I have a giveaway on my blog… now what?

I pretty much think that’s what I said when I ran my first giveaway last December, I didn’t have a clue. While we have some great tips on how to give stylish giveways, like announcing/twitter/facebook trifecta for your giveaway, finding threads to announce in forums (IFB has a giveaway thread… don’t just show up on a forum you never posted and announce it there, it may not have a nice effect… but we’ll always love you).

Lovely IFB member, Grechen (of grechen’s closet among other grechen sites) launched free!grechen last year in response to the growing trend of blog giveaways. Like many sweepstakes and contest blogs, free!grechen takes submissions, however free!grechen specializes in fashion related giveaways, and works with many members of our community, therefore increasing the chance that you’ll attract more new traffic that’s more likely to stay than from a more general aggregated contest site that doesn’t specialize in fashion. I’ve used free!grechen for all of my giveaways and they have brought new traffic, though I’d like to see it grow, and the site has a lot of potential as a resource for the fashion blog community.

In addition to free!grechen there are several other contest sites that also bring in traffic, here’s a few:

• Contest Girl (recommended by Grechen herself, brings in great traffic)
• CashNet Sweeps (also recommended by Grechen)
• Sweeties Sweeps (has nice tips like how to WIN sweepstakes)
• Tip Junkie

What sites do you submit your giveaway contests to?

This post is written by Miss Elle of Broke and Beautiful

Oh, the wide world of open-source software…

It’s brought pleasure and pain to the lives of aspiring bloggers everywhere. The leader of the pack for bloggers-going-pro? Wordpress, that magical publishing platform that allows full customization as well as a squeaky clean user interface that so many of us hold dear to our hearts.

Wordpress understands our needs for a categorized dashboard, a clean color palette, and WYSIWYG, well, everything. As we are fashion bloggers, I’m pleased to note that Wordpress also understands our need for unique style and a tailored fit, which is precisely why plugins are a fashion blogger’s best friend.

But which to choose? The Wordpress Plugin Archive boasts over 4,000 plugins from users who know the software from the inside out. Well, take it from a girl whose plugin addiction runs rampant – I’ve already done the trial-and-error for you.

There are four major categories of plugins that I deem absolutely necessary: Monetization and Traffic Building, Readability, Relationships, and Back End. Regardless of how long your blog has or hasn’t been around – you need these.

Traffic Building & Monetization

You don’t really have much of a blog if people aren’t visiting it. In a similar vein, you’ll likely never “go pro” without monetization… So this category is fairly important.

LinkWithin
This little gem of a plugin is not only has easiest installation process I’ve ever seen, but the work it does is invaluable. After installation and activation, the plugin pulls three related posts from your archive and displays them at the bottom of each post, complete with a thumbnail image from each related post. The setup takes 30 seconds, and the results are top notch.

ShareThis
Displays a button that allows readers to share your post via social network, email, instant message, or text message.

Events Calendar
Allows you to build and display a calendar of upcoming sales, shopping events, etc. via sidebar widget, or its own page. Giving readers a credible, one-look summary of all the sample sales will keep them coming back. (Plus, the link out of the calendar could easily be your referring URL, earning you a few bucks of spending cash!)

Post Footer
A simple plugin that places an ad (of your choice) between your content and the comments on a single post page. The in-dash user interface allows you to skip the code-skimming to replace or change the ad.

WP-Affiliate
If you’re a regular user of affiliate programs, this plugin will definitely ease your mind. Along with integration of Commision Junction’s database, this plugin allows you to mask those crazy affiliate URLs by using your own URL to redirect the reader.

Readability

Even if you have the best content out there, your message won’t come across if your readability is off. These plugins not only keep things on the aesthetically pleasing side, but also offer major functionality. You can only improve your blog by installing them.

iMax Width
Fashion bloggers love a hi-res image. Prevent your layout from getting screwed up by oversized photos by setting a maximum image width.

Google Translate
One of the greatest things about fashion is its international appeal and influence. This plugin allows readers from all over the world to translate your site via Google.

