direct link to the site that published the content. I was expecting to find a simple link referencing the article back to my website. Instead I found my entire blog post on their website, graphs, pictures and all. here

All my referral links vanished. Except for a link on the very far left corner of the page hidden amidst advertising with the word LINK on it. As I'm scrolling down the page the very next article was also mine , here. So naturally I got concerned.  I decided to write a quick email to the web host or contact information I saw on the website:

-----------------------------------------------------
From: Calvin Cox
Date: Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 8:55 PM
Subject: Please Remove My Blog Content From Your Website.
To: visualtoo@gmail.com
http://www.oxadox.com/article/menhealth/2009-02...
http://www.oxadox.com/article/menhealth/2009-02...
Thank you.
--
Calvin Cox
Styleapple, Inc
calvin@styleapple.com
www.styleapple.com
Create & Promote Your Own Design Portfolio Website In Minutes.
| Our Goal Is Simple, To Build Your Design Company's Brand By Effectively
Utilizing Social Media & Inbound Marketing Techniques |
------------------------------------------------------

The following day another Google Alert showed up with 2 more articles hijacked from my blog. So I sent another email including all links to the stolen articles on their blog with a little bit more edge to it. You know " this is illegal" and yes I twittered it as well, I had to blow off some steam, @calvincox. I've included the follow-up email below

----------------------------------------------

From: Calvin Cox
Date: Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 12:01 PM
Subject: PLEASE REMOVE MY CONTENT FROM YOUR SITE
To: visualtoo@gmail.com
To whom it may concern.
Please remove my content from your site. It is illegal to copy entire
content of someone's blog.
This is my second email request:
http://www.oxadox.com/article/menhealth/2009-02...
http://www.oxadox.com/article/menhealth/2009-02...
http://www.oxadox.com/article/menhealth/2009-02...
http://www.oxadox.com/article/menhealth/2009-02...
--
Calvin Cox
Styleapple, Inc
calvin@styleapple.com
www.styleapple.com
Create & Promote Your Own Design Portfolio Website In Minutes.
| Our Goal Is Simple, To Build Your Design Company's Brand By Effectively
Utilizing Social Media & Inbound Marketing Techniques |
--------------------------------------------

The next day I got an email from my brother with a link to a blog post on how to report duplicate content to Google, which I found to be a valuable piece of information. Now I'm sure you are all SEO experts by now, Google can and will penalize you for having duplicate content on the web, regardless if you put it there or someone else did. It's your job to police and protect your intellectual property.

The next morning Pro Blogger posted an insightful article from Devoracles with specifics on dealing with this sort of thing, titled: How to Defend your Blogs Copyright. I'm not a big fan of writing about these kinds of problems unless I believe I can provide the solution to deal with it .

So after reading all this stuff, I was ready to go to battle one more day. Before I placed my armor on, I decided to check one more time on the blog articles stolen from me earlier in the week. And to my happy surprise my posts were removed from their site. Woohoo.

Remember: Your ‘content is king' and should be protected at all cost. Every article you write about your business and your industry you are investing in your advertising and inbound marketing campaign. Don't let anyone steal your money.

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You know you're good when you can create a viral YouTube video about inbound marketing while using inbound marketing techniques to effectively promote your inbound marketing business. Simply Genius, Kudos to the guys at Hubspot. 

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Lately, I've been monitoring the traffic to my website very closely.  Depending on the day or what article I post, which ones are picked up or published essentially  dictates what referrals sites show up on my beautiful pie chart :) 

Recently I've noticed an upward trend  of visitors  coming from the Google image search.   Google search accounts for roughly 40% of my daily traffic,  about 20%  of that comes from Google image searches.   This doesn't mean  you  should immediately  go and upload as many images as possible to your website or blog (let's face it, an image search is just that, more than likely your conversion rate on an image search is not worth discussing unless you're iStockphoto, Getty images or the likes)  but why not take the opportunity to maximize the effectiveness of something you're doing anyway.  For example when you're uploading an image to your blog or website,  make sure the image is relevant to the content and the name of the image adds value . For example  if you're writing  a blog about logo design, calling your image, image 1 doesn't help, instead  logo design 1 or company logo design  might be a more effective name. Placing keyword rich titles and relevant alt tags are all very important to identifying your images.  

So the next time you're uploading an image to your blog or website try not to blow off the minor details to quickly see the preview of your gorgeous layout :)  Instead take some time to implement the image details that will give your website the edge in Google ‘s image search results. 

Web Design Library wrote a great article on the "9 ways to increase website traffic  using Google image search" The article goes into detail on implementing alt tags anchor texts and even how to set up the enhanced image search feature in Google Webmaster tools.  It's a worthwhile read. Now,  Is content still king, of course it is, but why not supplement your King with a Queen - your well named , title, tagged  and enhanced image Queen.

