Hello! First of all, I want to say thank you for your kind feedback on my blog tips #1. It was weirdly one of my most popular posts this month and you all said you wanted it to be a series, so here you go. As before, I am aiming this at new bloggers or those who need a refresher of some basic little tips that may help!
Tip One: An expensive camera does not a good blogger make | Shelling out several hundred pounds on a huge DSLR and an army of lenses doesn’t automatically make your blog like super populaaaar overnight. Sure, nice photos are always a bonus on a blog, but it doesn’t mean an expensive camera took them. It’s taken me over a year to even figure out the settings of my camera (a Sony Cybershot RX100) and I’ve barely even scratched the surface. I have no idea what half of it means and a lot is still on auto, so even I (as someone who has been blogging for a little while) wouldn’t bother getting a DSLR just yet as it would totally be wasted on me.
With technology being so advanced these days (have you heard me? like a proper nana) even camera phones can take great snaps. The focus on the likes of an iPhone is really quite good and you can get really good pictures from it if you’re not wanting to do anything fancy! Or you could always get a bargain point and click from the likes of Argos if you’re just starting out. Some of them have great specs and would be more than ample for taking pictures of products or snapping your outfit.
So basically my point is you don’t need a Canon or a Nikon to get you going in blog world. Be realistic and get what you can afford and what suits you. Get what you need not what you think you should have because the ‘big’ bloggers do.
Tip Two: Be unique | Of course, as everyone is an individual and has something different to bring to the table, you’ll automatically be a bit unique. But, in terms of blogging, it’s nice to feature some posts that maybe not everyone has done before. Sure, if you’re a beauty blogger, it’s good to cover the favourites, routines and so forth but try to make the posts a bit fresh and new.
Now, I’m not saying my posts are anything spectacularly different from everyone else but, as I’m aiming this at new bloggers, to ‘make it’ in blog world you need to separate yourself from the crowd. Blogging is so ridiculously over-saturated and competitive that these days creating more unique content seems to be the way forward. This is advice I’m taking on myself at the moment and am trying to think of new posts when I’m jotting ideas down at work (see blog tips #1 for more on that).
This isn’t an easy thing to do, but it’s well worth trying to think outside of the box and offer readers something new to read so they don’t get bored of the same old posts.
Tip Three: Do the social media thing | As soon as you decide on a blog name, go on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube (hell, Google+ too even though it’s the devil) and sign up under your newly decided handle. A more unique name (hint to the above) means you’ll be more likely to secure social media names that are all the same, but if you’ve picked something else then you can always add underscores and dashes but nothing too complicated. Try to make it uniform as can be across the board so people can find you easily! Even if you don’t use them all straight away, you know you’ve got them reserved just incase.
Twitter is a good start and really does help bloggers promote their posts and get involved with the community. If you’ve taken my advice in my blog tips #1 post, you’ll be scheduling away which is great but there’s lots of little things to add to get yourself out there. Using hashtags such as #fbloggers (fashion bloggers), #bbloggers (beauty bloggers) and #lbloggers (lifestyle bloggers), depending on your blog category, at the end of your tweets will help get you noticed by other bloggers and really place you in the center of any blogging conversation.
Participating in blogger chats (for the above categories and the #fblchat too) is a great way to promote yourself too as well as discover some amazing new blogs. There’s always the opportunity to share blog links at the end of the chat for other bloggers to check out, so it’s a great way to get involved even if you don’t say too much at first.
Social media is so, so important these days so making the effort to get the hang of it will make a world of difference! Plus, as bloggers are such a friendly bunch, you can always ask for advice!
So that’s part two of my blog tips. If you want any specific area of blogging covered for part three, then please let me know in the comments!
helen x | twitter | instagram | bloglovin
