Come & sit down, my dear, and I’ll tell you your fortune….
Yes, yes… I see much wealth, many photos taken, and much fame…

All right. So my career as a fortune teller is a short-lived as my ones as princess ballerina of the unicorn ranch and Clarice Starling.  BUT! That doesn’t mean I’m not capable of making some fashion blogging predictions for 2012.

The rise of unique voices.  In the past year, I think many bloggers were staggered to see how quickly The Man Repeller gained popularity.  But she also showed bloggers two things: regular, great content and a unique perspective.  We read about those two tips on blogging sites ALL THE TIME, but seeing it put in to practice– and the success that can rise from it, makes the experience all the more valuable & educational.

The rise of the blogger agent. Blogger agents like Digital Brand Architects and collectives like Style Coalition keep getting bigger and bridging the divide between fashion companies and bloggers.  I’m predicting we will see more of these agencies and collectives in the upcoming year, and more bloggers in fashion campaigns.

The thinning of the herd.  Blogging, in general, has exploded since I began and it’s obvious that it’s becoming oversaturated.  While I think we’re going to continue to see great numbers of fashion blogs created every day, I think this will be the year we begin some many abandoned.  Blogging is hard, time consuming, and the payoff isn’t what the media promotes it to be.

But let’s not just hear my own predictions– let’s hear what other bloggers predict for 2012!

Kristina, Pretty Shiny Sparkly

I believe photo-sharing apps like Instagram will become even more popular in 2012. I also think that people will look toward optimizing their under-utilized social media outlets–avid tweeters will become more conscious of their Facebook pages, bloggers will turn to YouTube to expand their reach, etc. I also think we’re going to be seeing a lot of blogger weddings-  there are quite a few of us getting married this year, so wedding-related posts will be ubiquitous.

Marie Denee, The Curvy Fashionista 

I think that Blogging will receive an official definition among the legal lines. With the recent lawsuit the blogger lost late last year and SOPA threats, I think blogging in general will receive an even more detailed definition of just what it is–freedom of speech and journalism practices included.

Going Mobile- I think that you will find more and more bloggers stepping up their platforms to the mobile blogging level. Apps, formats, and ways that we engage will be heightened with the evolution of mobile capabilities.

Taylor Davies, IFB and Shut Up, I Love That Shirt On You

I think that social media is going to become more important than ever for bloggers. As more of, ehem, the rest of the world, (ie people without blogs or careers in online media) join Twitter, start Facebook fan pages and get Instagram accounts, it’s becoming a more and more useful tool to share your fashion blog with the world. I’ve seen already that photo-sharing social media is becoming particulary huge. Apps and sites like Instagram, Pinterest and Pose are fun and easy ways to share your style, your taste and your daily looks without having to create a full blog post each time. Personally, I just got an iphone about two months ago, and I’ve already posted 258 photos on Instagram. That’s ridiculous, but it’s so fun to share little bits and pieces of life that way!

B, Beautifully Invisible

I think that 2012 is going to be a year of continued growth and change in the fashion blogosphere.  Who we label as “fashion bloggers” will change.  It’s a diverse group that doesn’t just include teenagers and women who post OOTD shots.  Our interests and blogs are as diverse as our ages and sexes!  The New York Times just recently ran a piece on the newest breed of fashion bloggers – men!  Technologically, we’ll rely more heavily on sites like StumbleUpon and Pinterest to drive traffic.  Mobile/iPad/tablet blogging will continue to thrive and we’ll connect with readers AWAY from our blogs with social media and apps like instagram and pose.  And that is just the beginning!

I know we’re not the only fortune tellers and soothsayers in the IFB community – what are your blogging predictions for 2012?

Image by Trey Ratcliff.

Whether it’s your first time or you are a repeat visitor, New York City is a fashion bloggers playground. So much to see and eat! Luckily, we’ve got a list of places that you must visit. No, seriously. Like, if you didn’t visit them, you would be making a major IFB faux pas. This is serious business, guys.

Eat:

Meatball Shop: In these cold winter days, nothing is more satisfying than a plate full of meatballs. Honestly, they might be the greatest things since sliced bread. You can get them anyway you want with any sauce you want. And we must not forget about their ice cream sandwiches. The Lower East Side location is always packed so be prepared to wait or head to the West Village location.

