Networking Sites for Fashion Bloggers

All bloggers know the importance of social networking sites. They bring in new readers and help other bloggers find like minded people with similar aesthetics and style. They are essential for finding your blogging community or niche. I'm here today to share a few of my favorite networking sites for personal style or fashion bloggers.

Pinterest

Pinterest is already one of most well known and used networking sites out there, and that makes it an ideal place for fashion bloggers to share their outfit photos. A lot of my favorite bloggers have boards dedicated to their blogs or personal style photos. I post my own outfit photos to my regular style boards because they get the most traffic and therefore are more likely to help gain traffic to my blog.

Instagram

Most people already have Instagram accounts so this is another great place to showcase your personal style blog. Try creating a separate account dedicated to you outfit photos and share your outfit photos  often. Use hashtags like #outfit, #ootd, #whatiwore or more specific hashtags to gain even more traffic to your account.

Lookbook

Lookbook is a international website dedicated to personal style and fashion making it the perfect place to showcase your style blog. I've found so many of my favorite blogs through Lookbook so I know firsthand that it is a incredibly useful tool to gaining new traffic to your blog. They're are so many different styles on showcase here so even if you aren't a blogger it's a great place to visit for outfit inspiration.

Chictopia

Chictopia is similar to Lookbook in that it is solely dedicated to showcasing personal style. It's a great website for finding and connecting with your favorite fashion bloggers as well as discovering new blogs. They also have a rewards system that gives you the opportunity to get free items.

Facebook 

Since pretty much everyone has a Facebook page, FB is a great place to introduce non-blog people to your blog. Create a page for your blog and invite friends and family that otherwise might not visit your space to see what your blog is all about.

Modcloth Style Gallery

This style gallery is one of my favorite places to share my outfit pictures. The style represented there is incredibly diverse and so positive. This is a great place to start if you're debating starting a blog or just want to share the occasional outfit photo.

FashionFit

I was invited to join fashion fit recently and was drawn to it because it's such a fresh approach to fashion networking sites. This site helps you find bloggers (or celebrities) with similar body types to yours and the clothes and sizes that look best on them, which is super helpful if you're an online shopper! Be sure to sign up when it goes live in May.

All of these websites are great ways to get connected and showcase your blog, and hopefully even gain some new followers along the way. Joining any of these is a smart move because sharing your content is key in building your blog's audience. If you're already on these sites leave your link in a comment so I can find you!
-Reagan

Spring Awakening

Since I received no feedback on my previous spring break post I've devised a plan myself to try to get some resolve from the 30 x 30 remix dilemma. I've decided that rather than quitting my 30 x 30 remix challenge or continuing on like it has been , that I will post a few 30 x 30 remix outfits a month to finish out the challenge and begin posting regular weekly outfit photos once more. I think this format with help me feel more motivated to continue taking outfit photos without having to feel like I didn't accomplish a goal I set for myself. I feel good about doing this and it actually has me excited to blog again :) 

So for the remainder of this month I'll probably be playing a little bit of catch-up. I usually take outfit photos and schedule posts well in advance, and I have nothing prepared at this point in time. I feel okay about this whole thing though & think this was definitely the break I needed. I think I had put so much pressure on myself to finish this challenge and have content scheduled and ready every other day, and while I think that works for some people, all that self-imposed pressure had a negative effect on me. I feel reinspired to blog this spring and have so many ideas I can't wait to share with you all. 

So a big thanks for bearing with me while I figured things out & for sticking with me through my 30 x 30 crisis ;) 

-Reagan

Spring Break

I've mentioned before that this whole 30 x 30 challenge has me completely unmotivated to blog. I really thought that by choosing 30 items I would gain a better understanding of how to mix and match my clothing, and even twelve outfits in I have, but I've also realized that I crave more variety than thirty items can offer. I've felt restricted and it's left me completely uninspired. I'm not saying I'm quitting this challenge but I'm seriously thinking about it. So I'm asking you, my readers, to weigh in. Should I see this thing through and complete the thirty by thirty challenge or should I throw in the towel and put some life back into this space? For now I'm taking a little break from blogging until I figure this out, any comments on the matter would be really appreciated!

-Reagan

Tips For Simplifying Your Blog

I've never really done a post of this nature before, but I'm hoping to write more on HN and hopefully through that process we can all get to know each other better. To kick off my first word heavy post I'm going to talk about a few of my tips for simplifying your blog. Fair warning that I have a tendency to get a little rambly when I write to this extent. Anyway, here we go!

