In order to get in the mood for this session, why don't we all sit back and blast The Who's Who Are You? Just kidding. Well, you can if you want to, I won't stop you.
Blogging is a huge, I mean enormous, realm out there on the interwebs. There are blogs about pretty much anything you can think of, encompassing pretty much every nook and cranny of any topic. Food (cooking/restaurant critics/beer/coffee/etc), politics (Republican/Democrat/conservative/green/etc.), fashion (high fashion/celebrity critics/runway/personal style/street style/etc.), wedding (DIY/eco-friendly/high-end/low-budget/etc.).... and the list goes on and on. You can probably bet that if you're blogging about it, someone else is also blogging about it.
This might seem depressing at first, knowing that there are thousands of bloggers out there among whom you're attempting to make your mark. What is it that makes a blog get noticed? What is it that makes one blog grow and another not? It can seem, at times, like it's just some magical "it" factor that some people have, and that if you are not possessing this mystical it-ness, then your hopes of a growing blog are in vain. I don't believe that to be true. I also don't believe that a successful blog looks like just one thing. There are a ton of different ways a blog can be successful and that mainly has to do with your own concept of what success is.
Some people might see their blog's success in terms of monetizing. That is, if you can make money off your blog, then it's successful-- and all the better if you can quit your day job and blog full time. Other people seek to have large quantities of followers. Some people desire to have large blogs mention them, or get their photo featured on a favorite site (think getting your living room makeover featured on Design*Sponge or Apartment Therapy. Or maybe getting your photo snapped by the Sartorialist, or your wedding on Style Me Pretty). Some people want tons of comments on their posts. Other people just love to share their content and could care less about accolades based on quantity of daily visitors to their site, or how many are subscribing to their site.
So success comes in many shapes, sizes and colors. It's important to decide for yourself what your concept of success is. A lot of people will want to foist upon you their idea of what success is, so you need to know for yourself what your goals are for blogging and what it means to you to be a success at what you do. For some of you that might mean producing great content and putting it out there to share with the world. For others, it might mean getting paid sponsorships. It's important to respect that there are a variety of different goals for blogging. Some people see monetizing as a bad thing and could tell you that you're "selling out" for monetizing, and on the flip side some people also might tell you you're silly if you choose to not take sponsors. It's likely you'll get critiqued no matter what you do, so be true to yourself!
The beauty of blogging is that it's fluid. Your blog doesn't have to stay the same, with the same kind of content for its entire existence. While my blog's content has stayed relatively consistent over the years, it has also fluctuated quite a bit as well. For the first two years of my blog, posts were pretty exclusively daily outfit posts. Once I started moving towards going on my Brave trip, I focused more on that and once I was actually on the road, I had quite a few more road-tripping posts than outfit posts. Now my blog is a mix of lifestyle, DIY and personal style (and recently, wedding planning!). Staying true to yourself is important. If you're trying to blog about something that used to interest you, but no longer does, people will be able to tell that your posts don't come from the heart. Not only will your readers be able to tell, blogging also won't be fulfilling to you! I say, what's the point in blogging if you don't enjoy it?
If you're just starting out on your blogging adventure, take time to sit down and brainstorm what interests you have that you want to blog about and what you want to focus on. If you've already been blogging for a while, take a look at your blog and see what parts of it you love and what isn't working and cut out the stuff that you don't love! No sense in spending time posting about it if you don't love it! You can also take a look at your life and see where your interests are shifting and if maybe your blog is lagging behind this shift. I spent some time hanging out with one of my favorite bloggers last year and she was doing just this! She had grown her blog on DIY projects and scrapbooking, but was phasing out of that part of her life and into more focus on vintage and fashion. She's made a beautiful transition-- still keeping the parts of her blog that she loved about it when it focused more on DIY stuff, but infusing vintage fashion and style!
Whether you're just starting out, or you've been blogging for a while, I encourage you to get out a pen and paper (or... a word document and keyboard) and answer the following questions:
1. What are you passionate about? What do you feel like you would be able to post about all the time?
2. Do you want your blog to have a narrow focus or a broad spread of topics? (ex. just a food blog vs. including recipes, outfits, and lifestyle posts)
3. Would you like your blog to be monetized? Why or why not?
4. How do you gauge the success of your blog?
5. Think of your favorite blogs, what is it about those blogs that makes you love them? Can you learn something from those blogs that you can apply to yours?