ABC Kitchen: This farm-to-table restaurant not only boasts a delicious menu but serves it in the warmest, natural atmosphere. Vegetables take the main stage here and are beautifully prepared. It’s the kind of food that makes you want to cook and discover new ways to prepare the heartiest of vegetables. That is, if you actually had a functioning kitchen…

Torrisi: Now this is Italian food at its finest. Unpretentious, filling, and full of heart, Torrisi’s prix fixe menu will make you drool. Literally. From the pasta to the cheese to the bread, it is one of my favorite places to eat in the city.

Peels: It’s the most important meal of the day so fill up properly with Peels. This cozy restaurant serves a killer breakfast including an array of pastries, savory egg dishes and the best buttermilk biscuits in town. I’m not exaggerating. You must get the buttermilk biscuit while here, and if you are feeling daring, load up your biscuit with avocado, ham or cheese.

Abraco: Coffee is a part of New York’s culture and this is the spot I go to when I want an extra fine cup of jo. The lattes, espressos and cappuccinos are practically an art form here and don’t forget to load up on their Olive Oil cake. Sweet, moist, with slight tang.

Explore:

High Line Park: yes, it is freezing but a walk through the High Line Park is totally worth it. Gorgeous greenery, a crystal clear view, and some peace and quiet. What more could you want?

New Museum: After that jaunt through the park, warm up with a trip to the New Museum located on the Bowery. Unlike other museums, this one features highly interactive and vibrant exhibitions. Videos, paintings, sculptures. You will get your fill of inspiration after an afternoon here!

Paris Theater: Step back in time and catch a movie at the renowned Paris Theatre. Romantic and very tres chic, you’ll think you are in Paris, not New York! The theatre is currently showing the much-buzzed-about film “The Artist.”

Brooklyn Bridge: It may sound cliche but sometimes, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge is the highlight of this girl’s day. With breathtaking views and a reasonable 20-minute walk, it’s a definite must while in New York. Plus, you can explore Brooklyn Heights and the Brooklyn Bridge Promenade once you get to the other side. A fun area with lots of camera opportunities!

Because I’ve had a blog for a little over two years, I’ve spent a fair amount of time browsing Twitter, Tumblr, and probably hundreds of other blogs. I would venture to say that I am now pretty savvy when it comes to understanding the language people use in social media and on their blogs. Savvy, yes, fluent, no way. Not even close.

It seems there are new bits of jargon and acronyms for weird things that pop up every week. I often finding myself using Google to find out what these phrases, words and random letters mean. A lot of them are humorous or joking in nature, but to stay relevant in the digital age, it’s important to understand them even if you don’t use them.

To save you some time, I have listed some of the online jargon I’ve picked up, from the basic to the absurd. This is by no means a comprehensive list, just a selection of highlights I thought would be both amusing and hopefully helpful!

Jargon & Acronyms for Bloggers & Social Media Users

Avatar: In internet speak, an avatar is a graphical or visual representation of you or your blog. On Twitter, your avatar is the square photo that appears next to your handle.

Blogroll: A blogroll is a list of links to other blogs or websites that the author of the blog regularly likes to read. Usually located on the side column of a blog homepage, a blogroll is most commonly installed through a widget.

FTW: For The Win. One might use this acronym to indicate their preference for something when compared to another, or just as a way of expressing their opinion that this person or thing “wins,” meaning they have done something great. For example, if you were to watch this video of Ryan Gosling breaking up a fight, you might post a link to the video on Twitter with the text, Ryan Gosling FTW.

Hashtag: A hashtag started as a way to make text within Twitter a click-able link, to help people find out if other people were talking about the same thing. The most popular ones often show up in your Twitter sidebar as “trending topics.” Hashtags have since evolved as a way to make jokes or to summarize one’s thoughts. My personal favorites include #whitegirlproblems and #FF (Follow Friday).

IRL: In Real Life. Which means, you know, not on the internet.

Lurking: In internet terms, this means that you look around at Twitter, blogs, etc., but don’t participate yourself – you just, lurk around.

Meme: This was one I had to look up on Wikipedia to grasp. Since I cannot really think of how to paraphrase, here is an exert from this page: “The idea may take the form of a hyperlink, video, picture, website, hashtag, or just a word or phrase, such as intentionally misspelling the word “more” as “moar” or “the” as “teh”. The meme may spread from person to person via social networks, blogs, direct email, news sources, or other web-based services. An Internet meme may stay the same or may evolve over time, by chance or through commentary, imitations, parody, or by incorporating news accounts about itself. Internet memes can evolve and spread extremely rapidly, sometimes reaching world-wide popularity and vanishing within a few days.”

