I was lucky enough to attend & moderate the Balancing Business & Blogging panel at the Independent Fashion Blogger’s conference last week. Since the video’s not up, I can’t link to what was actually SAID, but I do want to try and recap a couple of the most important points while they’re still (relatively) fresh in my mind.

If you watched the live stream of the conference, or followed it on twitter, of course you know that Ari Goldberg (StyleCaster) was the star of the panel; I knew the second I started talking to him backstage that I could count on him to pull out the big guns and tell it like it is, and he did NOT disappoint!! But I was also very impressed by all the panelists, including Coco Rocha, Kristina, Natalie, Aimee & Annie from bellaSugar.

Two points that I thought were particularly Important:

1. You MUST be able to talk about yourself. Period. This came up in response to a question from the audience – she didn’t feel comfortable talking about herself & coming up with a mission statement for her blog. Ari suggested she crowd source her mission statement by asking friends/readers to help her craft it, which isn’t a bad idea, but at the end of the day, you WILL HAVE to talk about yourself and your blog. Which was a point I tried to make before moving on to the next question. There’s no way around it, if you want your blog to be your business, or if you want any sort of recognition at all, you have to have an elevator pitch for your blog (a quick statement that you tells someone about your blog in the time it would take to ride an elevator a floor or two), and you have to craft a mission statement, about page, and a media kit.

   As bloggers, we forget that we are also entrepreneurs. You may not realize it yet, and you may not want to turn your blog into your career, but when you start a blog and put effort into it, you are putting YOURSELF out there and taking a risk that you might fail, something that entrepreneurs do everyday. And as an entrepreneur, you have to be prepared to get out there, to put it on the line, to succeed, and the only way you’re going to do that is by marketing yourself.

   Ultimately, it shouldn’t be that difficult to talk about yourself – as a blogger, you’re probably already doing it. Why did you start your blog? What do you write about everyday? who is your reader? All these things should go in your mission statement. And as for getting up the nerve to talk about & sell yourself in person, sorry, but you’re going to have to just suck it up and do it.

   (and I thought all bloggers were narcissists )

2. Annie from bellaSugar made so many amazing points during the panel, I can’t recall all of them, but one that really struck a chord with me, and that we discussed afterwards is that we, as women, often undervalue ourselves. We don’t ask for raises, we do too much for free…basically, we don’t ask for what we want. Here’s the thing: if you ask for what you want, you may not get it. But if you DON’T ask for what you want, you will definitely NOT get it. Makes sense, but we always hesitate to ask – I know I used to. We think we don’t deserve that much money, or we’re just generally unsure of ourselves, so we don’t ask for what WE want, we settle for what we’re given, or what we’re offered.

   Of course, if you ask for too much, you probably won’t get it; you have to be reasonable, given how much time you put into the project and how much your readers are “worth.” And here again Annie made a great point on how to determine how much to ask for: think about how much you need to make per hour and use that as a guideline. For simple advertisements on your blog, this may not be appropriate, but for ongoing projects or giveaways, it can be very helpful to think in terms of an hourly wage.

   There’s no science to figuring out how much to charge for ads or projects related to your blog, it’s more of an art. For me, it involved a bit of trial and error; if you’re asking for too much, no one’s going to bite, but if you’re asking for too little, your supply will never keep up with demand, for example, if all your ad space is sold out and you have a waiting list, you’re not charging enough for your ad space.

Again, whether or not you want your blog to make money, or become your career or use it as a launching point for something else, it is a reflection of YOU and you should treat it as such. The design should be clean, it should look professional and be easy to navigate, have an about page, a mission statement or editorial policy, a media kit…you get the point. Only when YOU start to treat your blog like a business will other people start to SEE it as one. And even if you don’t want to turn it into a business, what’s the harm in others believing it already IS?

I will post more about my thoughts on the conference and the Balancing Business and Blogging panel this week, but in the mean time, here are some posts/pictures by other bloggers:

Citizen Rosebud
Dress with Courage
Grit & Glamour

If you were there, what did you think of the Balancing Business & Blogging panel? What were your favorite points?

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I’m 38 (almost 39) and have run my network of sites (they weren’t always blogs!) since 2004, so I’ve always been a bit older than other bloggers in my niche. It’s never stopped me from doing my job, nor is it stopping me now, but lately I’ve been LONGING to interact with more bloggers my age. I attended an event recently and couldn’t get over the feeling that I was so DIFFERENT (yes, old) from the other bloggers. And as much as we don’t want age to define or separate us, 10-15 year differences definitely have an impact; I tend to always feel like the “teacher” (which is not always a bad thing – I really enjoy teaching and mentoring) when I’m around younger bloggers, but sometimes, I just want to feel like me. Without the pressure. You know?

