Bruno Khater

 LinkedIn Tips and Tricks

Dear, i was reading an article about linked in and i found it very interesting so i am re-posting it here. And the reason why this is in the design tips and tricks is because as a designer you can use those tips in your social media managements for yourself or for your clients.

If you’re going to do any kind of business development, prospecting or social selling on LinkedIn, the first thing you need to focus on is optimizing your LinkedIn profile. When I say “focus” I mean like a laser beam. Here are some LinkedIn profile tips that will really help you.
Every existing and new person you request to connect with will judge you based upon how well your profile looks and reads. It could make the difference between lots of new valuable connections or very few. Remember, making good first degree connections is the start to your success. If you don’t look professional then you must not be professional…perception is reality. Start using the LinkedIn profile tips now to improve your personal brand and getting found.
Quick Tip: Use a Word file to write your summary and positions of employment. You can easily see the typos and grammatical errors.

1. Get Found in LinkedIn and Google Searches

There were 5.7 billion professionally oriented searches done on LinkedIn in 2012. With LinkedIn’s new Advanced search feature, expect that number to double or triple in 2013.
Are you being found for keywords on LinkedIn that could mean new business for you? Have you done your research using Google’s Keyword Tool to see what keywords you should be using on your Profile and in group discussions? All of these are indexed by LinkedIn and Google.
Another reason why you need lots of new first degree connections is that first degree connections always appear first in search results.
Add the most important keywords to your LinkedIn profile title and your summary. Add those same top keywords to Skills and Expertise and other sections like Interests.
Quick Tip: Go to Google.com (make sure you’re signed out) and start entering your keywords. Google will auto-populate suggestions for searches. These suggestions are top searches performed on Google by other people.

2. Keep Your Profile Name Clean

Don’t confuse LinkedIn search by putting in additional info in your name section.

3. Your Profile Photo

There should be absolutely no debate as to whether to include a photo on your profile. Anyone who uses the default grey avatar is an idiot. LinkedIn relegates people with default grey avatars to the bottom of search results. As humans, since the day we were born we learn to read faces and all their nuances. In fact, we’re experts at reading faces. If there’s no face to look at on your profile you’re at a huge disadvantage. In this heat map, you’ll see that people stare at your photo the most on your LinkedIn profile. This is a top LinkedIn profile tip.
There’s a big caveat: make sure your picture looks good. I mean, not a photo of you at a black tie event or on vacation. Go to a local mall in a shirt or blouse and jacket and get a good photo taken of yourself. I recommend this to all the sales people I train.

4. Your Public Profile URL

Nothing says, “I’m a LinkedIn neophyte” with a profile url like this: http://linkedin.com/pub/firstname-lastname435564-hjfjrigjhot
Clean it up by deleting the extra numbers and letters.
Quick Tip: You should also include this link in your email signature, presentation decks, business cards and any other material that you hand out.

5. Personalize Your Websites Under Contact Info

When you edit your website, the drop down menu gives you the option of “other”. Click on it to open a new field that allows you to type in your business name, website name, call-to-action, or description of your website.
Quick Tip: Instead of “Company Website” or “Personal Website” this section can read “Social Selling for Prospecting” or “Click here: Social Selling Advice”.

6. Recommendations: Powerful Third Party Corroboration

LinkedIn tells you your profile is complete with three recommendations. I suggest between 10 – 15 good recommendations. And when you’re asking for recommendations, provide a bulleted list of your skills, strengths and services so people will write a more accurate account of how well you performed your job and not: “She’s good at what she does”. I also recommend that you might write a recommendation that the recommender can use or base their recommendation from.
Quick Tip: Use your written recommendations in all of your promotions, slide decks and collateral. Put them in a PDF and add them as content in your Summary.

7. Join Groups…Strategically

There are three types of groups you want to join of the possible 50 you’re allowed to join. A small percentage should be your competitor’s groups, your industry and your prospects’ industries. The second type are geo-located groups like local chambers of commerce. The third and biggest should be persona-type groups for CIOs, CTOs, Entrepreneurs etc. You should be starting discussions in these groups by sharing content and asking people’s opinions about the article or content.

Bonus Tips: 8, 9 and 10

Here are three bonus tips that you should definitely use.
8. Message for Free. Send a message to any LinkedIn group member. Just search for their name in a group and click “message”. Warning: this function should be used very judiciously. I’m not condoning SPAM.
9. Trigger Event – A Prospect Clicked My Link. Wouldn’t it be great to know if a particular person clicked on a link you sent them? It’s possible with bit.ly. Create a free account and send each prospect a custom link. Upload content to Slideshare.net and Google Drive for free to create those links.
10. Collect Leads Directly from Your Profile. Do you have a white paper or ebook to give away? (If not, have one created on a hot topic.) Build a web form with Google Drive. Place the links on your Summary and share them as updates once a day every day.

MAKE MONEY FROM HOME!

Georges asked me how do you make money from home?
Thank you for your question Georges, hope you are reading this, let me answered you here as i mentioned that in my email. And best of luck with your work. Do note that i offer design services that might help you establishing the company, do visit my website here!

