by Tieka, Selective Potential
Hey everyone! I'm so sorry about the delay in posts. I'm in the midst of fashion week in NYC... and I go to work on some posts last night and my computer won't turn on! Thank goodness for the Apple genius this morning. I told him I wanted to hug and kiss him... and then when he didn't charge me a dime to replace my dead battery, I told him I loved him. Haha! Seriously... what's a blogger to do without a computer?! So thank you for bearing with me! Today I'll be covering what I learned from Lucky FABB. I'm in a Starbucks right now and am going to try and knock out at least two posts, but then I'll have to go and check back into my hotel at 3 pm, so posts will be spotty today... but you will receive all of the posts scheduled today before 11:59 PM EST... promise.
Lucky FABB was a whirlwind. It was in the gorgeous Apella center with bloggers I recognized at every corner. How exciting is that? The conference got started in the event center room. Our first panel of speakers was on Building your brand. I'm going to summarize what I took away from the conference as well as what I've learned from blogging for the past two years.
1. The biggest and most obvious thing that the panelists kept repeating was be yourself, be authentic, remain true to yourself. The best advice I heard was, "Write a single sentence explaining your blog. If it sounds like someone else, write it again." There is only one you and in order for your blog to be successful, you really do need to make your blog you and original.2. You cannot please everyone. You will receive anonymous comments, you will receive feedback from people saying they don't like your blog. You just need to remain true to yourself. If you're blogging about something that's not you or something you're not passionate about and receive negative feedback - then what do you really have? Nothing! All of this hard work put into something that's not original... and is receiving negative feedback. It's better to receive negative feedback on something you love... and can defend to the fullest.
3. The best thing I've learned about building my brand is that I need to stay who I was when I started. Sometimes it's easy to get a big head when you're working with big companies, or bigger bloggers, but you can't let that take over your content. I started blogging to document my personal style, my trips and adventures with my husband and the silly things we do. What am I blogging about today - two years later? The same thing. If you read my blog in the first few months, you'll see it's really similar to what I'm blogging about today. That's not to say you can't grow and shift with your blog and have it change direction - just make sure you are changing direction with your blog. Don't change your blog's direction to fit into a certain crowd, or try to please a certain brand. It won't be authentic and your readers will realize right away!4. Think about the things that make you you... and document them. When I close my eyes and think about my life... I think fashion, my husband, our trips and adventures, my friends - the obvious things. But think deeper - think of the little things. So I close my eyes and I imagine Lake Michigan, our beach town, sand, boardwalks, lighthouses, mint scooters, punk music, playing in our band. Document the little things! I never would have thought my readers would be interested in seeing my outfits against backdrops like historic lighthouses... but they love it! (or at least they say they do ;))
5. Incorporate your brand into your blog design! Try to take those little things we thought about and put them into your design. Think colors, typography, anything that will make you stand out. You want to take the brand you've created for yourself and throw it into every element of your blog. You want to carry it over to every platform you have - Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, etc. Take tips from Elizabeth's 'telling a story with your photos' to really showcase more of you in your posts.6. Most importantly... every single panelist kept repeating it... be yourself. Never lose sight of yourself and what makes you happy! If one day you are realizing you don't like blogging anymore, think about why? Why are you feeling uninspired? It's probably because you lost sight of why you started blogging in the first place. I'm constantly reading my old posts from the past and taking note of what I did back then! The reason I'm where I'm at right now is because I worked so hard back then! Don't lose sight of yourself... and if you do, take some time out and think about why you love blogging so much and why you started in the first place.
