All White – Professional Decisions

Ladies, I have a question for you? Do you treat your blog as a fun way to share your life or do you treat it like a business? As an interior designer, I make daily professional decisions on how to run a successful design firm, who I want to work with, who is my ideal client, and the level of quality work I demand from my contractors. It’s the same as a blogger.

Which Brand is Right for You

When I started my blog 2 years ago I had no idea the direction it would take but it now has legs and I am getting noticed by brands who want to do collaborations with me. I have made many decisions about who I want to work with and who I don’t. Not every brand is a perfect fit for me and I pass on the collaboration.

So when a brand reaches out to me and I know nothing about their product, I go to their website and see if this is of interest to women over 50ish. I look to see where the brand is located. Is it overseas or here in the United Staes. Sometimes a fashion company will contact me and ask me to purchase an item from them, then write a review on it. You may choose to do this, but I take a pass on it. Why should I spend money on a product to write about? I make many clothes purchases on my own, but I only purchase from certain brands that I enjoy wearing their clothes. This is free advertising for that brand, but if I enjoy the clothes I will wear their clothes and link the outfit for you to purchase if you enjoy it too.

I have people contacting me to drop their blog post onto my platform and I always say no, even if it’s a paid sponsorship.

Speaking of paid collaborations, I recently started to charge for blog posts and for my Instagram account. Funny, how telling a marketing person I charge for my time. It’s the same with interior design. People need to know I’m not free as an interior designer.

Learn how to Blog and Understand Social Media

I knew I wanted my blog to be run like a business because that is the only way I would do this because it does take time to develop and learn about blogging, how to write, SEO, how to market your blog, and pay attention to your analytics.

You have to know if this is something that you want to do as a blogger. Do you have the means to run your blog as a business and make money with it? Do you want to reach a larger group of women who will enjoy your blog posts? You have to decide if this is a good fit for you. Maybe you don’t want to do link-ups, post stories about other women who don’t blog, but have a good story to tell but use your blog for their message. This is all about running a successful blog.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, writing a blog and connecting with my followers, friends, and other over 50ish women on social media takes daily effort. I have taken the time to study about Instagram, SEO for blogging when to post, study my blog analytics to see what my readers really enjoy, and meeting deadlines for the brands who sponsor my posts. I have to treat this like a business and each day it takes 2 hours of my time.

Instagram has been a learning curve of its own. Every time I think I’ve got it, they change the algorithms.

Here is Instagram in a nutshell to gain followers:

1. Post constantly and at the same time every day (train your followers to look for you at this hour)
2. Write a long engaging caption if you don’t write a blog like me.
3. Tag yourself in the photo, the brand, and anything important in your photo. The limit is 15. As a designer, every brand I use for a room gets tagged. The brand sees me.
4. Engage with you Followers who leave comments (say thank you)
5. Go to their IG and make comments back (reciprocate)
6. Like as many people as you can, if you don’t have the time to comment (but not too many in one taker, Instagram will think you’re spam.)
7. Go to bigger accounts, like and leave comments on their feed. They will either see you or not. If they don’t, unfollow them. Don’t waste your time with people who don’t engage with you.

I have about 75 women I enjoy following but there are days they don’t pop up in my feed. I have taken the matter into my own hands and have written down the 75 most engaged followers and try to see them daily even if I’m not posting.

I can see where all the traffic comes from on my blog. Pinterest is number one and Instagram is second. Many people on Instagram only want our photos and could care less about our blog posts. Brands are the same way when I do collaborations. Most want me for my Instagram account and my Instagram story. They will pay me for just Instagram but sometimes I write a blog post for free as “going the extra mile” for a brand collaboration. Brands appreciate the effort.

Join Link Up Parties or Do Collaborations with other Like Minded Bloggers

As with my interior design business, I know what client will be a perfect fit for my company and who isn’t. I want people who respect me as a professional designer and have the right budget for their design project. I am busy and I pass on projects with clients who want me to take them shopping. I don’t have the time to be a personal shopper so this client isn’t an ideal client for me.