In recent months I've done my best to make blogging on HN simpler. If you've been following for a while you may have noticed some of the changes I made, and although they were small, the ultimate outcome was a blog that was much easier to write and also one that was simpler to navigate. I made changes to the design of the blog, the pages on the blog, the navigation links, and also with how I plan/schedule blog posts. A lot of the changes I made on HN are easy and can be implemented on your own blog to make your life easier too ;)
(Even if you have a custom layout a lot of these tips can still be implemented!)

1. Simplify Your Blog Design and Layout

When it came to the design and layout of HN it used to be I was always changing it because I was never happy with the look and always comparing it to my favorite blogs. Nothing good ever comes out of comparing yourself to others, and this is perhaps why I finally decided to just simplify the design and layout. I opted for a monochromatic color scheme of white, gray, and black. I love neutrals anyway, and a simple look won't distract readers from the actual content on the blog.

I also decided to keep the fonts used on HN to a minimum. I chose arial because again, it's simple and won't distract from the content, and it's also easily accessible on every platform or software. On any blog it's important that the design of your blog doesn't compete your content because that's a bit counterproductive. Go with you gut, pick a layout that makes sense for you, and keep your color scheme simple.

2. Eliminate Unnecessary Work

On my different pages I was making more work for myself than what was necessary. It used to be I made buttons for all my outfits, projects, recipes, and make-up posts because I didn't want my older posts getting buried under more recent posts. I really liked the look of all the thumbnails but the problem was that I had to make them all individually (usually as I was preparing other photos for the post), and because I made the thumbnails all separately the text was sometimes different sizes and different widths and this resulted in a cluttered look. An additional problem with the thumbnails is that they were all individual pictures that made loading each page another problem altogether especially if you were trying to view HN on your phone. In the end I decided that having thumbnails was just more trouble than they were worth. Now each page pulls up a feed instead and while it's more difficult to navigate to older posts this way, they're still easily accessible through my archives section, and I have much less work in maintaining my pages and preparing for posts. Find a system that works for you, for me it was labeling each post I wanted on a certain page with a tag and assigning that tag to the page, easy peasy.

3. You Don't Have to Use Social Networking Icons

Another change I made to HN recently was eliminating my navigation and social networking icons. I now just use good ole' links. Why? I am not skilled enough to make social networking icons on my own, and I'm not comfortable with using someone else's property on my blog. My links are easy to read and hard to miss when you visit my blog, and that's what was important to me. Maybe it doesn't look as pretty to some, but I don't mind it, and again I don't have to worry about borrowing someone else's images. If you do want to use social networking icons on your blog be sure that they are easy to find, and clearly display with social networking site they correlate to (If you're like me and don't want to use someone's button's without their permission you can purchase some here). I like to put my links directly under my welcome picture and caption since chances are people are looking there initially anyway.

4. Schedule and Plan Your Blog Posts

An additional thing I've been working on is both planning and scheduling blog posts in advance. I like to do this the old fashion way with pen and paper.  I jot down all my ideas regarding HN from outfit ideas to recipes in a designated notebook. I try to plan things out a month at a time. My goal is to post at least twelve to fifteen posts every month. There are a couple features that I post monthly like wishlists and five things, and then there's outfit posts that I share several times a month. Wishlists and Remixes can be scheduled well ahead of time, and if I'm far enough ahead in my plans so can 5 Things. Lately I've been doing my best to take at least two outfit photo sessions at once so I can more easily schedule those as well (this also helps me not have to worry about fixing my hair and make-up every single day). Being organized this way makes me feel more productive and also takes the pressure of having to come up with something to post every other day. I'm more likely to meet my 12-15 post goal I set for myself, and it makes me feel like the content stays more consistent. Planning and scheduling ahead of time also gives me more time to think about what I'm writing or what I have to say. This is a learning process but I definitely feel like the content on HN has improved since I started planning and scheduling. 

Since I began simplifying and scheduling posts more regularly I have seen a lot of things improve on HN, (although I can't promise this doesn't also correlate to me being more active on social platforms) I experienced a small increase in readers, I gained followers on my social networking sites, and I experienced my first sponsorship with Chadwicks and Metrostyle. Blogging is definitely a learning process and if you have a blog yourself it's important to understand that like most things, there is no one right way to do something. Blogging is a growing field and you'll find advice about it all over the place. Try a few things and find what works for you!

I'm hoping to discuss a little bit more about blogging in the future so if you have any questions or points to add I'd love to hear what you have to say.
-Reagan

The Liebster Award

Thank you to Heather over at Rags and Roses for nominating Hello November for a Liebster Award. The Liebster Award is a way to recognize new bloggers as well as gain new readers.
Being nominated for the Liebster Award is also a great way for to find some like minded bloggers.

