This post is rather different than the ones we usually publish on Estilo Tendances. Because we are a teaching and empowering platform and we wish to not only talk about Fashion, Style, Beauty, Health, Lifestyle but also to touch some business principles that got us to where we are today and helped us do the work we love, on our own terms and be paid for it!
Nowadays, there is no business, and actually no brand, without social awareness. You can rely on word of mouth and make a decent living, but you will NEVER ever be financially free and enjoy all aspects of life if you do not create an online brand.
Being a brand is not just about a business. If you do not own a business or don’t have plans of becoming a blogger, or a consultant, or a coach, etc … you can still be a brand! Who you are is your personal brand. That is why most of HRs are going through people’s Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter accounts, besides Linkedin, to get to know them better and see what are they about, who they like and what they do in their free time.
Online branding is the key – and you want your brand to speak the truth and also be an authority. Click to Tweet!
How do you do that?
I have started Estilo Tendances in August 2010, with literally zero knowledge about online branding, marketing or business. That is why it took 4 years until we realized that we have created an asset without even noticing. We then, started working 11 months as part time bloggers, until we made our first dollar, because it takes time to learn and find the right information (the internet is flooded with free tools and ideas… BUT if you don’t have a mentor or a business coach and want to do everything *for free* it will take 10 times longer to get to where you want to be, because of trial and error – trust me, we have been on that road before).
Now, after almost 5 months of full time blogging, not only we are able to make a living out of what we love, BUT also deliver more value than we ever thought possible. After a certain point, it is not just about you, or about making money – it is about the lives you are changing in the process (including yours!).
One of our biggest mistake in business, was trying to do everything OURSELVES and FOR FREE. It does not work like that, not if you want to built an empire. In order to stretch and grow like crazy, you need to find the right people, who will teach you what tools to use, be teachable and automate as many things as possible.
Talking about blogging, you cannot write articles and share content on your social media platforms at the same time. Not to mention running after brands and thinking what new projects will bring you an income stream and partnerships to increase your branding. – it is impossible!
After we learned it the hard way and got really frustrated, we found the tools we needed to create an online brand for Estilo Tendances. And today I want to tell you all about Pinterest and how to use it to grow your brand.
5 Reasons to use Pinterest to create on online brand
I don’t want to get into all the details, but here are some of the most interesting reasons:
#1. There are 70 million users worldwide at the moment
***meaning 70 million possible readers or possible buyers
#2. 83% of the Pinterest users would rather follow a brand than a celebrity
***meaning if you create a strong online brand, more and more people are likely to follow you organically
#3. $58.95 is the average sale order for visitors referred by Pinterest
***meaning if you have a product or a shop, this is the average amount a Pinterest reader will buy from you
#4. 6 website page views are generated by a single pin
***meaning that with having amazing pictures that are pinable, you can triple your traffic over night
#5. 20 Terabytes of new data generated on Pinterest daily
***meaning the perfect source of inspiration, advice, creativity
How to use Pinterest effectively
When we started using Pinterest, which was less than a year ago, all we did was pin our own pictures and some others from time to time. We read some information online, but had no idea:
- how many pictures to pin every day
- what are the tips and tricks to make people follow you
- etc…
And yes, we did grow, a few followers each month! Our Pinterest traffic started to grow as well, from a few visitors – who did not engaged, to a few hundreds every day – who spend more than 4 minutes each on our website.
Why the big change? Well, we invested in an online blogging bootcamp and learned about Viraltag!
What is Viraltag and how it can help YOU?
ViralTag is a scheduling management tool, that is user friendly and easy to use. Like all valuable things, this it is not a free tool, we currently use the PRO payment plan, which fits our needs perfectly because we get to use it for Estilo Tendances, Male Extravaganza and our personal accounts and we still have room left for new websites. If you just want to try it out, you can use Viraltag 7 days for free.
Viraltag Features
There are many features that make Viraltag, at the moment, the best scheduling management tool. My favorite ones are:
- You can register with various social profiles on the same account, which makes it easier to pin in different boards from different profiles, at the same time.
- Most of the time, we use the browser extension, because after you install it, you just load the page you want, click the bookmarklet button and it will load the pictures straight in Viraltag and all there is left to do is scheduling them.
The best thing is that you can pin straight from Pinterest using the browser extension.
- You can also schedule pins, in different boards to be posted at the same time.
- Another good feature is that you can pin the same pictures on different accounts at the same time.
This tool is gold! You can spend less than 20 minutes a day and schedule hundreds of pictures for the next 24h, 48h or even a week. In order to gain as many followers and engagement possible, you should follow at least 20 top piners, schedule at least one picture every hour and make sure you pin only the best pictures there are on the web. Do this on a constant basis and without a doubt you will triple your followers and your traffic in the next month.
Sources: expandedramblings.com, candidwriter.com
