Why we're abandoning pods to grow our following

You will all have heard about the horrible, not-so-recent changes to Instagram with its algorithm of doom. For many this has been disastrous for engagement and we have seen lots of you on Twitter talking about how your following growth rate has died and influencers have reported massive drops in likes and comments. The non-chronological feed is certainly a prime culprit, and there is little motivation to post and even keep up with new content when you cannot even be sure you will see your fave account’s most recent pics on your feed. It is so demoralising, and as Instagram is reluctant to revert to how things were we explored alternative methods of growing our following and improving engagement and joined some Pods.

#BloggersXmas 2016 | Sat 19th Nov | Finch's Pub

Another year, another amazing #BloggersXmas!

When organising these events, we never expect such kindness and incredible feedback from both the bloggers and the brands exhibiting. The blogging community is actually amazing. The offers of help from so many of you was so greatly appreciated! A huge thank you to Juanita Shikira and The Life of Vanisha for coming early to help us out, especially when we had that little crisis! 

It's That Time Again! | Bloggers Xmas 2016

Last year's event was a great success and we can't wait to have heaps of fun with you all again this November!

This year, Bloggers Xmas will be held at Finch's Pub, Finsbury Sq, London. We've made sure the event doesn't clash with The Clothes Show this year as I know loads of you were gutted they fell on the same day.

We already have 20+ brands signed up to showcase their products, and hope to meet or beat last year's accomplishment of 43 brands!

We had over 200 bloggers express their interest in attending last year, and just over 160 managed to make it. 

Tickets (if there are any left) will also be available on the door for the full price of £17. There are very few Early Bird tickets online now for the discounted rate of £10 ! (£15 will be charged once these have run out so get in there quick!) 

When is it?: Saturday 19th November 2015

Where will it be?: Finch's Pub, Finsbury Square, London

What time?: 2-5pm
What does it cost?:  £15   (£17 on the door)

Who's coming?: 200+ bloggers and around 20 amazing brands with many more contributing to goody bags etc.

Nearest Tubes: Liverpool Street, Moorgate, Old Street.

At the event, you can browse the brands exhibiting, chat to the PRs and build some great networks, as well as make new blogging friends, play games, enter competitions and be festive!

There'll be a selfie wall, twitter and Instragram competitions to win amazing prizes, and plenty more activities!

Check out last year's brand line up.

The #BloggersXmas is our second event held in London around Christmas time, to provide a friendly environment for like-minded bloggers to get together and meet fabulous brands. Not forgetting, you all will leave with a goody bag full of fabulous treats for you to try and review!

We've got some amazing brands lined up and we can't wait to share them with you all! Follow us on twitteras well as the #bloggersxmas hashtag to find out which brands will be involved! 

If you're a brand (Fashion, beauty, lifestyle, travel or food) and want to get your products in front of all these bloggers, email me at PR@soeursdeluxe.com for more information about how you can get involved! We have limited exhibitor spaces!

BOOK NOW!

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What to Put on Blog Business Cards*

Business cards for bloggers are super important for anyone looking to grow their blog. Business cards help people you meet; brands and other bloggers, to remember you and to find, follow or collaborate with you in the future. This is our 3rd set of business cards. As our blog grows, changes and develops, so does the design of our cards. 

These Impakt Coloured Core business cards at 800gsm from Aura Print are the most professional quality we've seen. They're beautifully thick, well designed and have a little pop of colour to either add contrast or compliment your colour palette. I've actually been given a card like these by someone whilst at my day job. When I first saw them, my first thought was 'ooo, these look professional' and my second thought was 'hmm, they must come with a hefty price tag!' I was only right on one of those points; these cards ooze professionalism. 

We're at a stage with our blog where we really want to grow, work with some more amazing brands and possibly monetise if we can. To future collaborators, we need to look like we know our stuff and we need to be memorable. At events such as our BloggersXmas and at brand parties like the River Island #StyleWithLove event, you need to stand out in a PR's or another bloggers memory. How better than to have amazing business cards that are beautifully designed, simple, classy and above all, high quality. There's actually nothing we hate more than getting given cheap, wafer thin business cards that are poorly designed. I'm sure you can all agree! They just get all bent and aren't that appealing to look at.

There's been so many occasions when we've seen bloggers order a pack from vistaprint using an existing template card, then at the same event, we'd get given about 10 cards from different bloggers, all with the same design. It's a tad awkward! At least with these, you're guaranteed to be different, and different is what stands out. 

Your blog's business cards need to represent you as a blogger and showcase your blog as the best it can be! With Aura Print, you can choose from 15 different coloured cores and laminate glossy or matte for free! You can either design your own artwork and upload it, or for an extra £22.50, they will even design the cards for you, which for us; pretty much took only 4 or 5 emails back and forth to confirm the design as they got it almost spot on first time!