Ajax Edit Comments
This plugin gives your readers the ability to go back and edit their comments within a certain window of time after they’ve posted, you specify the amount. This eliminates the need for “correction comments” by your readers, as well as gives your commentators control.

Exclude Pages from Navigation
Well, this plugin is pretty self explanitory. If you’ve got pages that definitely belong on your site, but don’t necessarily belong in the main navigation bar, this plugin provides a check box which, when unchecked, removes pages and child pages from the main navigation bar.

Back End

These plugins aren’t pretty, and they don’t smell nice, but the work that they do on the inner workings of your blog is priceless.

Article Templates
If you’re like me, you have “columns” – or regular themes that you post on each week. This plugin allows you to store templates of these posts so you don’t need to format an empty post with your headers/footers/whatever when its time for your regularly scheduled feature.

Future Calendar
This plugin is especially good if you a) have your blog organized to the point where you only make x posts per day, or b) manage a multi-author blog. It allows you to see what days you have posts scheduled for from the edit post page. It’s also available as a widget to show your readers when they should expect to see posts.

Maintenance Mode
While it’s (hopefully) not a plugin you’ll use regularly, when it’s time to redesign your ever-changing layout, activating this plugin will put a simple “Under Construction” notice on the front page of your site, making it unavailable to everyone except for logged-in administrators.

Shortcut Macros
Is it super nerdy to have a favorite plugin? Well, regardless of the answer, this is mine. If you’re constantly adding the same code for the same links in different posts, you know it can be pretty annoying/time consuming/frustrating. Shortcut Macros allows you to use “codes” that are linked to text/HTML  (specified by you) to easily throw images, links, or text into your posts without having to enter the same 256 character HTML codes. For instance, “##ifb” could be a shortcut macro that, when inserted into a post as-is, would (when saved) populate the HTML code which would create this: Independent Fashion Bloggers.

Relationships

Building relationships could, quite possibly, be the most important part of becoming a succesful blogger. Forming and maintaining communicative relationships with your readers builds trust, credibility, and offers a more enjoyable experience for your readers – these plugins make building relationships a cinch.

Brian’s Threaded Comments
Brian and his threaded comments have really done a number for reader-blogger interaction. This plugin gives you the ability to respond to individual comments in a “nested” format.

WP Enhanced Form
Often times, when you invite readers to contact you, the site of an email address can ignite the laziness in some people – having to open up email programs, copy/click the link, format the email… When you just want to drop a note, it can seem a little time consuming to send an email. (Hey, I said for some people!) This plugin gives you a contact box that doesn’t require anything but your reader’s email address, their name, and their note.

CommentLuv
Bloggers love to comment to other bloggers – this is a fact. Why not show them some “luv” by using this plugin, which lists their last post (via RSS) as a link directly below their comment?

Comment Relish
This plugin sends off a customizable “Thanks for commenting!” email to each new reader who makes their first comment on your site. A great way to promote your RSS feed, an upcoming event, or a popular post.

WP Polls
I’m consistently baffled as to why Wordpress doesn’t include this feature in their builds. WP Polls gives you an extremely user-friendly, effective system of polling your readers. No registration is needed – just a click. It’s particularly good for obtaining demographic information about your readers.

Obvious-but-Honorable Mentions

These plugins definitely get an A+ from me, but they’re pretty standard fare, and only being included for any newbies who might be out there reading.

WordPress.com Stats – Gives you a full-featured view of how many people are reading your site. Includes referring site, out-click, search terms, and which posts were most viewed.

Akismet – An excellent spam filter for comments. (Included in your installation of Wordpress.)

Exec-PHP – Nearly idential to a regular text widget, installing this plugin will allow you to execute PHP commands from your sidebar and posts.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware that “21 Essential Plugins” is a bit of a stretch for the common blogger; however, I guarantee that once they’re all installed, configured and activated, you’ll be shocked at how smoothly your blog runs, and how much time you save. If you’re still uncomfortable with the idea of configuring 20+ plugins, I urge you to go through your blog, find out what you’re missing from your perfection of a mental image, and return to this list to see if any of these plugins fit the bill. Don’t be afraid to search for a specific plugin if you don’t see one here, either. Some of the best plugins I’ve found have been discovered via my googling “WP plugin makes images all the same size and stuff”.

