This afternoon, I went to see full-time fashion blogger Susie Bubble speak at the sold-out Portable event in Brisbane. Even though I'm not obsessed with fashion and don't aspire to profit from my blog, I went anyway because around this time last year, I went to awesome event called Carbon Festival (it's on this weekend in Melbourne - HINT: GO!). Hearing all these passionate people speak about what they do in street art, fashion, publishing, events inspired me to start my own blog. I was hoping for more insights and inspiration from Susie Bubble. I was not disappointed.
Recently, I've been reflecting about my blog because I've realised it isn't just my immediate friends and family reading. A few randoms have been nice enough to get in touch to tell me how they found a blog post handy or funny or made them feel less alone in thinking certain things about the world. My stats are nearing 20,000 pageviews with over 3000 unique visitors in total. If I take out the number of my FaceBook friends (353), half of whom I haven't met in person and most of whom probably don't know I have a blog, that's a lot of strangers reading about my life as an avid consumer and (over)enthusiastic sister/daughter/Aunty.
So I went along to hear about Susie's path to independent blog stylin' queen hoping to be inspired or just to hear what other bloggers experience. Being an ex-fashion publicist, it was really interesting to hear an international perspective on the complex relationships between PR, fashion brands and bloggers but it probably wouldn't appeal to you because I think my readers are every day people...who google things like "my bum is blue," "pigeon toed sneakers" and "how to make wardrobes from crates."
The main things I took from Susie Bubble's presentation in relation to my own blog is that:
- it's okay to blog as a hobby (phew, because if I try to turn this into a career I'd be back on the dole in two seconds)
- the best blogs aren't about quantity (number of posts or readers), they're about the quality (having a unique voice and point of view)
- you do it for the love of it.