I also believe there’s a place for us to carve out a powerful niche, even in this current crazy fashion blogging world full of pre-teens and 20-something models. Who’s with me?

For a long time I’ve wanted to try and organize a community of over-30 bloggers, if not for anything else but to know that there are others of us out there! And since I’m going to be in NYC for the IFB conference on September 7th, I thought what better time than now to try and meet up with some other over-30 fashion bloggers.

Elissa Stern (from Dress with Courage) and I are working on organizing something (coffee?) for September 8th in NYC. And then, I hope, we’ll see where to go from there. Maybe a message board? periodic meet-ups around the country? whatever we want

But we need your help – if you WILL or WILL NOT be in NYC in September & your’e an over-30 fashion blogger, please fill out the form below. I’ll only use your email address to contact you with any information about the NYC meet-up or anything else in the works.

*edited: I just created a Facebook page for announcements, discussions, etc. – please join if you’re interested!!

Thank you!!!

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Wow. I’m still amazed by the response to my “Why I stopped reading fashion blogs” post a few months ago – thank you to everyone who participated in the conversation! I have wanted to do a follow-up though, since I did start reading some fashion blogs again after a few weeks off, but only a small FRACTION of the blogs I was reading before. I started adding back to my daily blog reads blogs that I actually looked forward to reading everyday, blogs that always inspire me, make me laugh, or make me think. And I don’t miss any of the super-bloggers or the blogs I read only because I felt like I HAD to.

What I also decided to do as I started adding blogs back, was to read my blogs the old-fashioned way: in my browser. Crazy, I know; there are much more efficient ways to read blogs, and I loved Google reader for that, but honestly, I missed READING BLOGS. Reading an RSS feed isn’t the same. And as I thought about it, I want readers to actually come to my site every once in a while and look at the blog design, sidebars, etc. the way I mean for it to be seen, so why shouldn’t I try and read other blogs that way? I’ve also started commenting more because I’m already on the post – I don’t have to click through.

Purging all of my fashion blogs was the best thing I’ve done for myself in a long time. I love EVERY single blog I have bookmarked now, and absolutely don’t miss any of the super-bloggers, or industry darlings. I don’t feel out of touch at all, and I have more time to focus on my own work.

And speaking of blogs I love, here are a few (this is not an exhaustive list by any means, just selected blogs I love to read and you might too) I missed and added back after the big purge:

The Coveted – Jennine is a truly remarkable and inspiring person; I have learned SO MUCH from her over the years.
IFB – duh
Dramatis Personae – what can I say about Ashe that you don’t already know? She is gorgeous, and I always love her perspective on fashion, style & blogging
Into the Gloss – I’m kind of obsessed with this beauty blog, I wish they’d update 5 times a day
The Man Repeller – she kills me
Out of the Bag – I love her style, and her thoughtful posts on wardrobe-building
Les Anti-Modernes – I’ve been reading Miss Sophie’s posts forever; she’s my internet style twin. We always love the same things
Little Tin Soldier – Linda is super-sweet in person, and so are her outfit drawings…
Already Pretty – Sally’s posts always create amazing conversations
Basic Cravings – Sydney is a real-life friend, and a wardrobe stylist. She always has thoughtful tips on what to wear
If Grandma wore J Crew – Sharon is also my real-life friend, but she has impecable taste and THE BEST VINTAGE EVER

Have you purged your reader? How many blogs did you add back?
Do you read blogs online anymore? or just via RSS or email?

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I’ve heard style bloggers refer to themselves as narcissistic, full-of-themselves, egomaniacs, etc., just for posting outfit pictures everyday. Or they’re embarrassed to admit to friends/family that they have a personal style blog because they think it’s silly (or at least will be perceived as such) to maintain a blog full of pictures of themselves.

