D.I.Y. Part II

O.K. This is part II of D.I.Y. fashion blogging. In part I, we looked at the reasons for writing a blog, what to focus on, and monetization. Part II is going to be about how to put a blog together. Now, we're not going to get into the nitty gritty details of programming a website. So, in this part we're going to assume you already have a platform to launch your blog on, and need to organize the content.
Probably the first choice to make is, given the content you want to share with the general public, what's going to be the overall look of your blog. It's an important first step, and I think a wise choice would be to give your blog an overall feel that harmonizes with the styles you're going to be writing about. If you're primarily going to be writing about shopping and what you can buy online or in stores, maybe some sort of store motif would be best. If you're writing about a particular style of fashion, let's say minimalist, give your blog a, say, minimalist look. You can also subdivide the blog into different pages and give each page a special feel to it depending upon what's that page about, and give the whole blog a look that captures your blogging overall. That would be very cool. One problem: sometimes if the theme harmonizes too much it can get too cute or cloying; like the shopping/store blog equals store motif; maybe that's a bad equation. I've seen quite a few minimalist blogs and all of them have the minimalist theme, so apparently, that's the way to go with those blogs.
Alrighty. Now let's talk a wee bit about writing your blog. At some point you may or may not want to write something. If you don't have photos, and don't have anything written, what else is there? Not much, just a blog theme. On the other hand you may want mostly photos, with little or no explanation. Many minimalist blogs are like that. You'll notice, here at Naomi's Fashionable World, some of these posts can get down right verbose. If  that's going to be your choice too, here's some hints about what I'm doing and how it may help. Basically, for Naomi's Fashionable World, I've adopted a style of writing that could be typified as conversational. You'll note, I often use the second person pronoun, like at the beginning of this sentence. The reason for that, is that it helps draw you, the blog readers, into the blog, and hopefully helps start a conversation. It helps to engage the blog audience, plus, it doesn't seem as formal or business like. Since this blog is a personal blog, and I am neither selling, nor promoting, anything (usually), it's O.K. I think, to try and get one-on-one with my audience. You might be thinking: "Hey! Naomi! Is that going to attract a lot of trolling too?" It might, but, so far, here at Naomi's Fashionable World, not many trolls, nor, has trying to engage the audience brought out a stupendous number of comments. It might have backfired, in the sense that it has intimidated people. But you know, people don't have to leave a comment to feel engaged, and that's what I'm trying to achieve here.
Another thing you'll note, is that I sometimes throw a 10 buck word in there now and again, which might seem out of whack with some of the more down homey phrases, like the one I just wrote. It's still cool, I think, just trying to show off my college smarts.
You've probably observed as well, that sometimes my grammar seems off the mark, or maybe not what 'The Chicago Book of Style' is hawking. That's all part of the conversational style: we don't always speak grammatically, yet, we still understand each other! Besides, who made you guys king, Chicago Book of Style? Some of the best writers that have ever lived wrote beautiful, ungrammatical, sentences, that make perfect sense. The other reason for my style of writing, is that I try to break the sentences into bite sized chunks. The reason: there are many people in the world, who don't speak English! I hope the shortened sentence fragments, will help with computer translation. Heck, I can't translate this stuff into every language! One downside: sometimes American colloquialisms can be untranslatable.
On the flip side, I wouldn't write a paper for one of my college courses in this style of writing.
So, maybe you're scratching your head, thinking, "what's this got to do with me?" Well, plenty. That's because many, many popular magazines have articles written in a similar fashion. A great author said once: "great writing comes from great ideas." No matter what style of writing you choose, let your enthusiasm guide your writing, and you'll never miss the mark. Hopefully. If it begins to look like, well, maybe writing isn't your cup of tea, just keep things short and sweet.
Next: photos. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and that saying is never so true as it is in fashion. Fashion is, literally, all about how people look. And what's the best way to describe that, well, with a photo of course! You might not be doing the modeling yourself, or have a model for the styles you're writing about, so, in that case you'll need some one else's photos. Like, for example, photos like these:

It's probably best to link to the original source to avoid copyright issues. The down side to that, is that many, if not most, of those links are impermanent. Also, you might not be able to link to them at all. Wherever you get your photos, pick ones that are unique, and, at the same time engaging.
I had a Summer internship at an ad agency, that gave me huge insights into both fashion, and web design. Yep. Ad agencies do a surprising amount of web design. Besides that, they are also responsible for many  shoots. Now, I'm not talking about just the big full page, glossy, mag ads, ad agencies do many fashion mag features themselves. Usually the procedure works as follows: someone, a magazine, or an apparel company, approaches an agency on working on some promotional, or other kind, project for them. They've sketched the outline of what they want, maybe they even have the models picked out. The ad agency forms a project group: an art director, a copy writer, a graphic artist, and maybe a photographer, and a couple interns, like myself, for instance. They throw around a few ideas, bounce them off the client, the client gives one of the ideas the go ahead. Now, look at these photos:

They've all got something in common: did I hear photoshop? If I did you'd be correct. The one at the bottom is pretty obvious. The one at the top: not so much. The thing is, practically everything you see on the web these days has, in some way been photoshoped. In the old days, it was called "retouching" or "airbrushing". Why am I bringing this up? Well, there's something to be learned here from ad agencies, and how they make these pictures that are so stunning. The reasons for photoshopping are in some cases practical, and, in others, well, practical: in the last photo; the modeling agency wouldn't want their models exposed to a car burning down, and, getting the fire to look just right is tricky.
The most important reasons: cost and control of environment. You've probably seen movies with models being shot "on location" or outdoors. Well, in the real world, it ain't gonna happen, or at least, not very often. In the top photo, the model probably had a runway show in, say, Italy, or France, then after that gig was over, it's time to go to a photographer's studio for a mag photo shoot. So, why didn't that model just fly out to Detroit, wait for the lighting to be just right, maybe a couple days,  and do a gazillion takes to get the background kids just right? Well, there's the reason. In a photography studio, there is so much more control over lighting, and other conditions. Also, change some clothes, click, click, and the photo session is over.
So, the ad agency's role in all of this is, once they've gotten the go ahead, is to line up the models, a convenient, professional, photo studio to photograph them in, then, once they've gotten all of this material back, that's when the fun begins. Ad agencies have huge photo libraries, and when I mean huge, I'm not talking in the thousands, I'm talking in the millions of photos. Out of that library, the art director picks a suitable background. Sometimes, the background is picked first, and sent to the photographic studio so they can shoot the model right. For the one at the top, a Detroit street shot was picked, since the story was all about modeling in Detroit. Then the graphic artist on the team gives the lowdown on what can be done to merge these photos. She/he doesn't assemble the photos her/him self, she/he is just on the team to determine what can and can't be done. Next, a graphic artist, very often freelance, is hired, or enlisted, to assemble the shot. Usually, the actual program Photoshop, is not used. Proprietary software, which is extremely expensive, and requires gigundo computer power, is used. Basically, most ad agencies have more computer power than most colleges. If the graphic artist is freelance, she/he usually has to log onto the company's computer to use the program, because it's way to expensive for the average Josephine or Joe to afford.
Once the graphic artist has finished tweaking the different photos together, it results in something called a mechanical. In the old days, the graphic artist had to literally glue all of the different photos together: each one was painstakingly cut out and mounted on a firm, dense, cardboard board. At this stage, computer or not, what the graphic artist has got, is called a mechanical. That's sent to the art director. If the art director likes what she/he sees, she/he instructs the graphic artist to make a layout, the finished product. If not, more mechanicals are made until they get it right. Before the computer, the layout would be photoed, the photo of it would be what goes in the ad or the mag. Nowadays, the digital file is the finished product. Oops, forgot one step: the copywriter's copy needs to be added: old days: each letter was cut out and glued to the cardboard, like those ransom notes or bomb threats you see in movies. Nowadays: they're added on the ole computer.
Other effects are added by the graphic artist. Remember in the old days when, in some films, everything looked blue:

Of course, Laurence Fishburne didn't dye his hair blue. Well, a similar effect was added to the Alexander McQueen photo, second from the top, in the first set of these photos.
Here's another example of photoshoping:

Pretty darn obvious.
So, why this long digression into the pro world? I'm just pointing out what's going on, and, that what we see in mags and on the web is very rarely raw, unadultered, photography. It's important to remember when you start your own fashion blog, because, if you do your own modeling or photo shoots, your end product might not compare exactly with the big shots.
Many fashion bloggers take this route:

It's very popular to use washed out, desaturated, unfocused images. In fact, I submitted some photos to a D.I.Y. fashion website who recommended, basically: "no bright colors, sharp images", pretty much requirements for photos like the ones directly above. Naturally, I found I was getting many complaints. On the website, people could flag photos for all kinds of things, and I was getting flagged pretty much non stop. Thing was, people doing the flagging were doing the same sort of stuff they were flagging about. So, long story short, decided to blow that clam bake.
If you want to follow the rest of the herd, the photo like the one above is the way to go.
Now, since you almost certainly don't have the resources that an ad agency or some similar company has, what can you do? Well, here's what I did:

In the the first photo, I went to a party, some one took some pics, and some of them looked pretty good. So, I wrote a post about what I was wearing. Second photo, same deal, except I went to a festival. I found this pose works pretty well for me, and I've used it a few times more. Both photos were, well, worked on: added an overlay frame, and there were some color adjustments. Personally, I use an online, internet phot processing program, though not nearly as elaborate as the ones I wrote about earlier. Just because a photo is desaturated and a little fuzzy doesn't make it any less photoshoped: many adjustments can be made right in the camera or phone.  Speaking of which, it's probably a good idea to invest in a good digital camera, cell phone photos are probably going to look terrible once they're expanded.
Here's another example:

Went on two, different, dates to see a movie, pretty much the same pose, and...you know, I don't think I've written a post about the adventure in the last photo, however, look for it in the future. Hey! You're getting  sneak peek there.
Another example:

Another trip to the movie theater, this time in connection with a set I did for Polyvore, and an  adorable, funny, frame around the photo. Haven't been doing the frame thing too much lately, might get back into it. Here's another example:

This time, Spartan Stadium. And, an outfit I created on Polyvore. I like to be more than a clothes horse in my shots, and show a wee bit of personality. I'm not recommending it, just saying what's going on, capiche?
Another example:

These are from a concert at Detroit's Fillmore; do regret not showing more background, because, it is fascinating, and not just in the fashion fascinator sense.
Lastly, a photo from the dawn of the early days of Naomi's Fashionable World:

Same idea as the pro Detroit fashion shoots: this one was on location, however, in some of Detroit's ruins, an abandoned school. The reason: so many photos about these ruins, and so much focus on them, I thought I'd get my two cents in there too.
So, there's some ideas, not necessarily, specifically, these ones, just a general idea of going about it.
My advice? Pick out outfits you're enthusiastic about, and find something interesting to do in them, and get some cool shots of yourself ,or your model, doing it.
Guess that's about it for now, maybe a part III will be coming up if I think of more tips.
Anyways, happy blogging!
Catchya later.
Ciao.

Do it Yourself

Today's post is all about DIY; specifically: doing a fashion blog yourself. I wouldn't say I have the creds to be called an expert on blogging, however, I have quite a bit of blogging and other, relevant, experience under my belt, and I'm sure you'll find what I've got to say useful.
First up: you've got to ask yourself: is this what I want to do, and why do I want to do it? The answer to that question is similar to some old advice about speaking in public: just pretend everybody in the audience is naked. The exception in this case, is that you'll probably have to imagine, yourself, naked - literally. Paradoxically, there's quite a bit of nudity in fashion, though it may not need be that way. More about that in just a wee bit. 
Now, you've decided you want to do a fashion blog, what's it going to be about? Well, there are so many topics to choose from, and here at Naomi's Fashionable World, we, err rather I, don't focus on a singular type of fashion. Which, frankly, might be a case of over extension. Here are some of the things I've posted about:
Beauty

I did a post about various online virtual makeup programs.
Purses and Bags

Purses and bags, are, of course, some of the most popular subjects for fashion blog posts. Heck, some blogs are about just purses and bags!
Boots

I bought some new boots, got a pair for Chanukah, and did posts about them. Along with shoes, boots must be giving purses and bags a run for their money in terms of number of blog posts.
What I got for Chanukah and Christmas (sounds conflicting, it's a long story)

Basically, just wrote about, and added photos, of the fashion oriented gifts I received from friends and family, and activities surrounding said holidays.
Car Girls

A hardly recognized sub species of fashion, that, what a coincidence! I had a job doing:

One common thread running through my blog is my own personal taste and what I can afford. Long ago, well, a couple years, I learned that what I desired might not fit into my purse, so I had to make compromises. One thing I did not compromise on, is, that I write about what interests me, not about what's currently hot. It's not always the best plan for success, if success is measured in terms of followers, reblogs, comments, those sorts of things.
So. I bet by now you've got some ideas for what your blog is going to be about, and, since you've always wanted your own blog, you had some ideas from the get go. The next step is: how do I get my words out, hmm, that sounds funny, how do you get what you've got to say, to other people. That's the whole point of blogging, am I not correct? To share your thoughts with others? Maybe you've got a couple thousand followers on some social media platform and you figure, well, I'll just link up my new blog with that platform(s) and shebang! Instant success. Yes, that would be nice, and I'm sure your followers will want to hear what you've got to say. One thing: will you be adding something new? If things start getting repetitive (read: stale) things might turn around and you could actually lose followers. Maybe you figure, well, I'll bring my already established followers over, one follower leads to another, and the whole thing will just snowball. That could work. However, the real key to building a large audience is a continual stream of new visitors every day. The way to get that is, search engines. People are more likely to hit up the blogs on the top of a search engine list, than those at the bottom. Getting to the top of that list, much less even on it, doesn't completely involve key words, phrases or any of that jazz, it's because of advertising. Just open a search engine, any search engine, and search for something, anything. What you're going to find at the top of the list has, 9 out of 10 times, an advertisement for itself right next to it! For the other 1 out of 10 times, it's just sheer dumb luck: whoever is curating the list has decided that's the way it's going to be, not much you can do about that.
So, we've got the traditional methods of building an audience down pat, now, here's a new wrinkle: a sub net. That's the audience building model I'm using. I bet you're wondering: what the heck is a sub net? Well, it's pretty much a miniature internet, or an internet, inside, the internet. I've already written about followers and linking them to a new blog, and most social media websites have means to link themselves to another website. A sub net is a wee bit like that. What makes a sub net a sub net is the linking itself: most social media platforms link only one way, and sort of branch out. So, what happens is some of your stuff gets isolated from the rest of the stuff. In a sub net, more links, not necessarily kosher to the website, and, at the same time not nefarious, are added to your contributions, plus, you can link up with as many other bloggers as you like, or, there needn't be any links at all! The no links model is what I, personally, am following. You may have noticed, the large number of Polyvore posts I have here. Well, there's no Polyvore visitor usable link from there to here. Instead, I'm hoping that what I've got on Polyvore will pique someone's interest and they'll try and look me up. The benefits from that are two fold: 1) I'm being searched for on a search engine, so I've become a search listing (sounds a little dystopian, but that's the way it is) 2) If they find where else I'm active, maybe they'll visit those too, Kaching! The key word to all of this is, well, my name: I gave out a hint on how to find me, and I've kept that identifier consistent throughout my blogs. Conversely, if they like my Polyvore stuff here, maybe some one will want to check me out on Polyvore. Besides here and Polyvore, I am on many other websites as well. "Which ones Naomi?" you ask? Well, psst, psst, kaching, you'll just have to look for them.
So. "How's this subnet business been working out for you?" That's your question, right? Pretty well, I've got to say, I think a darn sight better than the usual suspects. One prob, and it's a biggie, my Polyvore stuff is swamping my other Blogger stuff! So, I've got the ole duplicate problem going on here, except, as a fashionista, I'm not going to flex on it.
Speaking of content problems, now that we've solved, or at least gotten a grasp on, building an audience, what's your environment going to be like when they get to their destination? First off, if you want to keep people coming back, you don't want to try to alienate anyone. Turning folks off isn't a good way to make them feel comfortable enough to want to keep viewing your blog. On the diametrical side of the coin, you want what you've got, to be provocative enough to be of interest. It's not that foreign from going out on a date: stimulating yet safe. In writing this I noticed I may have made a faux pas or two that's probably not building my audience, we'll get to how to write your blog in just a wee bit.