Pingback: A pingback is a notification letting you know that your blog (or website) has been referenced (or linked to) by another blog. Pingbacks usually include a short excerpt of the post containing the link.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization (See our post here!)

Trackback: This is another one I couldn’t really define without help, so here is paraphrasing from Wikipedia: A trackback is one of three types of linkback methods for bloggers to request notification when somebody links to one of their posts. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to their articles

Trending Topic: Started on Twitter, these are popular words (often indicative of a larger subject, news piece, or a hashtag) that are being widely discussed on the internet. Other news sources and sites have started using this terminology to round up their most talked-about topics.

Widget: Widgets are used by blogging applications like WordPress, Blogger, OnSugar, etc., to enable bloggers to customize the appearance and content of their blogs without CSS, HTML or other coding knowledge. Widgets usually appear on the sidebar, or in the header or footer of a blog, and have a huge variety of capabilities. Some let you post your Twitter feed, some let you link to largers sites like Bloglovin’ and IFB (natch).

Wiki: A Web site developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing any user to add and edit content. Examples include Wikipedia (obviously) and Foodista.

Did I forget any great acronyms or terms you just don’t understand? Or better yet, ones you do understand that I should have included? Leave them in the comments with your definition!

Every blogger is looking for the secret sauce. The perfect combination of great content, engaged readers and steady traffic. While we totally understand that blogging is more than a numbers game, everyone wants more eyes in front of their great content. And why shouldn’t you?! You spend hours crafting informative, useful and entertaining posts, people should know about it!

But getting traffic is a daunting task and there’s so much information in cyberspace about how to go about getting it. Organic traffic from search engines is a great (and often overlooked) way to get readers to your blog. Google, Yahoo and Bing  serve results to searchers looking for information and rank them according to relevance to what a searcher is looking for. By creating a useful post and optimizing it, your blog can appear at the top of the ranks and get the traffic your content deserves.

 

Here’s the IFB Primer on how to optimize your content and strut to the top of the Google ranks!

 

This past week, Problogger released his newest ebook, “Problogger’s Guide to Your First Week Blogging”– one obviously aimed at the brand new blogger looking to build a following and become a professional blogger.  At IFB we have so many new fashion bloggers coming in each day that it made sense to talk about the products geared to them– and the pros and cons of the tips shared.

The book is designed as a week long workshop, with each day 5 tasks designed to build your blog.  These tasks are designed to last between an hour and 90 minutes at most.  With 1 week and 90 minutes a day, who doesn’t have that sort of time and energy to commit to building their blog in a strong way?  The workbook is set up to cover:

Day 1: Set solid foundations.
Day 2: Publish and build presence.
Day 3: Concentrate on content.
Day 4: Understand the blog as a product.
Day 5: Put yourself out there.
Day 6: Define and demonstrate quality.
Day 7: Strategize for success.

Why It’s Great for New Bloggers

When I first began my site in 2007, it was still pretty early in “blogging as a career.”  I knew that I wanted to use it as a platform to build up something great, but didn’t know how to do that.  My posting was erratic, as was my content.  Like many new bloggers, I thought if I wrote and commented, the traffic would come.

Building a blog, especially one that you’ll earn a full-time living off of, isn’t so simple or easy.  Without knowing how to set up your site in a strong way from the get-go, especially regarding things like titles and SEO, it’s easy for your blog to get lost in the internet.

Some of the tasks that he encourages you do are:

• Figure out what your niche will be and who your market is.  Whether you want to focus on eco-friendly fashion, budget fashion, runway editorials, beauty reviews– figure out what you want to write about and who is going to be interested in reading it.
• Find a blogging buddy– someone who may not be a blogger, but who you trust.  They could be a good friend, a parent, a buddy from your writing circle– and you’ll ask them to preview your posts prior to reading.
• Develop key practices for building content (such as creating an introduction post saying what readers can find and what to expect, a “My Story” page.
• Signing up for social media (Facebook and Twitter) and spending 15 minutes a day using it to promote the new posts you’re writing, to interact with other bloggers, and promoting valuable resources through it.
• Using the work of others to create new content: finding inspiration in blog comments or using social media to research what questions your audience is asking.

