Her Looks, TheGirlAtFirstAvenue

Fashion blogging trends

May 9, 2016

Since the end of February, this is my first outfit post on the blog. I consciously took a break, for almost two months, from posting any personal outfit stories on the blog, for the simple reason that it just didn’t feel right or fun any longer. Apart from starting a new series on the blog called #CityStories, which is one project that I have been passionately planning for a very long time, I felt like I lost the urge to blog/shoot outfit stories for the blog. One of the most popular bloggers, Purushu, has highlighted in many of his blog posts and Facebook posts, the state of blogging today. ‘OOTD clones’ as he called them, the term seemed quite appropriate. From being obsessed with instagram numbers, to multiple bloggers putting up the same kind of posts over and over again, the entire point of blogging seemed to have lost its charm. And it’s not just the bloggers. I’ve lost count of the number of collaborations that I rejected or collabs didn’t work out in the past two months just because I could sense no creative satisfaction or monetary satisfaction (Yes I make money through blogging. No I am not going to apologize for it). I don’t just want to do x no. of blog posts and y no. of social media posts for you. Can we first discuss what your brand stands for? What is the message you want to send out to your audience? Can we discuss how we can create something unique and beautiful? Sadly, most of them just wanted to discuss how many instagram followers I had, and if I could please send them the invoice and the link to the blog post once I was done. Icing on the cake – none of them had even read my blog.

I do agree that numbers are important. It’s essential to know that the blogger you are entrusting your brand and products to, is in sync with what you are selling, has the right kind of audience and numbers. But the kind of content you create matters the most. As Agam rightly put it on her blog recently, “the content has lost its glory and what substantiates the quality of a blog are the numbers. I have a ***K following, my content is a little similar to what I wrote in standard 8th or at times better because I was able to rip it off from Vogue.com, I won’t have time to style your pieces to the fullest because I have multiple projects in the pipeline but I have ***K followers…so the rest obviously doesn’t matter”. Yes, the industry definitely wasn’t like this when I started blogging. The handful of bloggers that I genuinely respect and still follow, are the same ones who started off on this blogging journey at approximately the same time that I did. Maybe I just don’t get these ‘new rules’ of blogging. Honestly it killed the vibe for me. To an extent that I began to consider whether this was in fact what I wanted to continue doing from now on or not.

Then I started looking back on my work, the posts I’ve done, brands that were interested in the little things as well like how I had come up with the name of my blog. Small business owners who were just as excited to be creating something. People who started the conversation with “Let’s try and do something different this time?”. Those are what excite me, motivate me and make me want to share my ideas and thoughts through this platform. People who want to push their creative boundaries and are not afraid of failing. People who would rather be different and fail than do what every other person was doing.

Long story short, I decided I wasn’t going to give up so soon. Seeing other bloggers speak their mind about the same thing made me realize I wasn’t alone in being disappointed by this rapidly spreading trend of number games and promotions. I get a minimum of 2-3 queries every couple of weeks from aspiring bloggers and the questions are always the same. “How do I start blogging?”, “Any tips on how to increase my numbers?”, “How do I get brands to collaborate with me?”. If that’s what you are starting with, then believe me, you’ve failed before even you’ve started.

Sometimes its good to go back to your roots. And its good to stick to your guns and do what you love. The rest will always fall into place!

{Pictures shot on a lovely rainy evening, while munching on delicious cakes & cupcakes}

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Photography: Divya Medikonda

8 Comments

  • Reply Purushu May 12, 2016 at 6:29 pm

    Good one Chandana! It just feels “alien” now. But that’s last line you wrote,
    ““How do I start blogging?”, “Any tips on how to increase my numbers?”, “How do I get brands to collaborate with me?”
    It clearly shows people are interested in blogging to make money. Not a bad idea. Hmm. Blogging started as passion & now it’s about business mostly. There are two ways to look at it. If you’re buying following & the ROI is more than what you spent.. I don’t see why people behind quick money won’t do that. But the point is anybody can do that. And, it’s disturbing if people actually judge the quality of an influencer with those numbers.
    But again, every thing keeps changing and it’s up to us to embrace the change than resist it. I am not very happy about the direction it’s heading… but may be this is where a blogger can choose to have individualism and influence the direction blogging itself is heading.

  • Reply Manpreet May 30, 2016 at 11:24 pm

    I am a blogger and I am also handling blogger outreach program for a brand.
    I truly understand the situation you face. When you start with blogging, you find this whole thing of brand collabs very interesting and do a few. After that, it just gets boring.
    I feel there are tow kinds of brands… ones with in-house team actively trying to get their word out and the ones that simply outsource to PR companies. The former ones care for what kind of blogger they collab with, what kind of content is put and so on while PR companies just care about the numbers. Like you said, it’s true a lot of them don’t even read your blogs.
    It’s good to see you decided to just work with the ones that want something new and creative. I am sure your readers will love this decision of yours. 🙂

    • Reply Chandana June 1, 2016 at 10:09 am

      I agree! At the end of the day, it is up to the bloggers and the brands to choose what kind of work they want to put out there, and what kind of work ethic they want to follow 🙂
      Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!

  • Reply Aparna Mudi June 5, 2016 at 2:55 am

    Hi Chandana
    First off, great post. Also the look is really charming. I love the colour combination – rustic and elegant.
    I am a recent blogger and honestly I haven’t done a single photoshoot yet, because I am not confident about how I will look infront of the camera.

    I love doing opinion pieces and some listicals – I honestly enjoy them – doing all the research, reading up on articles, following celebrities, understanding trends. But styling garments on myself is right now too scary. Although in NIFT I loved styling.

    Don’t you think there are just too many fashion blogs who are doing only photoshoots and nothing else? There is no original thought – there are no interesting topics that people write about anymore. I am sure I am not that interesting either – but maybe there need to be some people who post something other than sponsored things.

    • Reply Chandana June 5, 2016 at 8:24 pm

      Hi Aparna! I started blogging in 2010-2011 and yes compared to a few years back, the number of bloggers has increased tremendously. I feel each kind of blog has its own audience. Be it bloggers who blog about personal style, or just talk about fashion trends/forecasts/reports or only beauty. Some readers like looking at outfit photos while some might prefer only reading. Photoshoots need not involve only sponsored things. I personally do a lot of outfit shoots with my own outfits because I enjoy doing that! I agree that there is hardly any focus on good quality written content. Ultimately it depends on the blogger as to what direction they want to take their blog in, and how they want to change the trends in the fashion blogging industry!

  • Reply Chandana July 25, 2016 at 6:26 pm

    Thank you!

  • Reply vidya September 3, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    Nice trend. Love the post.

  • Reply Jyo March 4, 2017 at 5:01 pm

    Hello! Just came across your blog. Interesting posts. Could you tell me the location of the shoot.

    Thanks!

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