Chris Brogan wrote about this several months ago (and now I can’t find the link), and he also mentioned it when I heard him speak last Fall: featuring Twitter, Facebook & other social media links prominently on your blog encourages people to LEAVE and go immediately to those outside sites, or via links in your twitter feed. Yes, they are enticed to interact with you via Twitter or Facebook, but don’t you really want them to interact with you via your blog?

I mentioned it too, in my discussion of getting comments on your blog vs. interaction on twitter – and it’s a good question/issue to think about. But I’m not sure it has an answer.

Here’s what I think – if a visitor is on twitter already AND they read your blog, they’re going to want to follow you on twitter and you should make it easy for them to do that. But I don’t think you want to distract them with tweets being fed through a widget on your blog to leave sooner than they might have.

Keeping visitors engaged on your blog is hard enough already, why make it easier for them to leave by featuring tweets? On the surface that argument makes sense, but in reality, twitter should be used as another tool to DRIVE people to your blog by posting links to posts and/or continuing a discussion you might be already having on your blog, OR even starting a discussion on twitter, then carrying it over to the blog.

Social media tools and blogs really must work together, but I think the answer is to find a balance. What do you think?

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There was an interesting article/interview with Isabel Marant in Grazia yesterday which sheds some light on why she’s resisted the Internet so long. She says:

‘For me, fashion shows are not for the public, they are trade shows for the press. It’s time for the press to understand the collection and then spread the information. That’s more interesting than just the image. Everyone wants to be first. It’s too too much. There should be privacy and mystery. There is no excitement about anything anymore as everything is available immediately and all the time – you don’t have to wait for anything.

I don’t like the idea of being flooded with image and information. I don’t belong to the generation of spending time on the internet. I think it’s too fast and too fake. It’s like going to a museum on the internet – where is the pleasure? It’s sad because everyone is running after everything, but after what? Everything is too quick. There is no room in your heads for all this information. No one retains anything.’

on the one hand, it feels like she’s very resistant to the change that’s inevitable in the fashion world; it’s not all about secrecy and exclusivity anymore. I don’t believe that consumers and fashion-lovers need “gatekeepers” or journalists to interpret things for us. Now that we can have all the information, we want it; and we’re not giving it up any time soon.

on the other hand, she has done remarkably well NOT selling on line until now (at Net-a-Porter) and really keeping very tight control over her images and brand online. Isabel Marant is a CULT luxury brand not least because of the secrecy and exclusivity surrounding it. She also makes beautiful clothes, exactly what is called for at any given moment, but there is always something to be said for the power of waiting and not making access “easy.”

this success seems to belie what many people are saying that in the age of “fashion 2.0″ you simply cannot succeed as a brand today without being on facebook and twitter, and making our product and inspiration as available as possible to the masses. If succeeding is interpreted as increasing sales & profits, I humbly disagree.

I love being able to interact with some of my favorite boutiques and brands on twitter, but that interaction has never once contributed to my buying something as a direct result. while I agree that boutiques should DEFINITELY be on twitter and facebook, interacting as much as possible with their customers, being available, posting promotions, I don’t think that’s necessarily true for brands/designers unless they’re directly representing their online store.

all this interaction and behind the scenes online is fun & entertaining, but I wonder how it directly translates to sales, company growth, and increased profits if at all. maybe I’ve missed a major study that comes to that conclusion, but I think that it has to be very difficult to measure.

For example, I love to follow @dkny on twitter, but I would like to know how many of her 42,000+ followers are consumers of DKNY/Donna Karen and how tweets like this translate to sales:

Not that DKNY shouldn’t have a presence on twitter or facebook, but if the ULTIMATE goal is to increase sales, then I’m not sure it’s altogether effective, or worth the time/effort. It definitely increases brand awareness and loyalty over time, but sales? Maybe the goal with participating in social media isn’t sales at all, but branding.

These are just my thoughts..what are yours?

