I was first exposed to the world of blogging when, in the summer of 2008, I was living at home between my Jr. and Sr. years of college, working a kind of boring job and sort of just stumbled across fashion blogs. I ended up landing on The Clothes Horse and was incredibly inspired. I was reaching a point in my life where I was less self conscious and wanted to express myself more, especially when it came to personal style. Plus, there were all these really cool girls with blogs, and I wanted to be able to interact with them and comment on their blogs. So, I started my own, pretty much the same day I discovered blogging! I knew from the start that I wanted my blog to be a style blog. I slowly started getting into posting outfits, and posted wishlists of things I really wanted to get. As I continued blogging I refined my personal style and started really enjoying taking outfit photos. I also wanted my blog to reflect who I was, and so naturally I decided to include some text about my daily goings-on, my artwork, and other inspiration. I think my blog still retains a lot of the same focus as it did when I started it. I now post every day and it's probably evolved a bit, simply because I've grown up some since 2008 and new things happen in my life which affect the content of my blog (the Brave, living in Alaska, moving to Tacoma, falling in love, etc.), but I still love posting outfits, and I think most people would classify my blog as a personal style blog.
An important step to take when you're starting out as a blogger is to determine a focal point for your blog. Granted, you don't have to limit yourself to just one thing. Some bloggers have found success in covering a range of topics. Emily from Cupcakes & Cashmere has found a niche in covering both food and fashion. Elsie from A Beautiful Mess has everything from DIY, to fashion, to inspiration, to decor. The important thing is to give everything a cohesive feel. And even more important is to post about what you really feel passionately about. If you're not into runway fashion, but see a lot of bloggers posting images from the latest fashion week collections and think you have to do that to be a fashion blogger, think again! If you don't care about your content, your readers will notice and your blog will feel stale and contrived. Plus, you'll enjoy it considerably less if you post things that you have no interest in!
It might help to take a few minutes to sit down and write out things that you really enjoy. Then, after you consider those things, decide which things you would enjoy incorporating into your blog. For a while, my blog focused almost exclusively on outfit posts. Occasionally I would post something about my life, or art, or something else I found interesting, but for the most part I focused my blog on personal outfit posts. Some people love fashion, but are not really interested in posting about their own style, so they post inspiration photos, or street style. It's all about determining what direction you want to go in with your blog, and that's all dependent upon who you are!
This e-conference has a focus on fashion/personal style blogs simply because that's what Tieka and I have been blogging about for years and feel most knowledgeable in, but almost all of the information presented should be helpful to anyone looking to improve their blog, no matter what the focus. So don't think that this conference is going to teach you to be a certain kind of blogger, it's all about you figuring out what you want your own blog to be about, and then using the tools we present to make it the best blog you can make it!
One important thing to keep in mind, as you blog, is that you are a human being and by necessity, you will change. As you grow and change, so will your interests. Don't let your blog keep you from that necessary growth. Don't pretend to be interested in something that you aren't anymore. Don't let your blog hold you back from growing. Let it grow and shift with you. You might lose some followers by not posting as much of what they've grown to expect from you, but that's never a good excuse to keep yourself in a shell you've outgrown. Make your blog work for you, not the other way around!
second photo by arrow & apple
second photo by arrow & apple