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I would like to make a quick point of reference to one of my past sales experience.  I remember back in the day when I was a sales executive  at New York Health and Racquet Club , a New York City based health club.  Our monthly sales quota was to sell about 60 gym memberships per month at a premium price of $2100/yr.   Imagine having to talk to someone you just met and tell them to write a check for $2100 after 10 minutes.  Very daunting task to say the least, but still obviously doable - we met our quota quite often.  But  there is something not being said here. 

You see we had two types of clients coming into our club:  The first was the client who just walk off the street and into the club and the other was a client who knew of our service, quality and reputation (And this was mainly due to the pre-sales efforts incorporated in our sales cycle)    So I'm sure you can guest which client or customers became members more often... The ones with the background of our company of course.  No surprises there.  So if that is indeed the case offline.  Why are we not taking the same initiatives online?  Especially now that more and more of our business income is coming from our website and online efforts.  There are many things  that can assist in the pre-sales process,  including the obvious ones, email campaigns, newsletters  and company design blogs; but what about your website itself? 

Don't get me wrong,  I'm a big fan of blogging to share just this kind of information to your clients; as a matter of fact  Jacob Cass, a well respected graphic designer wrote an article on why logo design does not cost $5.00 in which he outlines his thought process when designing and also justifies his price even before the client hires him. BUT....  How many clients are going to be able to read that article before hiring:  How about those who simply come to your website and is looking for  some direct information regarding your products and services and is not a regular reader or a subscriber to your design blog.  This is why I recommend having a website that truly engages and provide a sense of  understanding and guidance keeping front and center the thought process your customers.

A great example of this is Studio Grafik, A Logo Design and Branding company with a website  that is very simple but has a very effective presentation of their products and service.   They give a quick summary of the client job request,  some thoughts on how they approached the design (1) , showed the completed logo and presented their branding efforts in different mediums, i.e.  Print (2) and website layout (3) and breaks down the logo to its bare mininum to expand on their thought process (4)  This kind of detailed outline of projects engages  and provide a sense of security to the client that this company know their business, even before any phone call or email has been sent.  This is a great pre-sales technique.   I've layout  the flow of Studio Grafik presentation of  one of their clients,  Sublime//ip  for your reference.

What are some of the techniques you've used in your design business for engaging your clients/customers on your website?

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What does it mean to maximize your site visitors? Well... the idea is to squeeze out as many visitors as ‘legally' possible out of the search engines, the pay per click campaigns, your banner ads, your email blasts, word of mouth, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn contacts, the blogosphere, PR Newswire... I think you get the picture!  You want a successful launch, one that will leave you with many new contacts, subscribers, and/or sales.

So how many visitors qualifies as a successful site launch? Well, your industry should give you a good indication of a reasonable goal that you can expect to see at launch time. Look at your top competitor's visitor traffic numbers and deduce what would be a reasonable number of visitors you can expect taking into consideration your launch budget and human resources (launching a website can be both time consuming and budget intensive) Setting a new site visitor goal will help you focus your resources in the right places in order to attain that lofty figure in your head of 100,000 new visitors, WINK WINK. 

We are currently in the process of launching a really cool website called Styleapple - a design portfolio and job site for designers (can't wait) and wanted to really maximize the amount of site visitors when we launch in September. So I've outlined the steps that we are currently taking coupled with the advice of a few industry leaders to hopefully guarantee a successful launch, and so far... so good. The first thing you should know about a website launch is that there are three stages: THE PRE-LAUNCH , THE ACTUAL LAUNCH AND THE POST-LAUNCH .

THE PRE-LAUNCH

The pre-launch period should start about 6 to 8 months prior to the actual launch of your website (this number may vary depending on who you talk to) This will allow for plenty of time to build your company's brand image in the public eye for them to become excited about your product or service. Think of the prelaunch as a concert or blockbuster movie promotion; giving your audience a trailer or preview of what's to come. Your trailer arsenal should include a company blog, social media and networking presence (Twitter, Stumble Upon, LinkedIn, Facebook) a prelaunch press release, opt-in email list (Emails should be sent out three weeks to a month prior to launch and the day of the launch at minimum) and directory subscriptions.  These steps are vital to a successful website launch for this primary reason: Would you consider going to a movie opening or a concert you knew nothing about?

THE LAUNCH

It's a good idea to launch early Monday or Tuesday morning. This way you take full advantage of the day and week of your website launch. Get on your social media bullhorn to tell the World Wide Web that you're open for business. "WhooHoo, my new website launched today: http://www.styleapple.com" could be an appropriate Twitter title on that Monday morning. Use Stumble Upon and Facebook to post the news. Write a blog post on your launch day, I would recommend that the post be your press release. There are many additional marketing techniques you can use depending on your business and industry...exhaust them all.