When I was a beginning blogger, these ideas, writing in this structure, wouldn’t have crossed my mind.  But when you’re trying to blog professionally, you need to know the basics before you can experiment.   To be honest, I wish something like this had been around when I first started blogging;  there are ways to express yourself, to write compelling content (that will satisfy you to write), that will also attract an interactive and engaged readership. I often see fashion bloggers who rebel against structure, against blog tips, and knowing is half the battle– the other half is choosing what works for you and your niche and being steadfast in your choices.

What Experienced Bloggers Can Gain

Darren mentions that this can be used for the blogger looking to launch their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th blog with a strong foundation.  When reading this ebook, at times I thought, “Well, duh.”  And after 4 years of blogging (and another 7 years on Livejournal), I should have a “Duh” reaction to some of the things I’ve read.  Everything is laid out in a simple, solid format to have you thinking, focusing, planning, and doing very specific tasks to get you through that first week– not through 2 years of blogging.

Despite this product not being written and marketed to me, I found that some of the tips were useful:

• Creating posting checklist prior to publication: as a fashion blogger, it can become really easy to forget a catchy headline, a captivating image, affiliate links for products you’re promoting, linking back to old posts, ending with a call to action & encouraging comments.
• Setting a posting rhythm: this can be great to reevaluate where you are in your blogging experience.  If you’ve gotten Disenchanted With Blogging lately or looking to grow your blog, then thinking about the frequency of your posting can be a refreshing change.
• The importance of creating pillar posts and content series:  Problogger defines pillar posts as “evergreen, timeless content of the kind people in your target audience will be likely to search for using search engines over the months and years to come.”  Already Pretty is a fantastic example of creating pillar posts if you want examples!
• Creating a style guide for your site.  Like any good writer, this is about making sure you’re consistent in your blogging.  Make sure you are consistently capitalizing the same types of words in your titles.  Make sure you’re using the same types of words (Problogger’s examples were using “Ebooks” in some places and “e-books” in others, or having “Further Reading” at the end of one post and then links scattered throughout the body of a post in another).  This seems so simple, but all of us are guilty of not remaining consistent in how we present our information.

One piece that was incredibly insightful to read, and I think is so important for bloggers at all levels was, “Be aware, though, that this should be a growing element of your blogging responsibilities: as your blog grows, your readership will grow, and so will the level of interaction you engage in. Accept this time commitment – and enjoy it!”

No matter how successful your blog becomes, remember to reply to comments, reply to emails, interact on Twitter.  And as your site grows, your commitment to this will grow as well– but it’s so important to keep up with it!

The Cost & Potential Downside

The Problogger’s Guide to Your First Week Blogging is being launched at an introductory price of $9.99 (which will end early this week) and there’s an awesome giveaway attached to it (2 buyers will win the Pro Plus Packages from the team at StudioPress).  After that, the price will raise to $19.99.

At $9.99, the book is an absolute steal and deal– well worth the cost.  At $19.99, I’m not sure if fashion bloggers– even those who want to go pro– would be willing to pay the price.  When you’re a new blogger, it’s hard to invest financial resources into a project: you don’t know whether you’ll stick with it, whether it’ll be something you’ll enjoy.  My suggestion in this situation is to find 2-3 other bloggers you’re buddies with and split the cost.  Problogger does say, “If you’re not satisfied with the ebook after 30 days, just let me know and I’ll refund your money—that’s how confident I am that this resource will make a valuable impact on your new blog’s first weeks.“.

Additionally, I will say– this workbook isn’t for everyone.  It really is designed for the new/young blogger.  If you’re looking for blogging tips, exercises, I’d suggest picking up one of his other workbooks.  This one was written for the person interested in creating a fashion blog, who is starting their first one, or who is building a new site.  If I were ready to start a second blog, this would be a useful tool for me to build it solidly from that first week.  For many of us, this site may have come along too late.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have our own tools available to us!

For more information on Problogger’s other books, check out Why Fashion Bloggers Should Invest in Problogger and The Copywriting Scorecard [for Fashion Bloggers]. (Note– check back later this week, as Problogger will be announcing a deal on these two e-books & I’ll be sure to announce it!)

Image by meowsk.