Simply select whether you want Single or Double Sided, Black & White or Colour, Landscape or Portrait, what Coloured Core you would like and whether you want it laminated or not. Then, you can either upload your existing artwork or have their amazing designers whip one up for you. What's more, you can order as many cards as you like (128 before the price starts increasing). With these,  they're not far off the price of sites such as vistaprint, but with Aura Print you're paying for quality, and quality is what gets you those collaborations and the ROI (return on investment) is so worth it! 

So what information do you need to put on your business cards?

Name

Blog Name

Email Address (can be direct or PR alias)

Twitter Handle

Website URL

Other Social Media handles if different (can just put the logos if all the same)

What you blog is about (e.g. Beauty/Food/Fitness etc)

A photo of You!

The information you put on your business card is crucial. Like a CV, you want the holder of this card to know exactly what you do and how to contact you. Adding sub-text to the name of your blog as we have is great too. This is so the cardholder knows exactly what you blog about without having to visit your site. This saves them time, and is more likely to get you the collaboration if they're looking for bloggers like you.  Adding a photo makes it more personal, and if you've met them in person, they can put the name to the face and remember who you are instantly. 

Adding an image, logo or something that stands out on the reverse side will make your business card eye-catching and is more likely going to be picked up out of a pile than a plain, boring, text filled card written in Times New Roman. 

And obviously.. contact details are a must. You can put your phone number if you want to, but brands are more likely to email you or DM you on Twitter or Instagram than pick up the phone to you. Oh, and do NOT forget to add your Blog URL or YouTube Channel! That's like writing an essay and forgetting to submit it. We've been there, it wasn't a proud moment. *cringe*

Now I wouldn't say I was an expert at business cards, but from my experience in Marketing and having to attend a LOT of networking events for my work, I've seen my fair share of cards, some impressive, others appalling. I'm sure you can guess which ones I used to follow up with afterwards!

You can order your very own Professional-looking Coloured Core Business Cards from Aura Print HERE!

What do you put on your Business Cards? What do you think of these Coloured Core cards?

How to Blog Better in 2016 | TOAD Diaries

Blogging part time and holding down a full time job means it's not always easy finding time to photograph, edit and then write about products, places and experiences. Evenings and weekends are really the only times we have to work on the blog. Then, either there's something round the house that needs doing or we're just too tired. But all excuses are now null and void. 

Blogging is our passion, our hobby and it needs a bit of TLC. After our big makeover/ revamp/ rebrand earlier in 2015, we really want to give this blog a real effort and give ourselves a big kick up the backside. We've been blogging now for almost 5 years (on and off), which is crazy! You should see some of the posts in our archives, they're awful! But we're proud of every single one due to the response we got from other bloggers and girls around the world. Through blogging, we knew that others shared our passion and love for all things beauty (and fashion, lifestyle, food, travel etc!) and that there was a whole community out there, just within our reach. Blogging is just amazing.

With hoards, and I mean HOARDS of products to blog about this year, we've come up with a fail-proof plan to keep our posts regular and consistent. In 2015, let's face it, our blogging just wasn't up to scratch. Posts were irregular, maybe one a week if we could manage it, but with this New Year we want to be better and blog better. 
To do that, we've enlisted the help of TOAD Diaries so that we can plan and schedule ahead, ensuring our blog is in tip top shape this 2016. These diaries are completely personalisable, giving you the choice of size, binding, design, layout, duration, start month etc! You can even add the name of your blog and blog details (incase you lose it!) to make it uniquely special to you and your blog. 

Using a planner like this is great for allocating your time more efficiently is definitely the way forward. Planning both what you will post and when it will go live can even take your blog to the next level; upping your visibility on search engines and giving your followers more regular content. This can only make your blog more successful in the long run!
Seeing our stats increase over the past 6 months, once we started blogging more regularly, has given us the little kick up the bum we needed to keep it up, or one better, kick it up a notch. 
The main benefit of having your blog posts written on paper, is that once they're there, they're almost set in stone, so you feel you have to stick to them (if that's what you think may help you, otherwise write in pencil!). That way, you'll never miss a day's blogging and you can plan the rest of your free time around it!
For a lot of bloggers, scheduling posts online to publish at a particular time, on a particular day, is their way of being organised. However, when we're going to plan our posts a week (or several) in advance, having it there on paper is so much more convenient than having to scroll through the entire posts list. With a simple flick through the diary, you can see exactly what weekday they go out and slot any new ones in any clearly visible empty days. This also helps if you blog on particular days, for example every Monday, Wednesday and Friday so you can see whether the physical day has something scheduled. On post lists on blogger for example, you can only see the date, rather than the day, which is useless unless you have a calendar to hand too.

I'm quite notorious for starting blog posts, or taking photos for future blog posts and then never publishing them. With the use of a special blogging planner, I would be able to tick off blogs once they had been finished and published ON the day that they were scheduled to be. How good would that be?!
Keeping my blogging scheduler separate from my day-to-day planner will also mean no post will get over-looked or forgotten about. With hope, you'll soon be seeing regular, consistent (but varied) posts from us this year!
Keeping posts regular by scheduling them either online or in a diary like this could help you become more organised this New Year, blog better and even grow your blog. 
How do you keep your blog posts organised?