Amazon Associates
A couple of months ago, when I first arrived back from my travels, I was lucky enough to visit Amazon HQ for their Amazon Associates event. The event was an evening of presentations from fashion and lifestyle influencers, including Rachel Story (stylist for Hello! magazine), Reena Rai (Fashion Daydreams) and Gemma Royston-Claire (Cosmopolitan magazine).
Left to right // Natasha, Natalie, Paige, Becky, Leigh, Me and Charlotte
Having been away from the UK for over a year, I had felt a little dejected with my blog. I had been lacking enthusiasm and inspiration. So this event was just what I needed to freshen my blog up, and enjoy what is a great hobby and passion of mine.
The presentations covered everything from engaging content, to shooting lifestyle photos, to marketing your blog. It was a really helpful evening, full of insight and got me thinking of a number of ways I could improve my blog.
Firstly I decided to re-design my blog, as it had had the same colour palette and layout for a few years. I felt that it didn't represent my personal style anymore.
Secondly I decided to create a media kit for my blog. It is common knowledge these days that bloggers occasionally make money from their blogs. Whether it's through affiliate marketing, sponsorship or gifting. Although my blog is a part time hobby, a lot of time and effort is put into each post, so it is helpful if I can make a little pocket money from time to time. A media kit really helps make the process of replying to agencies, enquiring about sponsorship, quick and easy. I searched through many Pinterest boards for ideas on how to design my media kit, and included things such as an introduction, recent Google Analytics, rates and previous case studies/collaborations - all areas presented at the Amazon Associates event.
Thirdly I decided to try and gain some regularity to my posts. This helps readers to keep coming back to your blog, if they know you always post about beauty on Monday for example. It gains interest and keeps that interest. So every Sunday I post an outfit, as this is the day I find that my blog gets the most traffic. I have also since set aside Tuesday as my day to post a recipe. It's all about looking at your traffic and stats, and determining what works best for you.
And lastly I learnt how to be more savvy with social media. For example, I have learnt that promoting my blog posts on Twitter works best when I upload a photo too. Also that portrait photos work best on Pinterest because of Pinterest's layout. Landscape images can look small, and get lost.
I wanted to share my findings as it really helped me and I hope it can help at least one of you. I've seen many posts recently that giveaway blog tips, and I always find them interesting, broadening my blogger knowledge :)