So first, you have options, if you are specialized and have a degree in a certain major that it allowed you to work from home, than you can do that.
An example for such a degree, graphic design, this major allow all the designers to work as a freelance, but not all love that, some love to be safe so they search for a stable job at a company.

Second option, if your major doesn't allow you to work from home, MAKE IT SO!

What does that mean?

simply,
For instance if you work as a business man, you can start advertise your services online.You can do that by hiring any designer . Believe me, many out their will be searching for you! The first step is very hard ALWAYS IT IS. But you will end up having your own office at the end :)
As a start you can do the meetings on Skype, or coffeehouse.

Like so you have a created out of the full time job a freelance one.

Another opinion
to me is very hard for some, which is for instance creating something that might be a need or you will make it a need for the market as a mobile application, or a product... and that will bring you a huge bulk of money !!

So, Georges, i advise you to take 2 days off, think about what you really want, maybe you can't do that now, it is risky!! you have fees to pay. You can keep your daily job, and try to do something- create something after you working hours!
That would be a good idea :)

I wish you the best,
keep in touch :D


Don't forget to stay in touch Google +  Facebook  Instagram  Youtube  Website 

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 I was Asked by a mechanical engineering friend, What is Graphic Design? 

1- Font spacing
The vertical and horizontal spacing of a font is often altered to change its appearance.
kerning leading tracking

a- Kerning
Kerning is the adjustment of space between pairs of letters in the same word. Certain pairs of letters create awkward spaces, and kerning adds or subtracts space between them to create more visually appealing and readable text.

b- Leading
Pronounced “ledding,” leading (also known as line-height) is the space between two lines of text.

c- Tracking
Not to be confused with kerning, tracking is the adjustment of space for groups of letters and entire blocks of text. Tracking affects every character in the selected text and is used to change its overall appearance.

2- Font case
Typically, characters are available in two forms.

a- Uppercase
The large, capital letters of a typeface are uppercase. They’re also used by your mom to accidentally YELL AT YOU WHEN SHE TEXTS YOU.

b- Lowercase
Lowercase refers to the small letters of a typeface.

c- Small caps
Small caps—or small capitals—are uppercase characters that are the same height as lowercase letters. They are used to prevent capitalized words from appearing too large on the page. Want an example? Open just about any book and look at the opening words of a chapter.

3- Font style
Beyond spacing and case, fonts can also be altered by scale, weight and style.

a- Point size
Point size is the size of text. There are approximately 72 (72.272) points in one inch.

b- Font weight
 Font weight specifies the boldness of a font.

c- Italics
When characters slope to the right, they’re in italics, a visual technique used to draw attention to specific words or sentences within a paragraph.

4- Widows & orphans
Widows and orphans make designers very sad. That’s because they are poor, lonely words at the beginning or end of a paragraph left dangling at the top or bottom of a column and separated from the rest of the paragraph.

5- Lorem ipsum
Lorem ipsum (also known as dummy text) is used as a placeholder that will be swapped out later with actual copy. The Lorem ipsum text comes from “The Extremes of Good and Evil,” written by Cicero in 45 BCE.

All logos are built out of typography, shapes and/or images, and typically fit into one of these six standard logo types. Each will give your brand or business a different feel. These six types can also be combined with one another to create even more unique logos.

1- Abstract mark
An abstract mark is a logo that uses the emotive qualities of color and form to convey your brand. Instead of being a recognizable image like an apple or a chicken, abstract marks use shapes to represent your business.

2- Emblem
Emblem logos uses frames and shapes to enclose the company or organization name. Think badges, seals and crests.

3- Lettermark
Lettermark logos feature one or more stylized letters (for example, a company’s initials) to identify the brand. Famous lettermark logos include those for IBM, CNN, HP and HBO.

4- Pictorial mark or symbol
Pictorial marks and symbols are non-abstract, visual icons that represent your company name or service. You can see this with the Apple logo, the Twitter bird and the Target bullseye.

5- Mascot
Mascot logos rely on a character or brand spokesperson to represent a business. Famous mascots include Colonel Sanders, the Kool-Aid Man and Mr. Peanut.

6- Wordmark
A wordmark relies on custom typographic treatment of text to illustrate a brand. Think VISA, Google or Coca-Cola.

1- Vector graphics
Vector graphics are small graphics that use math to display images. They can be enlarged without losing quality and are essential for cross-platform designs (i.e. billboards, business cards, etc.).

2- AI
AI stands for Adobe Illustrator document. This is a file format developed by Adobe Systems to represent single-page vector designs.

3- EPS
EPS stands for Encapsulated Post Script. This is a resizable file format that is commonly used for vector designs. Due to its high quality, it’s commonly used with print elements such as logos, business cards or brochures.

4- PDF
A PDF is a Portable Document Format developed by Adobe that can be universally downloaded and viewed by any computer. PDFs are most suitable for sharing previews of work and are universally viewable.