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Tavi, Tavi, Tavi…apparently the traditional fashion media has nothing else to talk about (or this is a last-ditch attempt to attract readers and save their *sses)

All I keep hearing is editors whining about “doing their time” for years and not getting to sit in first row, then here comes Tavi the 13-yr-old wonder blogger who just glides right in without paying her “dues” and with no experience as a journalist. Give me a BREAK. Granted I know nothing about the fashion industry, but I do understand that there is probably a hierarchy (or at least there was) and like nearly any industry, you have to work your way up to join the big girls. But here’s the thing – the industry is changing. THERE IS NO HIERARCHY ANYMORE. And the editors who’ve been around for such a long time are pissed that things have changed right under their noses while they’re still stuck behind wishing for the OLD way of doing things.

If there’s anything that the last 5-10 years’ economic climate has taught us (or should have) is that in the business world, you adapt, or die – well, unless you’re a gigantic bank or car manufacturer, OY. Fashion boutiques, magazines and designers are going out of business left and right, and in my opinion, they should if they’re not making money by addressing a need. Nobody has the right to keep things the way they’ve always been & just because that’s the way you did it last year, doesn’t mean it’s going to work THIS year. I think editors & traditional magazines are scared to death because they haven’t adapted, and they’re dying.

Tavi isn’t responsible for changing the way things work in the fashion industry, neither are bloggers; we’re just the ones who noticed a need and worked hard to fill it. Sure, fashion blogging is also a continuously evolving niche, and many mistakes have been made, but it’s not going anywhere. All the whining and complaining editors are doing isn’t going to change that anytime soon. If anything, it gives bloggers the strength and power to grow and become even more important – why? because as soon as the “big girls” start to pay attention and BASH the little ones, the little ones KNOW They’re getting somewhere. As for the accusations that bloggers are bought and paid for by designers and PR firms – after all, how else could they POSSIBLY get to be at a fashion show? – I’d like to see some evidence and a reason why that actually MATTERS. Unless you are blind, you see the correlation between paid advertising and editorial in traditional fashion magazines. You’re naive if you believe that there’s not preference being given to paid advertisers in Vogue, or Lucky, but again, I’d like to know why that really matters. Yes, I get the ethical issues surrounding that practice, but we KNOW it happens, and why are we willing to blatantly overlook it from fashion magazines, and not from bloggers? And why does everyone assume that bloggers are so easily bought? and that for enough money or stuff, they’ll write whatever you want them to? If anything, bloggers are doing what they do out of LOVE, not for money which goes contrary to the idea that they’ll compromise their audience & integrity for money.

With all of these Tavi-bashing articles, the only thing I get out of them is a better understanding of how jealous and petty fashion editors & writers really are.

Really, why else would someone bring up Tavi’s education and her father’s perceived inability to make sure she’s getting one, unless they’re more than a little jealous. I thought that was the most disgusting thing I’ve read so far – what business is it of anyone’s how Tavi is doing in school? Are you so cynical to think that her parents don’t care about her responsibilities aside from blogging? That’s just rude, and shows how jealous the editors and writers are…don’t tell me they’re not. Oh. Sorry, they’re just “concerned” for her well-being, because you know, the fashion world is SO FICKLE. And what will happen to poor Tavi when designers decide she’s no longer interesting? Nothing. She’ll continue to thrive, in whatever it is she chooses to do. That’s more than I can say for all these editors and writers who have nothing better to do than to whine about Tavi…

(just as an aside, I don’t think formal education is all it’s cracked up to be anyway. Yes, I do believe everyone should finish high school, but there are a lot of ways to achieve that outside of actually attending school. Tavi’s probably learning infinitely more out there in the “real world” than she would in school…again, this is a sign of how much things have changed in recent years, an MBA doesn’t guarantee you a great lifelong job anymore, and you don’t need a college degree to have a successful business. My Master’s in Political Science is not doing me a lot of good right now…I kinda wish I had those thousands of dollars in student loan payments back.)

Anyway, traditional media editors, et al, just leave Tavi alone. It’s easy to be jealous or angry of her talent and her achievements at such a young age, but what does that do for anyone? Use the energy you would have felt being jealous or angry and channel them towards your own work – let her inspire you to do better. Obviously she’s not letting anything you’re saying bring her down; Tavi’s not the type to be bullied into shutting up.

(go Tavi!)

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Does it really matter? Can all these niches: personal style, street style, shopping, fashion – fit under the banner of “fashion” blogs? I brought this up briefly in an outfit post (of all things) last week, and then Yuli Ziv made me think about it again with her great article: 10 Fashion Blogger Stereotypes, Or Why Brands Still Fear Working With Bloggers.