THE POST-LAUNCH

This is when you employ your website analytics (Note: You should be using your analytics throughout the entire launch process to track how well your pre-launch efforts are working) There are many free alternative that will provide site visitors information, Google Analytics is one of the more popular; Hubspot, an Internet Marketing Company has an awesome paid service that will help you with most aspects of your prelaunch and post launch preparation, I would definitely recommend them. Send an email to thank your opt-in email list as well as your new contacts thanking them for making your company's website launch a success. This email should include a link to your website and relevant product or service information for them to review. This email marketing technique will drive the no-shows to your website the following day because they want to see what all the fuss was about. Pay close attention to where your visitors came from and how long they stayed by analyzing page views, referral traffic and keyword information. Beef up or enhance the pages or products they found most interesting to maximize conversion, and modify page content or layout of the ones that weren't as effective. Pay very close attention to any complaints and or suggestions made by your visitors (implementing a comment or feedback page on your website will prove to be a vital tool for a new business startup) Remember the customer is always right; even on the internet.

AND THE WINNER IS... 

A company's website is successfully launched when they come away with lots of new visitors who became contacts , subscribers and/or customers. So when you're thinking of the layout of your website consider the layout and navigation that will optimize your contact forms and email subscriptions , product placements and buy now buttons. Your goal more than anything else is to get as many contacts as possible. If your clients don't bite the first time you will have a second chance to woo them.

I'm sure there are additional techniques that I may not have covered in this article. Comment on some additional techniques you've used when launching your website so we can discuss

Article Update:

I decided to include my Alexa traffic numbers to answer a question asked on my comments:  This graph shows 3 months of blogging and social media networking for Branded Designers.  The yellow line represents our blog and the other two are blogs and or websites that are similar in content and within a year or two of launching.

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Is The "U" Missing From Your Company's Blog ?

Not the letter "U" but "You"  the noun, the individual.  A lot of company blogs are boring.  There written by the marketing guy that's been writing press releases for 30 years and now has to transition to the" go to" guy for their blogs.  When I read company blogs I feel as though I'm reading a User's Manual; and you all know how we feel about User Manuals.   

The companies  in the know have changed the way they are perceived by adding a persona to their brands through their blogs.  I saw a great approach to blogging or more so customer relations on vimeo.com.  They have included digital video of employees working on new releases and have made it very personal -allowing visitors to feel like they are part of the development process.  

Companies, especially design companies should really take a closer look at how their customers are viewing them , most times the only vision of a company is their presence on the internet which in large is their blog persona.  Don't just choose someone you think is smart or cool to blog for you.  Make sure that individual can relate to your demographic and can talk their lingo. One way to know is to research other blogs and forums in your industry for insight.  This way you can mimic the discussions and invite the conversation about your product and services to your  doorstep- your company's blog. 

What are some things you've done to put a face on your blog?

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 Now, I can start my weekend. Have a great weekend people.

Calvin, Cheers.

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1. Create Cheeky Blog Titles

Blog titles are just as important as the blog content itself "at Hubspot, we probably spend close to half our time thinking about a cheeky blog title and half our time actually writing the article." Says Brian Halligan of Hubspot, an internet marketing company after reading my post on "How to write a Blog Title That Shows Up On DIGGs Front Page".

2. Write Great Content That Invites Discussion

Sometimes I find myself lecturing to my readers, which is not my intention, but when it does happen it tends to close the door for an open discussion about the topic of interest. Try writing with a relative instead of an absolute point of view.

3. Create Keyword Rich Content.

Keyword rich content could be tricky sometimes because keyword rich content is only for search engine purposes. It might become a little annoying for your readers if you repeat a keyword over and over in your content. I find writing your content with your readers interest first and then go back and replace or add your keywords only where appropriate works very well.

4. Make Sure Their Content Is Complete With Referral Links

Links to other relevant resources is very important. As much as I would like to think that I have the best content on the web - I don't. I read amazing articles by other bloggers all the time that addresses a point of view that does wonders as a great reference for my readers. Linking to those kinds of articles helps to complete the readers experience.

5. Create Internal Links To Other Articles & Tips Within Their Blog

Linking to other parts of your blog (internal linking) helps you with your PageRank and helps to build page authority. It's a big misconception that internal links doesn't matter.... they do.

6. Leaves Constructive Comments On Fellow Bloggers Articles

Leaving constructive comments sparks a conversation on fellow bloggers articles help to promote the discussion. The more interesting your comments the more visitors will want to know who you are. Most blogs have a reply URL that will provide a link to your website.