So, I wonder, what makes us (those of us who consider ourselves to be fashion bloggers/personal style bloggers) WANT to post outfit pictures everyday? What’s the drive behind it? I can only speak for myself, but here’s why I do it:

• When I started posting pictures of myself (with my head cut off) in 2004 there weren’t many other people doing it. And the ones who WERE doing it then were generally one size: small. I wanted to show women of my size & shape (12-14 & CURVY!!!) that they could wear contemporary designer pieces too, and how to style them. I didn’t have any delusions of grandeur or fame, I just perceived that there was a gap in personal style photos at the time and tried to fill it.
• Readers love them. I’ve struggled many times over the years with posting outfit pictures – especially during the cycles when I gained 10-15 pounds – but outfit pictures are consistently the most commented on posts on Grechen’s Closet. If I’m feeling particularly unmotivated or schlumpy, I won’t post an outfit picture, but I do try and give a glimpse into what I’m wearing most days.
• It’s all about me. Yes, I do think you have to be somewhat narcissistic to post pictures of yourself online! Some style bloggers definitely tend more that way than others, but we all love attention. And we love showing off our latest finds & styling abilities – it’s all part of who we are. We are not attention-whores, our love of attention is not what defines us, but it does enable us to do what we do. I do it because I want to be an example for the women who find me online, or see me on the street, to be creative, and look outside the mall or magazine dos and don’ts for inspiration; I try to always wear one thing that will get a reaction. And my blog(s) are very personal – I’ve always written about what I love, and have been lucky enough to have an audience of women who love the same. It feels only natural to post pictures of myself in that context – how can you really “know” a person without seeing pictures?
• I use outfit pictures to enhance my shopping blog – as a means of showing that I do buy what I talk about; that I practice what I preach!

(one of my favorite recent outfit pictures

Personal style/fashion bloggers are much loved and hated precisely because we aren’t afraid to post pictures of ourselves online – we actually like it. Most of us consider ourselves to be the tastemakers and stylists, not sticking only to what we see in magazines, and that draws ire from all corners (how dare we?). You can’t win with everyone, and you have to be able to stand up to criticism and hate bloggers, but we do it because we love it. Even if no one is looking…

Why do you do it? How long have you been posting outfit pictures? how often do you post them? If you don’t post outfit pictures of yourself, why not?

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so excited to be included in the links this week!! Of course, every one of them is worth a click-through, especially if you’re trying to add fashion blogs back into your google reader

More than Meets the Eye

Edited by Fajr Muhammad at Stylish Thought

When you visit a fashion blog you often see a stylish blogger posing in a perfectly, put together outfit with gorgeous scenery. What you don’t see is the work that goes into curating and maintaining a fashion blog. This week the theme across IFB was outfit posts: what deems an outfit worthy, what goes into creating a stunning visual post and ultimately the comments (some not so nice) that we receive as style bloggers. Ultimately, blogging is a way to express our love for fashion and personal style but as this week’s links can attest to, there is much more to fashion blogging than meets the eye.

Links à la Mode: April 28th

• Best Of Bklyn: Wardrobe Emergency Kit
• Beyond Fabric: A Pinch of Ethnicity
• Consider Me Lovely: Blush + Gold
• Dress with Courage: Dealing with Negative Comments
• Elle Enchanted: On Fashion Blogging
• Fashioned By Love: This Strange World of Fashion
• Fashion in Films: Safe vs. Sexy
• Fashion Limbo: The Rant- Skinny No More
• Forever Amber: Adventures in the Magic Garden Centre
• Grechen Blogs: Why I Stopped Reading Fashion Blogs
• Grit & Glamour: On the Unexpected Beauty of Social Media
• Independent Fashion Bloggers: Blogging Against Adversity
• Lady in Lycra: Address Your Style
• Over 50 Feeling 40: Pondering Much More than an OOTD
• Sample Twenty Nine: Comment Courtesy
• Stay in the Lines: Breezy Blocking
• Stylish Thought: What I Wore- Fallen Robots
• The Fashion Grove: There are Ghosts Towns in the Ocean
• The House in the Clouds: Tattoos. Expression or Accessory
• The Quirky Martini: The Buzz about Fashion Bloggers
• Un-Stitched: Creating Amazing Outfit Posts

SPONSOR:

New Sunglasses at Shopbop: Stella McCartney, Tom Ford, Ray Ban, YSL, Marc Jacobs, Carrera, DITA, Gucci, Phillip Lim & Super Sunglasses

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For years I’ve been hearing about the death of banner advertising as a way to make money on blogs. Sure, it’s not as lucrative as it used to be and it’s always better to have multiple revenue streams, but “traditional” online marketing in the form of banner ads is NOT DEAD. I’ve always said this and always believed that banners will ONLY work for the blogger who has a relationship with the brand/boutique and who will evangelize for them via blog posts (not paid posts) and social media.