I concluded then that my main site, Grechen’s Closet, is not a fashion blog – at least not in terms of what I would consider a fashion blog: focusing more on “news,” trends, runways, designers, and “fantasy.” I started in 2004 with a desire to make online shopping easier & more fun by posting resources and outfit pictures – but I’ve always classified myself as a fashion/style/shopping blog. Lately though, I feel sort of “left out” of the fashion blog genre because I don’t attend Fashion Week or post about runway shows – I focus entirely on reality: where to buy, what to buy, and how to wear it.

There is obviously a lot of overlap and fuzzy lines in the blogosphere; I think a personal style blog can also be a fashion blog (like THE COVETED or Dream Sequins) when there’s a combination of “dress-up” with news & observations on trends in design. You can also have a combo fashion & shopping blog, like Refinery29.

There are also strictly personal style blogs – like Adored Austin or What I Wore – and then there are strictly shopping blogs, like dluxelist, and Style Bite – or a combination of shopping & personal style, like Grechen’s Closet. And then there are fashion/personal style/shopping blogs like FabSugar…

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Which brings me back to my original question: Does it matter what “type” of blogger you are? Should you be confined to a group, or left out of a group because you don’t attend Fashion Week, or post outfit pictures? Are we all just fashion bloggers? And what IS a fashion blog anyway??

What do you think?

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When you’re inspired to write about something you saw on another blog, do you credit the original blogger for finding it first? I’m sure *everyone* will say yes, but do you really? And is it always necessary to do this?

I really have only started reading other fashion/shopping blogs in the last year or so, and if I do see something I’m interested in featuring on one of my blogs, I will always link back to the blog I found it through. I probably wouldn’t do that if I had seen or found the item/designer before, but if I am being introduced to something or a designer for the first time, I will absolutely give credit to the blogger who found it first; that just makes sense to me.

At the same time, it’s not always possible to know who featured what “first”- although I’m not sure that’s the important piece here, it’s more important in my opinion to simply acknowledge that you didn’t “discover” something if indeed you didn’t. If you did, then more power to you!

(incidentally, I also give credit to another blogger if I’m inspired to write an editorial post or article after reading something she wrote – giving credit doesn’t stop with product features)

With the hundreds of fashion/shopping blogs in my reader, my biggest pet peeve is reading the SAME THING over and over and over again. This happens more often with “news” and launches than with product features, but today, the same independent designer was featured on three different blogs! And since I check my RSS reader every hour, I know who was first…or at least I think I do…

Again, I’m not sure it really matters who was “first,” but I also don’t believe in coincidence. I mean, the designer or her PR firm could have sent out an e-mail blast to said bloggers recently and they all independently decided to write about it AT THE SAME TIME. Which is absolutely fine, but since I personally don’t like to write about the same stuff everyone else is writing about, I don’t usually feature something I’ve received a press pitch about soon after receiving it; I’ll usually wait a few weeks and if I’m still interested, will write about it.

When it comes down to it, no one is policing you to make sure you’re finding your own “stuff” to write about; I just believe in the idea of giving credit where credit is due.

Do you? What are your thoughts on giving bloggers credit?

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Do you HAVE a comment policy?

I was inspired to write this following Jane’s (from Sea of Shoes) decision to turn off comments on her blog. She says:

I have never seen the point of a feedback system on a personal style blog.
Whether people are telling me that they love my shoes, or that they admire my photography, or that they think I’m too skinny, or that they want me to stop smoking, or that my blog is a reflection of the cupidity of our generation, or that my life is going to be a vacuum of tragedy ….none of those comments are ever going to affect the content I produce for Sea of Shoes.

And I totally agree with her. 100 comments like “oh, I love your outfit” or similar add nothing to a blog in my opinion, except maybe allow the blogger to say she gets x number of comments on her blog. Negative comments do nothing either – as Jane continues to mention, it’s scary how many people take the time to delve into her private life and feel the need to tell her she’s doing it wrong. That has to affect her in some way; it’s hard to hear that from people who really don’t “know” you – but for some reason, they must continue to butt in.