Do you have a favorite plugin that’s not featured here? What is it and why do you love it?

Photos by: yonderlove & Patrice Speed

Style Metamorphosis

Edited by STYLEMOM

The Fashion life cycle is ever evolving. Trends come and go faster than ever propelled by the information stream of online and social media. With each change comes a new perspective and new creative ideas flourish. Human survival demands that you must adapt and change with your environment in order to survive and this is also true of fashion.. Even old ideas sometimes are reinvented and come full circle creating an impact on the latest trends. This week’s links include everything from DIY and recycled style, to new discoveries and changes in the fashion industry, representing a testament to the constant evolution of fashion.

There’s the full version of Links á la Mode here in the forums… there’s a lot of great posts there too.

Links à la Mode : May 15th

• Birdie at Bonne Vie is the cat’s meow clawing away at the bitchy & snark to open the door for positive girl power.
• Capitol Girl spreads her wings with butterfly jewels
• Dramatis Personae spins the color wheel of life’s fashion journey
• Hong Kong Fashon Geek teaches you the ancient art of locking your love with your closet
• Dirty Laundry spin dries into bat girl the DIY superhero
• The Coveted shares DIY beauty secrets from around the world with Shalini Vadhera
• Paint it Noir shows the artistic inspiration behind stunning jeweled creations
• The Culturista shreds and threads the latest gospel of denim
• Little Black Book puts it’s Fashionista star on Mischa Barton’s style revival
• Ondo Lady has the fever for the latest fashion video epidemic plaguing the web
• In Life and Fashion takes boho chic to a new level with designer Anna Sui
• Style Symmetry shows off her joie de vivre as she reinvents flapper chic
• Fashion Grail gives a frugally haute interpretation of Reese Witherspoon’s look
• Fashion Matchmaker gives a costume critique of this years Met Gala
• A Celebration of Curves travels back to Woodstock with a Summer of Love
• Agent Dreamer discovers a retro chic eco-accessory on Etsy
• Fete a Fete shows off Anne Hathaway’s sexy side with a Lancome give away
• WorkChic shows the curvalicious ladies super fab scarf stylings
• Brick My Lane straps on the shoulder pads and shows off her killer legs for her birthday
• The Capitol Fashionista uses a small budget to make a big dazzling statement
• Retro Chick shares 3 ways to wear structured shoulders.
• STYLEMOM pontificates on the potential end of a fashion era for American Vogue Magazine
• Independent Fashion Bloggers- How to run a successful and stylish blog giveaway

NOTE:

Since the launch of the new IFB, we’re currently in a limbo until I get the members imported. If you would like to submit your link for next week’s Links à la Mode, please register first, then post your links here. The HTML code for this week will be found in the Links a la Mode group (which you need to register first to access it).

~Jennine

By now many of you already know about Polyvore.com. Some of you may even use this website for your posts… and some of you may be using Photoshop (ahem, me) to create collages of items in the post. Sarah over at Polyvore.com and I had a chat where she let me know that’s it’s really a lot more than a collage making tool…

IFB: What is Polyvore? What can it do?
Sarah: Polyvore is a free, easy-to-use web-based application for mixing and matching items – shoes, shirts, skirts, bags, lipstick, nail polish, backgrounds, etc. – from anywhere on the web. It is also a vibrant community of creative and stylish people! With Polyvore, you can put together coordinated outfits, a visual wishlist, an interior design, a moodboard, a birthday card for a friend – pretty much anything you want.

