OUGD601: Anonymous Beauty Blogger Interview

Interview with a blogger that preferred to stay anonymous answered questions on blogging. (Preferred to stay anonymous to be as honest as possible within the interview.)

Q1. How long have you been in the blogging industry?

“Two years.”

Q2. What made you start blogging?

“I learnt how to do makeup by watching bloggers on YouTube so I wanted to start one myself to have that impact on girls and post tutorials.”

Q3. What was the pivotal moment in your blogging career you realised you ran a successful blog that people engage with?

“When girls started messaging me asking for specific products, when instagram accounts were offering to send me free makeup and their products to advertise in my videos and when I was asked to give reviews.”

Q4. What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in the beauty community?

“The biggest change I've seen would have to be that there isn't many hair/stylist/acrylic nail bloggers.”

Q5. Do you think blogging to advertise products is more effective than more commercial means such as televised advertising?

“Yes definitely, because it targets such a huge audience and unlike an advert it's not obvious it's actually aiming to persuade.”

Q6. What are three goals for your blog/career?

“1). Teach girls how to do makeup 2). Experience and learn more in the industry 3). Not only enhance my makeup skills, but my writing and editing skills too.”

Q7. What is the process for a sponsored/ad post? (i.e: does the company normally approach you via email or other social media, how long does it normally take for the post to become live on your blog etc)

“I usually get instagram DMs and I take approx 1-2 weeks to read them, and up to a month depending what the product is. If a company is sending me products, it takes longer, if they just want a review it's up to two weeks until it gets into my blog.”

Q8. How do you get your blog noticed because the market is quite oversaturated?

“Hashtags. Following people who follow large beauty companies and tagging widely known makeup artists and bloggers. Posting regularly and keeping interactive.”

OUGD601: Interview with Mandy (MxndyChxrlotte.co.uk)

Interview with Mandy (MxndyChxrlotte.co.uk) - Beauty blogger

Q1. How long have you been in the blogging industry?

“Since 2013.”

Q2. What made you start blogging?

“I saw others do it and I thought it was super interesting and I also love writing and getting my opinion across.”

Q3. What was the pivotal moment in your blogging career you realised you ran a successful blog that people engage with?

“When people first started commenting and people were following me on multiple platforms.”

Q4. What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in the beauty community?

“Probably the way things have grown so quickly.”

Q5. Do you think blogging to advertise products is more effective than more commercial means such as televised advertising?

“I'm unsure, loads more people interact but the audience for TV is still massive in comparison. Well, dependent on the blog audience.”

Q6. What are three goals for your blog/career?

“Just for me to carry on growing and for people to interact more and more, that's my only real goal, building a community.”

Q7. What is the process for a sponsored/ad post? (i.e: does the company normally approach you via email or other social media, how long does it normally take for the post to become live on your blog etc)

“That really depends, I have approached a few but I have also had plenty of people approach me as well.”

Q8. How do you get your blog noticed because the market is quite oversaturated?

“Mainly through sharing it on different platforms and interacting with other people. If you're active people are more inclined to be interested in you.”

OUGD601: Ad Guidelines

https://www.asa.org.uk/news/Insight-affiliate-marketing-new-advertising-guidance-for-social-influencers.html

Key points in our new guidance for affiliates are:

•    If the content wholly relates to affiliated products, it may be necessary to use an identifier like ‘Ad’ in the title of the post so that the commercial nature of the material is clear before the user clicks through to the content;
•    Where only some of the links are for affiliated products and not all the content is directly connected to those products, the whole post or video does not have to be identified as an ad, but each of the affiliate links and any related content must be identified as such;
•    Affiliates using social media should be aware of the technical quirks of each platform they use and at what opportunity they should identify something as an ad e.g. in contexts where only an image is initially visible such as Instagram, an identifier like ‘Ad’ could be included on the image itself so the nature of the content is clear before followers engage with the post by clicking on it