So I actually applaud her for making this move – it’s empowering, and allows her to reclaim her blog as a place for her to post her outfits, and random stuff she finds interesting, without subjecting herself to the nastiness of random strangers. And no, just because she’s chosen to put her life out there on her blog doesn’t mean she “deserves” the public scrutiny that she’s getting – neither do “celebrities” – they are NOT role models, they are entertainers and we should not be concerned with their private lives. That’s what Jane is essentially – she’s a source of inspiration and entertainment. That’s all.

For me personally, comments are validating and a way for me to interact with my readers more intimately. I accept most comments unless they’re blatant “advertising” or if they contain a link to the commenters blog in the body of the comment. If I get a simple comment like “i like that” and the commenter’s web address is for replicawatches.com or something, it’s automatically deleted – I could choose to de-link it instead, but that’s not right. I don’t want comments just for comments’ sake; I’m interested in value.

How do you deal with comments on your blog? Do you have a “no-delete” policy? Do you accept every comment that comes in, whether it’s valuable or not? Do you feel like your visitors have a “right” to leave a comment on your blog?

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I don’t “eBay.” I mean, I have a few times, but only to sell. I don’t have the patience to sort though thousands of things and then bid on them to buy what I want, I’m much more into instant gratification. And I HATE the proliferation of fakes – handbags, watches, you name it, it’s faked, and sold on eBay. With that, and the fact that scouting eBay is so overwhelming, it’s no wonder that sales have decreased, and who can blame them for trying to appeal to a more fashion-conscious shopper with the launch of their new blog, The Inside Source.

But what a fail. I was intrigued when I first heard the news, and clicked straight over to the blog, which was totally underwhelming. The design is blah, it’s not that easy to navigate, and IMO, there’s too much celebrity focus (YES, when the image associated with the featured fashion story is of two “celebrities” that’s too much celebrity focus IMO).

And to tell you the truth, I just assumed before I even looked at the site, that eBay would have hired already established fashion bloggers to write content for them (I’m not the only one), speak about their favorite eBay tactics, scope out daily finds, etc., and did they? Nope. They stuck to more traditional media types – one of the fashion writers is a former editor from In Touch magazine – and the editorial director, Meridith Barnett came via Store Adore and was originally with Lucky Magazine. I’m not discounting these ladies’ experience and knowledge of the space, but I would have liked to see actual movers & shakers in online media included more prominently (I can think of a few bloggers who would have been PERFECT for this…)

Fashion bloggers bring credibility, a built in audience, authority, excitement, interest, and a knowledge and ability to write for the space that is second to none. Their writing reflects their personalities and passions in a way that others can relate to; a successful fashion blogger writes from heart and gives it everything she has. And I’m sorry, but The Inside Source reads more like a MAGAZINE. And not even Lucky Magazine. There’s no emotion there, no desire, no interest, even. Just dry copy. B O R I N G.

I don’t know…I was interested when the news hit – I thought there was some potential, and that eBay had a good idea launching a “digital magazine,” but honestly, a fashion blog would have been better. It could have worked, and I would have visited, but what I see at The Inside Source doesn’t make me want to come back. What about you?

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I had a very heated discussion with someone recently about positive vs. negative product reviews; she prefers to write only about what she likes, eschewing the negative, and I, while I write primarily about stuff I like, also enjoy being controversial and honest – if not necessarily positive – when I talk about products. I really believe it’s just as important to point out things you dislike about something as it is to praise the things you love – sometimes if you don’t, no one else will!

As an example, I feel like I was the only fashion blogger to rail against Gap’s new jeans recently. It’s no secret I have a sometimes like/mostly hate relationship with the Gap, but I didn’t mind some styles of their old jeans (I’ve been wearing them a lot lately). When the new styles came out, fashion editors of all the major magazines & some blogs had nothing but sickeningly sweet things to say about the jeans, so even as I had a feeling they weren’t going to work on me like they worked on them, I wanted to try them anyway. And they sucked. There was even more waist gap on the new styles of jeans than before, but that’s only when I managed to squeeze myself into a pair – I feel like they shifted the sizes all down one, so where a 12 that fit me well in a previous style, only a 14 would fit now. Seriously?

