I'm doing great.
Well, the mother of social dragons was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1986. So I will be pretty senior soon. So, I've been doing social media for the last 15 years. That's why I'm basically a dinosaur. But I lived in Los Angeles, went to college down in Orange County, and then left for Barcelona when I was 25. I lived eight phenomenal happy years in Barcelona and met the love of my life in Portugal. So that's why I'm here today. In Tel Aviv, Israel. So I've been really building Instagram accounts all around the world and I have worked on six continents so far.
Yes. so my last name is Mandarin. In Chinese it means dragon. So when I was going through my personal branding process, I wanted a way that I was able to have a nickname of how people would remember me through the work I do. So, at that time, there were many people coming up in the social media like social media ninja or social media Rockstar, social media guru, but I don't ever want to be known as a guru, Rockstar, Ninja. So, what could I be right? Then I decided to be just me, and I'm a dragon. At the time, the ex that I was dating, the reason why we probably broke up was that he was watching a little bit too much Game of Thrones all the time, said to me that you should learn about the Mother of Dragons. I was like, Who is that? So I binge the entire seasons of Game of Thrones all through during the Christmas break, and I decided that this is going to be my name. So I watched the show, and I absolutely just love the character and decided that I wanted to be the Khaleesi of Instagram.
My personal brand is creative. It's really about me. About my personal journey of finding and expressing myself authentically. That's why the colors are so vibrant and it's really about having fun and sharing creativity. As I knew that I was gonna leave corporate America because I had an amazing job where I got paid a lot of money but then I changed my email signature. I changed it to like a rainbow color because I just love colors and HR said you need to change your email signature back to gray. That was the moment I knew that I had to leave corporate America because I wasn't able to express my individuality. So I said bye to America and Hello, Barcelona.
Yeah, so I get the honor and pleasure to work with some of the best companies in the world, helping them with social media strategy and communication design. We have our own small little agency where we run influencer campaigns and help influencers get brand sponsorship deals. So, I dedicate my life to helping more baby dragons reach their own career goals and find their fun and creativity.
Well, when I didn't have a job. I was not sure what I was going to do. So, I literally emailed everybody whom I knew on my mailing list while I was studying in Spain and said, What can I do to help support you? Can I get you coffee? May I be your intern? I can do emails. I can do marketing or graphic design. Like how can I help support you so that I can make some money so I can keep myself alive and make ends meet here in Spain, I had a teacher reach out and said to me, “Hey, it looks like you like to post on Facebook a lot. So why don't you like to help us post on Facebook”. At that point, I was like, Really? That's like a real job. So, that's how I got my first social media client and it has just been an uphill, amazing journey since.
Yeah, I just learned from the job. People were seeing that I was really good at getting followers at the time. It was in 2010. When I've launched so many Instagram accounts, like for companies that never had Instagram. So I'm like the official Instagram launcher, for businesses, events, and brands. So, that's how I got started. I just started with one Instagram account and built my reputation to be like the Instagram expert, and after that everybody started contacting me to help them with their Instagram.
Yeah. That's what the dragons formula is. So the dragon methodology is basically six elements. It's an acronym. The dragon formula is actually an acronym for each of the elements you need. So D is for “Dialogue”. In this part, you need to know how to speak to your audience and have a conversation, that's how you get visibility. R is for “Relatability”. Like, how can I relate to you so that we can feel connected, and that's where viral content comes from is being more relatable. The more relatable you are, the more viral your content will become. The A of the Dragon is all about “Authenticity”, staying true to your brand and to who you are. Because that's actually what's going to make you stand out in the sea of other influencers and creators. G in Dragon is all about “Giving Value” you need to give in order to get more engagement. Give more engagement, if you want more followers, you're going to need to give more value. So value is one of the key ways that we actually can attract the community and the people that we want to be around us. So the more you give, the more you get. O in Dragon is about “Sharing Your Opinion”. The opinion is what's going to really polarize your audience, and really get your true fans to follow you. Because if you don't share your true opinion, you won't have real followers. So the more that you're able to share a mission, a vision, and your purpose, the more of the right people will be coming to you and you don't have to go search for them. And lastly, the N in the dragon is for “Niche”. Niche is knowing exactly the problem you solve for the specific person or knowing exactly who your people are, where to go, where to hang out and find them. So If you master the dragon methodology, the real dragon's formula, you will actually be generating the secrets in dragon's formula, which is all about sales and serving. So the more you serve, the more you will sell. That's all about the methodology. It took me like eight years to create this super impression, but it works for any business, any brand, any individual if you follow this. This is how you will succeed on social media.