7. Track Readership Subscriptions Closely To Find Out How To Improve And Grow Their Subscriptions

Your readership is the most important asset a blogger has. If your readership is at a standstill, you should work on finding out why your traffic is not increasing, if your articles are engaging enough and how to improve your subscriptions.

8. Track Web Traffic And Analyze When Are The Best Times to Post Articles For Maximum Impact

This is something that I'm working on myself, most bloggers have an international following; you should find out where most of your readership is coming from and post your blogs usually in the mornings of that demographic. For your email subscribers, this will give them a chance first thing in the morning to read your new post. And besides most people take the first few hour in the morning to get the scoop of what's new and exciting for the day.

9. Reply To Comments Made On Their Own Articles.

When someone makes a comment on your articles, its good practice to reply to their comments; this helps to promote the discussion and engage other readers.

10. Continues to Research Articles And Topics That Will Engage Their Subscribers.

your goal as a blogger is to continue to build a level of trust with your readers, giving them new and exciting things to read and learn so than they will want to come back to your website.

11. Post Their Articles On Popular Social Bookmark Sites Like Digg And Designfloat.com

This is a great way to get new visitors to your site. If your articles are interesting enough, readers will vote to put your articles on the front page of these sites which increases your exposure and send lots of new visitors to your blog or website.

12. Surf the Internet; Sometimes Randomly

I've found lots of cool sites and gadgets on the internet that I've use as the subject of my blog posts and have written fairly successful articles around them, one such article is "How Much is Your Website Or Blog Really Worth? Your Numbers May Surprise You."

13. Add Their Blog to Selected Design And Blog Directories

Placing your blogs in directories can also help drive readers to your blog. Be careful and check out the directories to make sure they are not spammy and are respected; some directories you can try are of course the Yahoo directory, technorati, dexigner, and and blog catalog.

14. Write With Their Readers In Mind

Write with the intentions of truly providing your readers with quality stuff. No one wants to spend time reading articles with little substance.

15. Get Involve With Social Media Sites

Get on Twitter, StumbleUpon and Facebook - These sites can be a great resource and will help improve your readership if you take the time to learn the culture and become a part of it. My post on "Twitter is the Most Coolest and Stupidest Thing Ever" may give you some insight.

I've learned that blogging is both an art and a science; if you learn and do it correctly it can be very rewarding.

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Just for kicks I've entered Twitter's URL:

According to cubestat.com, Twitter ‘s net worth is around 2.5 million dollars and can command $3500 per day in Ad revenues. That might be small potatoes for some design companies but could be a great supplemental income for your design business... that brings me to my next point.

I'm sure we all know that it's better to have multiple streams of income as opposed to just one. As designers most times our only income comes from the work we do for our clients. We build our business website with the portfolio as front and center and hope to get enough clients interested to keep us employed for the long term. What if that client or clients decide to go with someone else. Do you have a plan to keep your income consistent? Or are you solely depending on your client base to support your business? HERE'S AN IDEA: Build your website as a business with a multiple source of income philosophy and create the kind of traffic that will not only woo new clients for your creative work but also spark the interest of advertisers.

Now the real question is not how much Is your website worth but rather what are the steps needed to increase your website net worth? There are many factors that will help to increase your website net worth but I would like to focus on the ones that I think are the most important. PageRank, Backlinks, and Web Traffic. Here is the short version:

• Web traffic comes from visitors interested in your product or service,
  
• Great content (blogging) helps visitors find your product or service,
  
• Backlinks come from having great content,
  
• PageRank comes from having lots of backlinks.

Let Me Explain:

The list might be a little overwhelming at first glance but is easier than it looks for one reason. You only have to control your product and/or service and your content; well at least initially. We'll get into more advance internet marketing techniques in future articles.

Start with creating your design portfolio and website, simultaneously start your blog if you haven't already ( I recommend that your blog be the center of your design business, for reasons I've outlined in the Top 15 Most Effective Marketing Techniques For Designers) Focus on your area of expertise and start developing your blog voice. I've written a pretty informative article about blogging, titled:  15 Things Super Successful Bloggers Do All The Time. which will assist in getting you started. 

Once your blog is up; and you've manage to start bringing traffic to your website, other websites and fellow bloggers are going to start linking to you (if you're content is link worthy, of course) giving your articles and pages more authority on the web. With more authority comes a better search engine position when someone is searching for what you do.

Once you're showing up on Google's and Yahoo's front pages for a few choice keywords , generating more web traffic is inevitable causing an increase of your page rank, hence increasing your website net worth(a website net worth is directly related to its visitors and pageviews which is directly related to more advertising dollars)

This process can take some time but is worth getting started immediately. Once you've started you'll gain the necessary information and experience necessary to grow a successful multi-source income design business.

I would like to know your thoughts on showing Ads on your business website for additional income?

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