 The Liebster Award is a way to encourage readership and followers for new bloggers. It gets passed around and comes with it a small set of guidelines:

• Thank the amazing blogger that nominated you
• Answer the 11 questions the nominator provided
• Nominate 11 other bloggers who have less than 200 followers
• Post 11 different questions for your nominees to answer 
• Contact your nominees to let them know that you've nominated them

 1. What are the last five songs you've listened to? 

"Breakdown" - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

"Soul Meets Body" - Deathcab For Cutie

"California Dreamin" - The Mamas and The Papas

"Bed"- Brand New

"Standard Break From Life" -Alkaline Trio

2. Do you have any hidden talents?

I can't think of any.

3. What is your favorite book?

a few favorites are:
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
Naked by David Sedaris
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Girl, Interrupted By Susanna Kaysen
The Perks of Being a Wallflower By Stephen Chbosky
& The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling

4. If you could pick any era to live in, which one would it be?
I'm not sure I could  choose an era. I would have loved to lived during the 1960's and 1970's though. I'm fascinated by the clothing and home decor from those decades.

5. Who are a few of your icons?

Andy Warhol, Paul McCartney, Audrey Hepburn, Tina Fey, & Wes Anderson.

6. Name three of your must-have wardrobe staples.

 sneakers like vans or converse, skinny denim jeans, & my wedding ring.

7. Where do you see yourself in five years?

 Newly 30, possibly with kids, in my seventh year of marriage. Hopefully still blogging about it all!

8. What does blogging mean to you? (e.i. why did you start/what do you get out of it/etc)

I started blogging after transitioning from Livejournal. I wanted to be able to share projects and outfits like some other bloggers I followed and drew inspiration from. It has always been a space for me to express my creative side. Today It serves almost as an interactive journal where I can meet other people :) I get to document my life, hobbies, food, pets, (pretty much everything), and it's fun to be able to look back at that a couple of months down the road. I like being able to indulge my creative side here first and foremost.

9. If you could have a re-do at anything, what would it be?

I'm an impulse buyer so there's a few purchases I wish I could redo for sure.

10. If you could only eat one meal forever, what would it be?

I would probably have to say tortilla soup with avocado and sour cream. I don't think I could ever get tired of it.

11. Where do you draw inspiration from in your daily life?

My husband, nature, & other creatives. 

And now, here are my nominations for the Liebster Award:

Cloudy Chase 
s a l t w o r t 

& I'm only nominating these two because I'm not familiar with any other blogs that are also just starting out, but these two girls are both so so talented and deserve a shout out and some recognition. (I also wanted to make sure that I was familiar with the blogs I nominated, and that I actually follow them myself. So sorry it is only two, but they're two super amazing ladies!)

Here are my questions for Melissa and Hannah.

1. What is your preferred morning beverage?
2. Where did you go on your favorite trip or vacation?
3. What was your best subject in school?
4. Which blogs or bloggers inspired you to start your own blog?
5. Who are some of your style icons?
6. Which is your favorite holiday, and why?
7. Which decade inspires your own personal taste the most?
8. Are you a morning person or a night person?
9. Name some of your top pet peeves.
10. What is your all time favorite video game?
11. What is your five favorite movies?

I wanted to extend another huge thank you to Heather for nominating me and Hello November for the Liebster Award. Thank you for this recognition!
-Reagan

Becoming A Personal Style Blog

 
So you may have seem this one coming because I have hinted at it and also made a few changes reflecting this shift but I've decided to take the plunge - that is to change HelloNovember from a personal/craft blog to a Personal Style/lifestyle blog. I've wanted to do regular outfit posts since I began this blog back in 2010 but I always found myself making excuses, but I really did want to.

I would do one here or there but then not really like what I posted and discourage myself from it for awhile. This cycle continued until earlier this year. I did a few outfit posts that I felt good about and that I was proud of and I was surprised to see a slight boost in my blog's views. It definitely boosted my confidence about doing outfit and personal style posts and I've been really consistent for a good couple of weeks. This has been a great place to share my crafty side, and I will probably still share some recipes and projects from time to time but I was finding it really difficult to stay inspired, and I didn't want it to feel hard anymore.I love making things and crocheting and painting are still things that I do on a weekly basis, but not blogging about it really takes the pressure off and somehow allows me to feel more creative. Anyway, enough rambling. The content of this blog has been reflecting this for a while now anyway so you may have guessed this yourself. I'm just more excited to publish posts now, so hopefully it is reflected in the quality of what I put on HN. I'm excited to start sharing more outfits and a little bit here and there about my own personal style perspective.

I was also contemplating changing the blog's name, but I haven't quite made up my mind about it. We'll see. Either way I just wanted to thank you all for the support and for just taking time to visit this blog at all. It means a lot!

 

-Reagan