Casually, Kristin: October 2015

I chose to adopt the blog How to be Fancy because I follow the blogger, Heather Whitsett, on Instagram and I like that she has such a popular blog and YouTube channel and is based in Oklahoma City. How to be Fancy is a beauty, fashion and lifestyle blog focused on showing girls how to be their best, quirky selves. Whitsett’s How to be Fancy YouTube channel is full of skincare and makeup tutorials, beauty product reviews, and artsy fashion videos with a sort of “day in the life of Heather” vibe. She includes her YouTube videos in many of her blog posts with additional information not included in the video. Her other blog posts include product reviews, such as makeup, body care and clothing, and posts full of outfit-of-the-day photos.

Whitsett is a freelance makeup artist and is currently transitioning into full time content creation and brand consulting. She started blogging in 2007 and started How to be Fancy in 2010. She originally began blogging when she was working a full-time corporate job because blogging allowed her to express her creativity. Now, she blogs for the community of girls she has created because she enjoys helping girls be authentic in their lifestyle. Of the purpose of her blog she says, “How to be Fancy started simply as a place for me to gather the things that I loved into one place. It has since slowly become a true community of girls who are inspired to be fearless in their life and style.” Between the blog and the How to be Fancy YouTube channel, Whitsett gets about 12,000 visitors per month.

The How to be Fancy blog earns a profit by working with brands through advertising. The brand advertising options include text links to brand websites, ads on the sidebars and footer, sponsored posts, social media campaigns, on-going campaigns, and brand ambassador opportunities. The blog’s policy page states that only honest reviews of products will be written. In other words, brands cannot pay to have a glowing review written about their product. If they pay for a sponsored post, they know that the review she writes will be honest, which may mean it could be negative. In addition, all sponsored posts are labeled as such so readers know when a post has been sponsored by a brand or company.

How to be Fancy is unique in that Whitsett successfully combines vlogging (video blogging) and regular blogging. It is also unique because Whitsett is so loyal and loving of her followers, or her community of girls as she calls them. I don’t think there are many bloggers whose main motivation for blogging is the people they do it for. She seems to truly care about how she can impact the lives of her followers in a positive way and inspire them to be unique.

The blog itself has many strengths. It has a very sleek look with a plain white background and a large, color-changing header at the top with a simple graphic and only one sidebar on the right side. I think keeping a simple look with the white background makes the photos and text in her posts stand out more. The background and sidebar are not distracting so readers can easily focus on her posts. There are tabs at the top of the blog for beauty, fashion and life-related posts. This makes it easier for readers to find exactly what they are looking for. Whitsett also has an “About Me” page with a summary of her life and what her blog is about. She also has a “New Reader” page with links to posts that help get to know her better and links to some of her favorite posts and YouTube videos. The only weaknesses that I noticed on How to be Fancy are that she doesn’t blog very often, maybe once or twice a month it seems, and the beauty and fashion tabs aren’t up-to-date. Those weaknesses are very minimal compared to the strengths, however.

Whitsett’s advice to new bloggers was this: “Blogging is a difficult industry to break into at this point, but there is always room for someone who genuinely wants to contribute to a growing community. Don't go into blogging looking to make it into a career - see it for what it's meant to be - a place to share your experience and perspective with others. The more niche and true to yourself you can be, the more you will be motivated to continue even in times when it feels like work. Also, don't jump on every opportunity that comes along! Look for partnerships and ways to really give (education, inspiration, and personal connection) to your followers - that's what will keep them coming back!” She makes some very important points. One of them being that you shouldn’t go into blogging thinking you can make a career out of it. When she started blogging, it was only to express creativity and share the things she loves. She didn’t start out making money, nor did she start out with the motivation to make money. Making money isn’t even her primary motivation for it now.

I think I learned quite a bit from this blog adoption. For one, I learned that it is okay to keep my blog simple and sleek, as long as I have creative and eye-catching content. I’ve been a little worried about my plain white background and lack of fancy gadgets, but I haven’t changed it because I like the way it looks. I’ve just been afraid other people won’t be as drawn to it because they may like fun backgrounds and lots of stuff on the sides to look at. Seeing how simple How to be Fancy is took some pressure off for me, so now I can worry more about the content of my posts rather than the overall look of my blog. I also learned how important it is to stay true to yourself. As Whitsett mentions in her advice, staying true to yourself is what keeps you motivated and helps avoid burn out when blogging feels like work. I think part of the reason I’ve been slacking so much on writing new posts is because I’ve been thinking too much about it. I worry about my ideas or my writing not being good enough or funny enough or not having photos to go with everything. I need to just relax and be myself. Then I think it will become much easier to just write. Another thing I learned is how easy it is, as a reader, to navigate a blog that has tabs at the top with categories for related posts. I’ve seen this a lot on blogs and it makes it so much easier when I’m specifically looking for craft tutorials, recipe posts, beauty advice, etc. I haven’t exactly found my niche for my blog yet and I don’t even have enough posts for tabs to be necessary, but it’s definitely something that could help me in my future with blogging. Speaking of my niche, the last most important thing I learned from my adoption of How to be Fancy is that maybe at least part of my blog could be dedicated to beauty blogging. I mean, the amount of time and money I spend at Sephora has to count for something, right? I love talking about makeup, but no one ever seems to want to listen to me talk about makeup. The workers at Sephora always seem annoyed when I keep them for twenty minutes talking about eyebrow pencils or matte lipstick. I bet the internet would listen to me talk about makeup. How to be Fancy has certainly given me a few things to think about.

When I checked my email this morning, I had a new email from graduation services. The email was sent to those of us ~~poor~~ lucky souls who are scheduled to graduate at the end of the semester. In the email, we were informed that this is the week we buy our cap and gown and that tickets to graduation will be available to download beginning this week. Then it hit me. I graduate in seven weeks. That is less than two months.

Upon this startling reality check, courtesy of graduation services, I began to panic. See, I've never been the type of person to adapt to change very well. Even the littlest changes throw me into a whirlwind of stress and panic. Being in school is all I know how to do. It's all I've ever done since age five. Sure, I've had part time jobs here and there, but for the past eighteen years my primary identity has been student. I don't know who I'm going to be in the "real world." I still haven't even decided what career path I want to take. And I only have seven weeks to find out.

I spent the last five and a half years trying to just get through college, get it over with and graduate. Now that graduation is right in front of me, all I want to do is stay in school. You'd think I would've known better considering I had the same thought when I graduated high school. I completely took for granted the four years I spent in high school. All I wanted was to be out of school. Then college turned out to not at all be what I was expecting or hoping for and I'm sure I'll be saying the same thing about post-grad life. I missed out on so much trying to just get through school, without ever stopping to simply experience it. We waste our youth wishing we were older, waiting to grow up, thinking that's when life really happens. Then we do grow up and we realize we couldn't have been more wrong.

Casually, Kristin

Saturday, October 31, 2015

What I've Learned

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Graduation? Panic.

Monday, October 19, 2015

11 Foods That Prove Pumpkin Spice Has Gone Way, Way Too Far