I am not an expert, but I have been making money from my blog(s) with a combination of banner advertising and contextual affiliate marketing since 2006. Over the years, the proportion of what I make from affiliate marketing has become greater than my advertising revenue, but it is still significant, and not going anywhere. The key is making sure the ads are relevant, interesting, fresh, and offer something to the reader. Most of my banner ads offer exclusive discount codes for online shopping, which never fail to entice a reader, but they could not ever work alone.

My relationship with advertisers is deep; I work only with companies I trust, respect, and WANT to work with, and in turn, I am a natural “salesperson” for the brand. Banner ads will never work if they are just “there” on your site and the reader can tell there’s no relationship there. And indeed they’ll backfire on you if your reader feels they are forced.

All this talk about the death of banner advertising has been so pervasive lately that imagine my surprise to read this in a Mashable article today:

What does seem to work is more traditional online marketing, including email and search advertising. Most consumers in the study were exposed to some form of marketing by the retailers before they made their purchase.

Really?

But I disagree with the main premise of the article, which is that

A new study says social media has almost no influence on online purchasing behavior.

I did speculate on this last year in my article about Isabel Marant & Social Media and wondered about the effectiveness of certain industry tweeters, but have always held that social media cannot be separated from traditional marketing; they work better together. Perhaps a brands Facebook page or twitter account doesn’t directly lead to a purchase, but over time, being & staying in a person’s head via social media has an impact. And imagine the greater impact for the brand if they’re already in their customer’s head then she sees a banner ad on her favorite blog?

Social media efforts are not “a waste” if the brand is truly engaging it’s audience, but as a means to simply increase sales, it can’t work alone.

What are your thoughts? how do you work with advertisers and engage them via Social Media?

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OMG. I just unsubscribed to every single fashion blog in my google reader. I’ll add the ones I truly miss back in after a while, but right now, I need a break. I look forward to reading through all the new items in my reader all day – then, when I’m done, I feel unfulfilled & frustrated. The truth is, many of the blogs in my reader are blogs I feel like I “have” to read because they’re popular and I need to know what they’re writing about. Really Grechen? What a load of BS.

I like reading blogs that are inspiring, interesting, funny, written by my friends and teach me something. I don’t like being called pet-names (unless it’s by Ashe), scrolling through 10 full-size outfit pictures with pouty lips, seeing pictures of your babies or kids, or reading post after post about the SAME party/PR event that every other blogger went to AND the free stuff you got for going. Why I haven’t removed these blogs from my reader before, I don’t know. Oh, yes, I do know: because I thought I needed to read them. To be informed. To read what all the BIG PR companies and reps were reading. To see what they found so appealing about that blogger. And of course I end up trying to figure out what makes them BETTER than me.

Maybe I’m wrong to admit this, but I have insecurities too. I question what I’m doing, how long I’ll be able to do it, what I’ll do next. And I question my physical appearance: am I pretty enough? thin enough (no), interesting enough? For goodness sake, I don’t even have a DSLR! Or a boyfriend/husband/BFF to follow me around all the time with a camera. How can I possibly be good enough?

Yes, the last bit was sarcastic – but I’m not afraid to admit that I feel a little envy every once in a while. And now I’m done with that little green monster. I’m better than that. I’m DIFFERENT than that. We thrive on our differences. No one person is “better” than any other, just different. And I celebrate that.

But I’m still not going to read blogs that don’t inspire me or make me smile. I hope no one reads any of my blogs because they “have” to…

Do you read a lot of fashion blogs? How have you chosen the ones you do read? How do you deal with fashion blogger envy?

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A lot of you have e-mailed to ask for updates to the Fashion/Style blogger conference Indiana and I are working on for March 12-13, 2011 (during SXSW but not affiliated with it). We are working very hard to secure speakers and sponsors to make this a fun & successful learning event. We’re not all the way there yet, but we do have some VERY exciting announcements and a preliminary website up for the Texas Style Council (host/organizer of the events):

• Jennine Jacob from Independent Fashion Bloggers, the coveted, and eat, sleep, denim will deliver our keynote address – so exciting!!
• The conference will be held at Ballet Austin – an amazing location and super-cool venue.
• We’ve also secured “miss” James from Bluebird Vintage, Kendi from Kendi Everyday, and Jessica from What I Wore as speakers – and we’re adding more all the time
• The conference is on Sunday, but don’t forget about Saturday!! It will be a super-fun day of good food & shopping for bloggers & their fans, plus a party that night. We’re still finalizing lots of details on this, so stay tuned.