FTC guidelines 

https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/press-releases/ftc-publishes-final-guides-governing-endorsements-testimonials/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf

§ 255.0 Purpose and definitions. (a) The Guides in this part represent administrative interpretations of laws enforced by the Federal Trade Commission for the guidance of the public in conducting its affairs in conformity with legal requirements. Specifically, the Guides address the application of Section 5 of the FTC Act (15 U.S.C. 45) to the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. The Guides provide the basis for voluntary compliance with the law by advertisers and endorsers. Practices inconsistent with these Guides may result in corrective action by the Commission under Section 5 if, after investigation, the Commission has reason to believe that the practices fall within the scope of conduct declared unlawful by the statute. The Guides set forth the general principles that the Commission will use in evaluating endorsements and testimonials, together with examples illustrating the application of those principles. The Guides do not purport to cover every possible use of endorsements in advertising. Whether a particular endorsement or testimonial is deceptive will depend on the specific factual circumstances of the advertisement at issue. (b) For purposes of this part, an endorsement means any advertising message (including verbal statements, demonstrations, or depictions of the name, signature, likeness or other identifying personal characteristics of an individual or the name or seal of an organization) that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experiences of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser, even if the views expressed by that party are identical to those of the sponsoring advertiser. The party whose opinions, beliefs, findings, or experience the message appears to reflect will be called the endorser and may be an individual, group, or institution. (c) The Commission intends to treat endorsements and testimonials identically in the context of its enforcement of the Federal Trade Commission Act and for purposes of this part. The term endorsements is therefore generally used hereinafter to cover both terms and situations. (d) For purposes of this part, the term product includes any product, service, company or industry. (e) For purposes of this part, an expert is an individual, group, or institution possessing, as a result of experience, study, or training, knowledge of a particular subject, which knowledge is superior to what ordinary individuals generally acquire.

OUGD601: Company E-Mails

Emails from a sponsor explaining what to do, press release information etc.

It makes it very specific what you have to include in the post to get the companies message across and maintain professionalism. 

OUGD601: COP - Practical Research - Mood Board

OUGD601: Crit

Crit focused on the idea of what to make on the practical

Think of 5 questions to ask other about the practical work you're doing whether it’s about the design, the idea's practicality or ideas for design choices

1. What do you think about creating a blog to go with the essay?

2. Are there any bloggers or magazines that would be good to draw influence on in regards to beauty or fashion?

3. What kind of beauty posts would be interesting to read? I.e: reviews, hauls, tutorials.

4. What kind of content can be included with beauty posts?

5. Should the design use already created typefaces or hand rendered?

Pitch your essay question to the group. Say what you're doing in your essay and what your idea for your practical outcome is.

5 minutes of questions from the group

Feedback given from group:

"It's interesting to create your own blog because that's the first hand thing you can do."

"You could create blog posts for an already existing blog such as a platform that already has a big following and write features for that. Like what people do for Vice but within beauty?"

"Include reviews so then people know if a product is good or not."

"Make it as personal to you as possible."

"Hand rendered."

"Premade typefaces are more professional looking but it's up to you."

"Look at more people who influence you, draw inspiration from them."

5 tasks to do for next crit (9th January)

1. Start creating the blog

2. Start designing

3. Start blogposts

4. Research more bloggers and how they write

5. More audience research

OUGD601: How to start a beauty blog

Online beauty bloggers have posted tips on how to start a beauty blog. They tell you tips on what to do with photography, designing the blog and making it personal to you and what platforms to use. I have chosen to use blogger because of the familiarity of it because of the university blog and because a lot of bloggers start out with it then progress. A lot of people say to try make it personal but easy to ready and nice to look at. No one wants to look at something thats a carbon copy of everyone else but it also has to be easy on the eyes for legibility reasons. White text on a black background is too harsh on the eyes, it is easier to read black on a white background. Serifed fonts are usually used in body texts because they're considered easier to read than sans-serif fonts in print.