I truly feel if you want to become an influencer and want to see yourself as a top creator, you truly have to love what you do. You have to love it. You should have passion. So with love and passion, I have always enjoyed what I do. You have to find joy. So if you match, love, joy, fun, passion, you will succeed. That's my true belief. One more thing that is really important is consistency. You have to show consistency. So if you're able to consistently produce content and provide the best value you can, you will succeed and of course, have fun while doing it. It's not worth it,
Well, first of all, I've been doing this for 15 years, I've been on Facebook for 15 years, I've worked and had the honor to work with so many different companies around the world. But it started with one client at a time. So once you do outstanding work for one client, they will recommend you to another client and you will start really leveling yourself up and your clientele. So it didn't happen overnight, it took many years of consistency, and producing great work that you are passionate about and have fun doing it.
Well, I certainly think I did, or else they wouldn't have paid me. I was able to make a very big impact on social strategy and how they use social media today in terms of what formats of content, what type of content. Because we started at the time when people really had no clue what they should be posting on social media. So really building the right foundations. It's the strategies that we built, like several years ago, you can say that 10 years ago but they're still valid. They're still working. It's just a matter of the format that might be changing.
Well, certainly my first client was from Barcelona. They were running the local events in Barcelona and just within 9-10 months, we were able to scale their Instagram account completely organically from zero to 60,000 followers. Without paid media. This is back in 2011-2012. It grows their community massively. Nowadays, it is a globally recognized event company all over the world. They have 15-20 branches in different countries. So that's all become possible with social media. So they have held the event in over multiple countries now. But when we started, it was only in Spain.
Yeah, I think it's the dragon strategy, using the six fundamental elements of the dragon to craft your content strategy and really build a community around you. It's all about building the community.
Yeah, the two tools I used were Instagram and the second was this little brain right here in your head. The Dragon brain creates content for Instagram.
Well, it was one for many years. But today, I'm most proud of working with one of my favorite clients, which is Facebook, mainly. It gave me the certainty that my methodologies can be applied everywhere.
The creators are the future economy. So if you can use your creativity and make content that resonates as useful, that can give value then you will have a business, you will always have a job, you will always be able to create. So, it’s true that the future is in the hands of the Creator. You are the future! You just need to figure out how you want the future to be. What you're going to create, how you want your business of creativity to be. So it's really that the future is up to the Creator.
What we've seen during COVID is that there has been a mass resignation from corporate companies. People are starting up their own shops. This is the largest and biggest generation who is working remotely and working as freelancers. In the coming two years, they are expecting that just in the United States at least 80% of the population is going to be freelance. So it's up to you what type of business you want to be doing. Selling your creativity. That's priceless.
The most important advice is to grow your own social business. The mistake that I made early in my career was not using your own personal brand as an example of your portfolio, Because if you can't grow your own social media account then how are you going to grow your clients account? There are many agencies that are doing exactly the same. But they're not necessarily getting paid to do the creativity, the creative thinking. They might just be doing the implementation, like the posting, and not necessarily working on the creative part of the strategy with the brand, the brand positioning, and how the brand should be shown. So if you want to get paid at a higher level, I really believe that the best way to do that is to show that through your own brand on social media. That's how you're going to attract clients. So if you want top clients, the best class in the world, then you have to be making the best content.
Yes, so I think if I was going to start all over, I would have invested in myself a lot earlier and learned how to present myself on camera. I would have invested in my personal brand and how I was going to create content. Because for the first 10 years of my career I was afraid to show up or to put my face out there on video. Now, it's something I'm still practicing. I'm not afraid of doing the videos anymore. We're always like our worst critics. So I would just be more gentle with myself and understand that this is a long journey, and we're all learning together and practice is what you need to do everyday. Practice creating content and get used to working with video. Get used to making content because the more you make the faster you get.
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