5- Raster graphics
Raster graphics are composed of pixels on a grid, where each pixel is assigned a color value. They are good for assigning special effects, color correction and manipulating photos. They are resolution-dependent, which means that images cannot be enlarged without degrading their quality.

6-GIF
GIF or Graphics Interchange Format is a raster file format that supports animation and transparency. GIFs can only display up to 256 colors, allowing for very small file sizes. (PS: It’s pronounced, “JIF” as opposed to the widely-accepted pronunciation, “GIF,” according to GIF creator, Steve Wilhite.)

7-JPEG
Joint Photographic Electronic Group is also known as JPEG, the most widely used raster file type for web-based designs. JPEGs are compressed files that load quickly. You’ll typically see them used for emails, banner ads, online photos, and pretty much anything else online. Unlike GIFs, they cannot have a transparent background (a white background will be added automatically).

8-PNG
PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics, a web-based format that does not lose quality when compressed. PNG files were created to improve on the quality of GIF files.

9-PSD
PSD or Photoshop Document is the uncompressed working raster image file created by designers in Adobe Photoshop.

10- TIFF
TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format, a common format for exchanging raster images between applications. TIFF produces a higher quality image than a JPEG or PNG, and is widely used among publishing industries and photographers. Don’t confuse it with a “tiff” or a “rift,” which happens when you send your designer eight rounds of revisions.

1- Color theory
The study of how colors make people feel and their effects on a design is known as color theory. Color theory is used to explore the best types of colors to work in different design instances—for example, choosing a pastel scheme for a website that needs to feel soft, or picking red and yellow for a magazine ad that needs to evoke energy.

hue
tint
tone
shade

2-  Hue
Hue is pure color. Tint is a hue with white added. Tone is a hue with gray added. Shade is a hue with black added.

3- Saturation
Saturation is defined by the intensity of color.

4- Palette
A palette is the range of colors used in a design. These are colors that work well together and are often aesthetically pleasing. Designers will defines a palette for a project to create consistency and evoke a specific feeling.

5-Warm and cool colors
Warm colors can be found on one half of the color wheel (reds, oranges, yellows and pinks). Cool colors occupy the other half (blues, greens and purples).

6- Monochromatic
A monochromatic color palette uses one single color.

7- Grayscale
A monochromatic color palette based on gray is called grayscale.

8- Analogous
Colors that are adjacent to one another on the color wheel (i.e. red violet, red and red orange) are analogous.

9- Complementary
Complementary colors are opposites on the color wheel. This relationship will produce visual tension and “shock.”

10- Triadic
Triadic colors are three colors evenly spaced on the color wheel. One colors dominates, the second supports, and the third accents.

Gradient is a gradual change from one color to another. (For example, blue transitioning gradually to green).

Opacity
Opacity is synonymous with non-transparency. The more transparent an image, the lower its opacity.

CMYK is a 4-color printing process made up of cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black). CMYK colors in print will never appear as vibrant as RGB colors on screen because CMYK creates color by adding color together (making images darker) while RGB colors come from light.

RGB stands for red, green and blue, the three colors of light typically used to display images on a digital screen.

Pantone
Developed by Pantone Corporation, a professional color company, Pantone is the most widely used, proprietary color system for blending colors. The system includes colors that cannot be mixed in CMYK.

1- Font types
Most fonts fall into one of four different font types.

serif
sans serif
script
slab serif

2-Serif
Serifs are the small lines and hooks at the end of the strokes in some letters.

3- Sans serif
Sans means “without.” A sans serif font has no serifs.

4- Script
Script typefaces use a flowing, cursive stroke.

5- Slab serif
Slab serif is distinguished by thick, block-like serifs.

1- Pixels
Pixels are square-shaped dots that make a digital raster image (and a really bad movie starring Adam Sandler.) The more pixels an image has, the higher its resolution.

2- Crop
A designer can cut out or crop unnecessary parts of an image to improve framing, highlight a specific subject or alter the image’s aspect ratio.

3- Stock photo/art
Stock photos and art are licensed images created by a third party. Using stock images saves on the cost of a having a professional photo shoot. Check out some of our favorite places to get good, free stock imagery.

1- Resolution
The detail of an image based on the number of pixels is known as resolution. An image looks clearer when it has a higher resolution.

2- DPI
DPI stands for “dots per inch,” which is a measure of a printer’s quality. For high-quality printing, 300dpi is recommended. For example, a 300dpi image at 1200×1800 pixels will become as a 4×6 inch print.

3- PPI
PPI stands for “pixels per inch,” which is a measure of pixel density used by electronic image devices. You’ll likely see this used with scanners, cameras, TVs or monitors. Learn more about the difference between DPI and PPI.

4- Bleed
Sounds pretty gruesome, but bleed is when a design actually extends past its printed edge so there’s no chance of white borders when it’s trimmed down after printing.

5- Trim
Trim size is the final size of a printed piece after it has been trimmed from its page. Trimming is executed along crop marks that show where to cut.