(Image by digimonrpgonline.net)

Tell us a little about Saucy Glossie?

Saucy Glossie is a full time personal style blog that focuses on style on a real girl budget.  It’s a log of what I’m wearing, how I’m inspired, and my tips on looking stylish without spending a fortune on your wardrobe.  I think it’s more relatable to see how someone else is doing it and wearing it in real life rather than just reading about it or seeing flat images on a page.

How do you monetize Saucy Glossie?

I monetize through advertising on the blog but mostly through partnerships with brands.  I work hard to build and maintain relationships with brands that I love and feel authentic to me and it has been such a blast working with them creatively on new projects.  Everything that I’m doing right now relates back to my blog in some way, even if it is a TV hosting job or guest blogging for a brand.

How has blogging effected your career?

Well, now it is my career, but blogging ultimately gave me a platform to showcase my skills and talents, almost like an online portfolio.  It’s been a place where I’ve grown, my style has grown, and my goals have shifted and I’ve been able to be more entrepreneurial.  Blogging allows you to build your own brand in a way and it’s allowed me to achieve a lot of my goals through a very non-traditional but relevant pathway.

What are you working on now?

Right now I’m a spokesperson for TJ Maxx, which has always been a dream gig for me!  I’m in their TV commercial and there is also a web series running on their Facebook page and also on iVillage, Fabsugar, and Glam.  TV and video projects are my main focus right now so I have a few TV projects that I’m working on.  I’m also working on expanding my YouTube page and will keep building the blog and working with brands on hopefully a more long-term basis and partnership.

What is the most important piece of advice you would give to aspiring bloggers?

Have a point of view and stay true to who you are.  It’s really all about being authentic.  Don’t look at what everyone else is doing and try to copy that formula because it won’t work for you or come across as “real”.  Everyone is different and we all have different styles, interests, and goals and that’s what makes us all interesting to read about.

Many thanks to Lindsey Calla for this interview, check out Saucy Glossie!

As we’ve discussed at our IFB conferences over the past year, the landscape of fashion blogging has come a long way from the self-publication-for-the-people days of yore. Today, personal style blogs have incredible potential as businesses and  drivers of consumer trends. We all know of the mega-popular blogs who regularly receive gifted product and collaborate on design projects and promotions with big-name brands and designers, but what about the rest of us?

Reward Style has emerged as a cool and lucrative tool both for top-tier bloggers as well as up-and-comers who are not necessarily household names, but fast becoming influencers among their readers and peers. Reward Style allows it’s members to link out to shopping sites from their blog, and earn a commission if readers purchase items through their links. To maintain a standard for their clients, rS is not available to everyone. Though some might view this as alienating, I think it’s a wonderful motivator for those who are serious about taking their personal blog to the next level. To get the inside scoop on Reward Style, I interviewed their president, Amber Venz.

How was the concept of Reward Style born?

I started my fashion blog, VENZedits.com, in April 2010 as an extension of my personal shopping business – I wanted it to be my fashion diary and styling portfolio. I started out posting 3 times a day and I was telling all of my secrets to my readers. I quickly realized that I had cut myself out of my own business- my clients were now buying the products I suggested off of my blog and not booking appointments with me anymore.

I decided to monetize my blog so I did what any blogger would do- I went to every blog I knew and snooped around to see how they were making money. I ended up becoming a member of about eight ad networks. I had a spreadsheet with the logins, passwords, which ads were where; it was an administrative nightmare and a total time-suck.

After about seven months of that, I teamed up with a technology company and explained to them what I was dealing with and we developed rewardStyle.com.

This site was built around what I needed as a blogger: I wanted all my advertisers in one place, one login, one reporting system, one check. I wanted to get paid like I used to as a personal shopper, the ability to compare commissions between stores on a single product, a way to track my click-to-sale conversion so I could see what all of these links were worth to me.