Blog content can go hand in hand with blog popularity: what you pick your blog to be about, and what you have in your posts can have an impact on your audience share. You might be thinking, "Well, I guess that means, since I'd like a humungous, audience, I'll pick something super popular, like purses and bags, or shoes." Sure, popular yes, and so many blogs and posts about, say, the latest Hermes Birkin bag, except, wait a minute! What's going to make, your, blog or post, stick out from the mass population? That's a toughie. One way around it, is, do you have an interest in something that hasn't been covered, that you can add a new perspective on? One way round the whole conundrum is to seek out a niche category that you're interested in to write about, like the example I gave, where I wrote about car girls. Now, I bet you're about to say,
"Hey! Naomi! There are lots of posts, even blogs, about hot girls showing off cars or bikes." Well, yes, but not many talk about the fashion of being a car girl, or, the official, business title, promo girl. Usually most posts and blogs about car girls, are guys drooling over pictures of, so called, hot girls, not scrutinizing, in a practical sense at least, what they're wearing. So. With my car girls posts, I've tapped a popular search listing, and, found a niche in that listing.
The next big decision is deciding if you want to go for monetizing your blog. You can make that decision at any time, but, I think you're best off planning to do or not do it from the start. You're going to see why that is in just a sec. Alrighty. So. You've decided to make money off blogging, how can you do  that? Well, there are three primary ways. The first, is that your blog is connected to an online store, in that case, sales from the store support the blog. The second way, is a pay to view site. Pay to view sites are primarily entertainment sites, visitors to the site pay a fee or a subscription to view the contents of the site. The third way, is advertising: companies advertise directly on your blog and you are paid by the companies, or by visitors linking to company website from your blog. Now, let's talk about the last two methods and the practicalities of doing them. For pay to view to work, you've got to have material on your blog that people are going to want to pay to look at, obviously. That can be tricky. Most of these types of sites try to lure visitors into their sites by giving a sample of what they've got - like a movie trailer - and hoping that'll be enough to get people to want to pay the ticket to ride. The key component of these sites, is, that they've got to have a way to regulate traffic navigating the site, so there won't be any freeloaders. Thus, these types of sites often require a 24/7/365 webmaster, top notch security, and more elaborate programming. I believe there are a few companies that offer these kind of services, and they are more pricey than for the typical blogging site. So, if this is the route you want to take, be prepared to make a significant financial investment in your project. Or. Just ask people for donations, ask for donations for requests, or some other economic exchange. If you're blogging here on Google blogger, there's a way to regulate visitor activity so that if they want to see your pay to view stuff, there's a way to get them to pay: use a circle. People who pay to see your pay for stuff, are admitted to a circle containing said stuff, after paying. Many such circles can be created. I'm not sure how Google feels about pay to join circles, however, and it's probably not the original intention of circles. Anyway, there's a couple of ideers for you.
The third blog monetization method, advertising, is the most common. Most free bogger sites - like Blogger, Wordsmith, Tumblr, and...well, not many left - anyway, most free blogger sites have some way you can introduce advertising to your site, and, share in the revenues. Google's blogger seems to have the most straightforward method. As a matter of fact, some blogs on sites other than Blogger have Google originated advertisements. Not sure how that works, but for Blogger, getting a share of Google advertisements on Blogger depends on the number of followers you've got, visits per month, stuff like that.
Other forms of advertisements come from companies like Shein, Yesstyle, Romwe, and online clothing stores like them. Getting those ads can be tricky: first up: you'll need to have your own URL and paid for website; secondly: you get paid for ever time someone clicks an ad on your blog to link to the advertisers website; thirdly: they're going to try to control the content on your blog. You know, I've seen these companies advertising on Blogger blogs, so, I don't know if they were Google ads, or they're advertisers' badge-and-click ads that they made an exception for.
Finally, here's something about blog monetization to think about: many, many blogs with ads are actually ads themselves: they're owned by some company, and the person doing the blogging is a company employee! "Yeah, but aren't those ads sometimes for competing companies?" A good question, and my rejoinder: surely you've seen, say, Fox advertising on CBS, or NBC on ABC? Some companies feel more comfortable advertising on a competing companies website, than advertising on an individual's blog. Basically, blogs are like TV, they're a form of entertainment and communication and it's different from Burger King putting up an ad in a McDonald's.
So. You're off to  great start here, and have got the basics down pat. I think I'll call this post a wrap, and invite you back for part two: the nitty gritty of putting that blog together. "Why break it up into two parts, Naomi?" Well, can't you see? I'll get you to view my blog twice, so there!
Catchy later.
Ciao.