So. If you haven’t filled out this survey yet on what you’d like to learn during the conference, please do so now. If you have, I’ve already added your name to the Texas Style Council (host organization for the conference) e-mail list and you will get an e-mail update as soon as details are finalized and with registration information (coming in 2 weeks). Registration for the conference will be limited, so be sure you get on the list and get signed up as soon as registration opens!

If you just want to sign up for the e-mail list, you can do so below. (Please note: if you filled out the survey form previously, your name is already on the list. If you’re not sure, you can sign up again; you won’t receive multiple e-mails)

Please leave a comment or contact me directly with any questions at all! We CANNOT wait to meet everyone & get down and dirty with some socializing and learning this March

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In the spirit of reflection (and because everyone else is doing it ), I thought I should go back and look at some of the most popular posts here on grechen blogs. I didn’t restrict myself to 2010 because the most popular post EVER on grechenblogs.com (according to WordPress.com popular posts plugin) is What’s your comment policy? which I wrote in response to Sea of Shoes’ deleting comments altogether from her blog in 2009. And interestingly, according to google analytics, my most popular post ever is How to get your fashion blog noticed – mostly because of search traffic; not because it’s a phenomenal post in my opinion.

Of course, this would be a great case-study in how different tools measure things differently, but while it’s important to be aware of that, in this case, it’s not important enough to spend a lot of time analyzing. I use the WordPress.com popular posts plugin to collect and display my most popular posts in the sidebar, and also use the Popularity Contest plugin for another look via the dashboard. The popularity contest plugin is interesting in that it will show you popular posts based on date, category, tag, whatever you choose, which is good information to have/look at every once in a while. The most important use for either of these plugins, however, is the ability to display your most popular posts in your sidebar using widgets – a CRUCIAL navigational tool for your readers.

Anyway, on to the posts…Here are the top six most popular posts on grechenblogs.com:

1. What’s your comment policy?: this is a look at comments on fashion blogs in general, and specifically how negative comments are either tolerated, or not
2. Fashion blogger bashing: Why are fashion bloggers such easy targets?
3. Why shouldn’t fashion bloggers make money?: this is MY favorite post because it addresses the misconception that fashion bloggers shouldn’t make money from their blogs because they’re supposed to be “independent” and/or their blog is “art.”
4. How to get your fashion blog noticed: This is kind of an interesting list of things to try to attract more visitors to your fashion blog.
5. Analyzing your blog’s statistics: an in-depth look at important statistics (BOUNCE RATE!!!!) & how to analyze them
6. Isabel Marant, the Internet & Social Media: I still like this post, because while mine isn’t the most popular sentiment in the blogging/social media community, I do believe that brands CAN survive without a significant social media presence.

What’s your favorite post on grechenblogs.com? Did you do a “popular posts” post on your blog this year? Why or why not?

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Apparently, “insights,” “analysis,” and “answers” are the most viewed words on blogs, according to Dan Zarella anyway. Which is why I named this blog post what I did – that and I wanted to mention a couple of things I learned from Dan’s “science of blogging” webinar.

Some of the things he mentioned made sense to me, and others were new – like the fact that most people read blogs in the mornings and/or between about 10AM and 2PM is supported by my analytics. But he also finds that most people share posts on social media later in the week & on the weekends, which is a new idea to me. Incidentally, that’s also when he says you’ll get more comments – which really does make sense if you assume that readers have more time to share and comment on the weekends.

Dan’s recommendations for bloggers are:

• aim to publish blog posts in the morning
• post early in the week for views & links
• post on the weekends for most comments

My impression is that he’s concluding that you have to take advantage of opportunities as they happen, or else you’ll lose them. I’m not sure I accept that unequivocally, but it’s definitely something interesting to think about – and maybe try and put into practice. For example, right now, I publish posts as I’m inspired, but maybe it’s more effective to save a post I might otherwise publish in the afternoon for the next morning…(which is what I did with this post I wrote it at 5:00 Monday evening and scheduled it to publish on Tuesday at 10AM)

With regard to comments I’ve never done any sort of analysis at all on those stats, but on Grechen’s Closet, the trend is that I always get more comments in the afternoons – AFTER my RSS e-mail newsletter goes out – and on weekends. That’s always indicated to me my most loyal/outspoken readers are waiting for a “trigger” to read my new posts (AND that rss via e-mail is very important).

All in all, I’ve found this information interesting, and I might try to publish posts during the prime times of between 10AM and 2PM instead of all day and see if that affects anything in anyway. Who knows?

Have you ever thought about these issues? Do you try to post at the same time everyday? or share on social media at specific times during the day? What conclusions have you drawn?

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