As a small start-up, we listen to what our users need. You want to be able to link to ASOS? Let me call them. You wear a ton of J.Crew? Good news, they called us. You do not want to have to bit.ly your links to see what is working? We will build you an analytics page right into our site.

Who is reward style available to?

rS is an invitation-only monetization tool for fashion, lifestyle and beauty bloggers around the globe. We work with bloggers who are looking to make money on their content and are blogging at a professional level, meaning their content is original, gramaticaly correct, visually pleasing and consistent. We consider a number of factors in our decision process including reader engagement through social networks like twitter and facebook, number of posts per week, and if the content is a good match for what rewardStyle has to offer.

In what ways can bloggers use Reward Style to monetize their blog / social media outlets?

We provide fashion, beauty and lifestyle bloggers with relevant product links for whatever products they have decided to talk about, feature or wear. These links allow bloggers to get paid online the same way personal shoppers do offline. My background is in personal shopping and if I took a client into a boutique, I would get a commission on whatever that client purchased. This is the concept we have taken online. If you direct a reader to a retailers site, we allow you to get paid a commission on whatever that reader purchases at that site for a pre-determined number of days (generally 30 days, although this term varies by store).

Bloggers are working as personal shoppers by styling and suggesting products and we, as bloggers, are keeping the masses shopping by creating a desire for products. (You are welcome, retailers.)

Everything about rewardStyle is performance based; we allow bloggers to get paid exactly what they are worth to these brands and retailers.

Who are your top e-tailers using Reward Style?

We are currently working with about 300 fashion and beauty advertisers- here are a few of our top performers:

• Shopbop
• Net-a-Porter
• J.Crew
• Asos
• Madewell
• Neiman Marcus
• Zappos
• Endless
• Outnet.com
• Topshop

What advice would you give to bloggers who want to step up their game?

• Purchase a unique URL (get off .blogspot, .wordpress, .tumblr)
• Set up google analytics and track your progress.
• Set up a Twitter and Facebook account for your blog and be active on both to grow your audience.
• Post at least four times a week (but always remember, quality over quantity- four times is not mandatory). This will help with your analytics and it will establish some consistency so your readers know what to expect.
• Show original content- re-posting a magazine spread does not show talent and can not be monetized.

What do you guys think? Do you use Reward Style already? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

The staggering Kristina of Pretty Shiny Sparkly has created the new Bloggers Do It Better meme– a place where gals can receive weekly challenges to their wardrobes based on a color, a trend, or a style (see the past entries for Prep School Style, Color Blocking, and White Out!).

With a name like Bloggers Do It Better, I like to also personally project a nod off in Scott Schuman’s way–personal style bloggers can do quite well stylistically, thankyouverymuch.  “Bloggers Do It Better is a movement. An initiative to showcase real girls, with real style, wearing real trends. Think of it as inspiration from the girl next door.”

When you created Bloggers Do It Better, what was your original goal? Had you created it with the intent to engage other bloggers? Or was it purely personal?

I created Bloggers Do It Better for two reasons: first, I wanted to engage my fellow bloggers and create a bigger sense of community, not just on my own blog, Pretty Shiny Sparkly, but as a whole. Blogger “memes” as they’re called, are extremely successful in creating a community–a microcosm, if you will–featuring people with shared interests, whatever the topic may be. Secondly, I wanted to create a group where bloggers take on the fashion magazine editorials head-on. Not because I don’t like them (I do), but because there’s been so much talk about bloggers being the new face of fashion for the average (wo)man, but very little walking the walk in terms of actual clout. And I wanted something with a little bite to it, a little sass. And Bloggers Do It Better came to me one night before I fell asleep, and it was perfect.

What do you think the role of memes is within the blogging community?

“Membership” is a loose term, but there are certain requirements that must be in place in order to participate, however a blogger can choose to participate in a challenge, or not. One can cherry-pick the assignments one wants to do, with no repercussions.