1. Fashion. You can do several things with fashion. You can post personal outfit posts, images from an upcoming line that you love, photos from a magazine or online photos you found that you love, wish lists of items you'd like to purchase, ways to put together outfits, video blogs on how to style a dress, the possibilities are endless! Choosing a broad topic like fashion will give you many options for posts so you shouldn't run out of ideas!
2. Cooking. A lot of bloggers mix cooking with fashion or DIY posts! Even though, they may not go hand-in-hand, they are both creative and give you a lot of options to work with! You could feature a weekly recipe, show what you cooked for dinner last night, do a review of a cute restaurant or do a product review of something you use while cooking. Even though I don't read blogs like Jen Loves Kev for cooking, I am always interested in reading her Last Night's Dinner posts!
3. Vintage. Let's say you love vintage. It ties in really nice with fashion and personal style, but also opens up your blog to a whole other audience. You could post on cute vintage items you found thrifting, you could show how to clean up or repair a vintage item, you could talk about what to look for when shopping vintage, etc.! Plus, maybe someday you could open your own Etsy shop to sell vintage items? Again, endless possibilities. I'm very much inspired by Sally Jane Vintage for this style of blog.
There are so many different things your blog can be. It can be a fashion blog (which can even hone down to a shoe blog, a runway fashion blog, a beauty blog, but make sure you don't limit yourself too much that you run out of topics within the first month!). It can be a food blog (pastries, paleo, vegan, smoothies). You can blog about being a parent (dealing with parenting a special needs child, kid friendly craft projects, homeschooling) And, what I think is awesome, is that you can mix and combine themes! There are amazing blogs out there that mix fashion and DIY, baking and sewing, vintage and film reviews. Just remember to take what you love and what you're passionate about and try to stick to those topics. If you choose a topic you're not passionate about, you'll run out of ideas and become uninspired. We don't want that to happen!
The tagline on my blog says "Style. Life. Adventures." My blog started off as primarily a personal style blog sharing my daily outfits, but as I grew and changed I wanted to share more about my life and passions. Now my blog combines personal style outfit posts, recipes, trips and adventures I go on, essays on topics I feel are important, home decor and renovation posts, DIY projects, and more! While I would've characterized my blog as a Style Blog a few years ago, I now fall solidly in the Lifestyle Blog category. Lifestyle blogs generally share all parts of someone's life. A great example of a super successful lifestyle blog is Bleubird. She shares everything from recipes, to stories about her children, to personal style. Another great example is The Daybook. Both of these blogs really capture the blogger's voice and when you go to their blogs you almost feel like you're walking into her living room and getting to know her.
Make sure you figure out what makes you unique. You don't want to take your favorite blogger's blog and replicate it. You'll never stand out. You need to find what makes you you and work on it. Take your passions and embrace them in every aspect of your blog... from content, to blog design, to features! Nobody can tell you what your theme will be, it's the biggest thing YOU have to figure out. Take what you're passionate about… and write about it. Find your niche in the blogging community!
Blogs that lack theme, purpose or thought can be boring or get lost. Readers won't know what to expect when they come to your blog and will quickly click off if they don't find what they are looking for within the first five seconds. Find your purpose and clearly state it on your blog and showcase it within every post.
1. Create a name for your blog that will encompass all of your passions you will be writing about! I chose Delightfully Tacky because it perfectly describes my interests, style, and personality. Who I am is, in a way, synonymous with Delightfully Tacky. I love it because it doesn't take things too seriously.
2. Create a tagline! Say your blog is called "Flight of Fancy" and your tagline is… fashion, travel and everything fancy. You could post on fashion, what to pack while traveling, travel posts, photography, cute themed posts. You could even decorate your blog according to your theme and tagline! A tagline really helps readers know right away if they want to read your blog. Let's say one of the biggest aspects of your blog is writing reviews on films, but you don't really let readers know that you'll be doing so, they might be put off when you keep posting on film reviews and maybe they'll stop following. Be clear about your purpose!
3. The biggest thing is… how would you describe your blog to your mom, or friend, or co-worker? It should be very easy to define. "What is your blog about?" "Oh, you'd love it! It's about fashion, baking and travel!" "Oh, wow, I love fashion, baking & travel, I'll definitely check it out!". If your blog is a hundred different things, you might not have the focus and drive to keep at it, so don't overwhelm yourself with trying to cover too many topics. Keep it simple, driven and with a real purpose!