I’ll admit, I was also disappointed and maybe a little let down after all the hype and praise being heaped on Gap for their new denim styles, I guess I was looking forward to something new & exciting from them, and it turned out, they weren’t all that – for me anyway. The whole thing kind of felt a little like the “new coke” fiasco (for those of you who remember…)

As I was waiting for someone to write something not-so-positive about Gap’s new jeans and nothing came, I posted a few comments on twitter about how I didn’t like them, and received more than a few back in agreement.

And as if to reinforce my opinion that sometimes it’s important to write negative reviews about products, I read this today at Libertylondongirl about her new Toy Watch. Hint: it’s not good. Not good at all. And I loved it. Now I know to either stay away from Toy Watch completely, or at least be aware that I could encounter quality AND customer service issues.

I also appreciate hearing other people’s opinions on their experiences with online boutiques and designers. That’s how I learned to stay away from Chick Downtown (and why I don’t work with them) – I heard too many horror stories about bad customer service from them that I chose not to be associated.

I guess my point is that I appreciate reading about negative experiences with products and boutiques AS MUCH I appreciate the positive ones. They’re both helpful – but I think the negative one has more impact; I tend to remember it longer. I also think honesty and some negativity help keep a blogger real. What do you think?

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This article, What Makes for a Good Blog?, made me think again about…well…what makes a good blog. I touched briefly on what I think makes a good blog – the person who writes it – in another post, but it wasn’t until I read this article at 43 folders that I was reminded of what it REALLY is: obsession/passion for a subject:

Good blogs have a voice. Who wrote this? What is their name? What can I figure out about who they are that they have never overtly told me? What’s their personality like and what do they have to contribute – even when it’s “just” curation. What tics and foibles fascinate make me about this blog and the person who makes it? Most importantly: what obsesses this person?

also

Good blogs reflect focused obsessions. People start real blogs because they think about something a lot. Maybe even five things. But, their brain so overflows with curiosity about a family of topics that they can’t stop reading and writing about it. They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person’s obsessions take them?

It’s been repeated and repeated that a successful blogger is a passionate blogger – I certainly believe that’s true in my case, and in the cases of other bloggers I know who are “successful.” I am OBSESSED with online shopping, coupon codes, and eco-fashion, and I write about those things because I have to share! Of course, I tend to read blogs by people who are also passionate about shopping & fashion and/or usually share my aesthetic and love for independent design.

Great writing and good blog design can initially bring people to a new blog, but the passion & person behind it are what KEEP people coming back.

Why do you read the blogs you read? What do you think makes a good blog?

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Sometimes I hate that you can make money blogging. My posts from Green Grechen are being scraped and passed off as “original content” on another site, and now posts from this blog are being excerpted and inserted into ‘make money blogging’ blogs & SEO expert blogs, one of which had an ad on it for live sex and a chick jiggling her boobs LOL!

There are actually resources for scraping content from RSS feeds and using it to set up your own blog and make money (I say that loosely, I mean how much money are they really making) from google ads or “adult” ads. Seriously? What’s wrong with people? Lying and cheating is no way to make money, or do anything in life; NOTHING worth doing is that easy.

Honestly, it doesn’t hurt me much, although I was afraid that my scraped content would be penalized by Google, but from what I found, that’s not necessarily the case, especially after I added the RSS footer to my posts that states:

If you are NOT reading this in your RSS reader or e-mail it’s likely that this content has been STOLEN. This post was originally posted at and is the copyright of Green Grechen Eco-Friendly Fashion and Shopping Online.

(If you’re not allowing your full RSS feed to your readers, this will never happen to you – content can only be scraped and passed off as one’s own when scrapers have access to the full feed. BUT I NEVER click on partial feed in my reader – thus, I never visit blogs who don’t offer full feeds…so it’s not a great tradeoff IMO)

Maybe these people are making 6 figures doing this, I hope not, and I sincerely doubt it, but there’s a right and a wrong way to do things; scraping content and passing it off as your own is the WRONG way to make money online. And building sites to sell porn ads while excerpting SEO articles isn’t the best way either…

Do what you love – BLOG about what you love – and the money will follow. Eventually.

(read this article by Vered at MomGrind about her scraping experience and what she did about it)

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