Link up parties is a great way of sharing your blog posts with fellow bloggers. I try to post my blog on about 6 link up parties a week but you have to follow the host rules. Some want you to follow them and all the other hosts for the link up party. Some just want you to share. Leave a nice comment on the blog post after you are done adding your post to the party. That’s why the host invited you in the first place.

Growing your blog means you want to have the traffic coming to your website. If you are adding your blog posts to another blogger’s website, they are getting all the traffic and their analytics go up. Make smart decisions about where you are posting your blog posts and you need to understand the pros and cons of driving traffic to another blogger’s site while you don’t benefit from it. I enjoy the links ups but I also know I may not get people reading my blog post on my website. If you need to control your content and photos, you may not be a good fit for group link up parties. Collaborations are meant to be fun for everyone and if you’re not willing to link to other bloggers, then don’t do group collaborations.

As my blog and my social media platforms have been growing, I look to partner with other bloggers who treat their blog as a business. I know many of you write for personal reasons, but I am a forward thinker and see a bigger picture of future works and collaborations that can reach a larger audience. I really believe we, as women over 50, have so much to offer each other.

If you’re going to do a collaboration with other bloggers, you all need to have the same common goal in mind. If you’re going to collaborate with other bloggers know if it’s a short-term or long-term commitment. It happened this week when one of the bloggers I had been hoping to work with didn’t want a long-term commitment for an opportunity to grow her blog and backed out. She just wanted a one and done collaboration which is absolutely fine. I completely supported her decision and made it very clear that if this new collaboration ( you will see in a month this collaboration) gets legs, she will be fine with her decision not to join any future collaborations. She knew her personal goals were not my business goals as a blogger.

Trolls and Fake News

As with interior design, I had one lady write a bad review about my company because I wouldn’t repair a table she had scratched after the project was over. I did not let this bad review go unnoticed and I responded with an honest and truthful answer. (Never back down from false words or trolls with your blog.)

If you get people (trolls) who leave ugly comments about you on your blog or social media platforms, you can either delete or respond.

The responsibility of writing a blog should be the truth, and you need to own your truth. I own my truths. For the first time as a blogger, I saw what fake news can be. I always thought the press was right about the information they leak or write about the President, then I  saw firsthand a blog story written about me, that was fake news. ( you didn’t know it was me or the blogger she was writing about.)  She wrote about mean girls who hurt her feelings and made personal attacks against her.  That isn’t at all what had happened. I was lucky there was the other blogger on the call because I know we weren’t who she said we were. We were discussing this particular collaboration that could be bigger than a one and done deal. We were very nice to each other. We were talking about future collaborations as a group of women but she wrote about having been personally attacked and ganged up on. We never ever made it a personal attack on her which was why it was so sad to read her blog. I know it was me in her blog post and I know what was discussed. I am not a mean person but someone who has a bigger vision for my blog and I wanted it to be hers too. We were just not on the same page.

The Outfit:

Do you know what wearing white symbolizes?

In color psychology white is the color of new beginnings, of wiping the slate clean, so to speak. It is the blank canvas waiting to be written upon. While white isn’t stimulating to the senses, it opens the way for the creation of anything the mind can conceive.

White contains an equal balance of all the colors of the spectrum, representing both the positive and negative aspects of all colors. Its basic feature is equality, implying fairness and impartiality, neutrality and independence.

 

I am wearing write to celebrate a new beginning in a future collaboration that I hope you will be excited and will join myself and the other blogger. We believe that women over 50 have more things to share and want to learn about other than what we’re wearing. This collaboration will be an extension of everything I write on this blog, but I want more voices to share their journey as a woman after 50.

Yes, I will share my fashion style as a 50ish woman, but I’m on a new adventure and I hope you join us!

Shop My Look

[sc name=”white chicos”]

 

Thank you for stopping by today!

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Hugs,