I think they create community and original content. There’s a sense of value, responsibility, and “family” in participating in a group like Bloggers Do It Better. BDIB members regularly tweet & email each other with tips & questions relating to the current challenge, and they psyche each other up for it as well! It also creates original content–not the regurgitation of fashion editorial scans that we all know too well (thanks, but I can read the magazine, and that’s not why I visit blogs). It inspires a blogger, encourages her to push her boundaries, to try new things. In fact, first-time-ever outfit posts have been the result of BDIB challenges on several occasions! And it’s always new. I can’t speak for other memes, but you will never see the same challenge twice on Bloggers Do It Better. It’s always going to be original. I think it’s completely wonderful.

Do you feel that there is a point where participation can become too big?

For sure, I do. But one way I find that will help prevent this problem is that to date, there is no “master list” of members for Bloggers Do It Better. You get the link (the “credit”, if you want to think of it that way) by linking up your post using my linkup widget at the specified time. So the participation will only be as big at any given time, as those who *actually* participate. And that’s a big deal, to me. The exposure one gets from participating is earned, constantly. So it would be pretty difficult for one to, say, sign up for BDIB and participate once and expect that to be all they need to get the benefits of a community. People who do so are just going to be disappointed. But those who participate, and regularly, and with genuine interest and enthusiasm (like by visiting fellow members’ assignment posts), will reap the rewards.

Have you found a downside to creating it?

With anything there are its ups and downs, but I’d have to say the things that bug me most are:

• Not reading directions, and asking me things that can easily be found by reading the instructions I took the time to meticulously explain in the post,
  
• The time it takes to manage it is quite staggering, more than I imagined, in large part due to the overwhelming response to even the very first challenge–but it’s so much fun, so I never mind that much!
  
• People who bash blogger memes without any basis or grounds. If you haven’t participated or run one, come back and talk to me when you have. It’s so much fun, it’s invigorating, and a lot of hard work, and that deserves more than a flippant dismissal if I do say so myself! Ask the hundreds of bloggers who take hours out of their week to participate!

Do you feel like it divides readership at all (those who are bloggers participating, opposed to the average girl reading a fashion blog)?

I haven’t experienced this at all. Though my schedule gets hectic as a medical student (some rotations are harder than others–I’m lookin’ at you, Surgery!), I still try and maintain a healthy balance of content. I do not want BDIB to take over my blog – the day it starts to feel like it, it gets its own site. But for now, my blog is where the community is and I’d like it to stay that way. I am in no place to manage two blogs!! There is, however, more of a sense of responsibility to the BDIB group because they want a schedule, they want a new challenge and they want it yesterday (and I love the enthusiasm!)–so lately that has been more prominent on PSS, but I expect that to change when I get more free time to resume my normal posting.

What tips would you share with the blogger who wants to participate, but doesn’t want to saturate her blog with them? Can you participate in multiple memes and still showcase a lot of creativity and your own original posts?

I think that first, if you want to do anything in life, do so in moderation. Participate in blogger memes that allow you to cherry pick (kicking you out because you miss out on something is a little harsh — I am not aware of one that does, but keep an eye out). Follow the rules and read the directions carefully to ensure your participation is relevant, of interest to you and your audience, and keep it fun and always original. Make sure you do read the rules, they’re there for a reason and it’d be no fun to go through the trouble only to not have it count. It sucks!

I think a blogger can definitely participate in multiple content rings – but please, don’t make *all* of your posts be meme-related. Please. Blogging is not a push-button relationship. Meaning, you shouldn’t have to be *prompted* in order to create content 24/7. You should be able to express yourself without being challenged, or assigned. Just think of blogger memes as icing on the cake, or that extra nudge when you are feeling uninspired or run-down. It should not be the entire basis for your blog.

Thanks, Kristina!

Some food for thought–do you agree with Kristina that a blogger shouldn’t be prompted to create content? I love that she’s so candid about blogger’s needing to earn the exposure they receive from fashion memes (and totally agree)– how do you feel about it?  Compared to Kendi’s 30 for 30 Remix, how do you feel about the challenge of taking on fashion editorials yourself?