You can see a demo of our editor tool here:
http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r41/polyvore/?action=view&current=editormovie.flv

Once an outfit is created, users publish them to the Polyvore community. Each outfit has a dedicated page on Polyvore, featuring a list of the items within the outfit, with a link to the store where it can be purchased, as well as the creator’s name, number of times viewed, the ability to embed the set within any website or online forum, Polyvore Groups that its in, commenting and favoriting, and color swatches that show the color theme of the outfit.

Fashion bloggers especially like Polyvore because they can easily use it as a tool to add professional, magazine-like spreads to their blog posts. For example, a post about celebrity style could include a picture of the celebrity, with a recreation of their outfit made on Polyvore.com. Or, a post about a particular color or style trend could include outfits that show many examples of that trend arranged in a set, or show a recommendation for how that trend could be worn within a look. All of the outfits created on Polyvore can be embedded into any post as long as they link back to Polyvore.com. And what’s even cooler is that all the product information is available on each outfit page – just a click away.

Sarah: We have all kinds of different members on Polyvore. Some are fashion and design students, some are professional stylists, some are retailers or small boutiques who have their own products featured on Polyvore, and some of them are just regular girls (and boys) who enjoy being creative and expressive.

Sarah: Polyvore has an ever-expanding collection of products that currently contains over one million items. Products find their way into Polyvore primarily through our members. Using a bookmarklet installed on the browser window, users can quickly pull products into Polyvore as they discover them on the web. Alternatively, products can be included on Polyvore by retailers themselves, such as American Eagle, Charlotte Russe, and Net-a-Porter, who supply us with a link to their latest catalog, which we then import into Polyvore.

Sarah: Polyvore can help fashion bloggers by giving them an easy way to express their posts visually, with real products. This adds a lot of value to their posts – which their readers will certainly appreciate! Bloggers also use Polyvore for contests – getting their readers involved by challenging them to create outfits within a certain theme, or using a specific item. This makes their blogs an interactive, two-way conversation that can contribute to their site’s growth.

IFB: Any success stories?
Sarah: Fashiontribes co-sponsored a contest with Intermix Online that was extremely successful and generated over 1500 outfits. The winners will be announced today, and five lucky stylists will each be receiving a $500 gift certificate to Intermix Online. Style Observer is a quickly growing fashion blog that uses Polyvore sets regularly to illustrate styles and trends in their blog posts. Finally, Gala Darling of iCiNG recently teamed up with ModCloth to sponsor a fashion challenge that her readers are really enjoying.

IFB: What are some upcoming or new features that are useful tools for blogging?
Sarah: Today, Polyvore will be launching a “Sites We Like” section on our Explore page. The Explore page is the heart of our community and gets over half a million pageviews per month. Blogs that regularly use Polyvore on their sites will have the opportunity to be featured here and gain extra traffic to their site, increasing their visibility to our community and growing their audience. For more information on this, interested bloggers can contact

We are also testing a feature that allows bloggers to embed the Polyvore editor on their site, so that their readers can put together looks using all of the products recommended by that blogger. You can see an example of this on a test blog we made called “Shop this Look” http://www.shopthislook.com We think this might be a really great tool to add interactivity to fashion blogs, and turn each and every one of us into seasoned stylists! If you’d like to be involved in the beta test of this program, please contact “info@polyvore.com“

Originally uploaded by icanteachyouhowtodoit

Let’s face it… there’s not a whole lot of money in fashion blogging. At first anyway. You have to work hard, work smart and be in the know.

You also have to have nice looking content, good writing, and be persistent.

Unfortunately… the nice content can be a challenge if you want to make your blog original. There are lots of free resources out there if you take the time to learn about internet culture, programming and professional blogging. One concept I’ve only recently come across is open source. If you are running your blog on Wordpress.org, you are probably aware of the amazing capabilities of this concept.

Open source is a set of principle around developing software, more specifically to us, it’s code that’s openly available. I find this topic really interesting, but for now… we can stick to the fact it’s free software… it’s free, but you can donate to the programmers if you like. I use WordPress and an open source template… the good part is it’s free, and I can customize it. The bad part is, I’m the one who has to do all the work.

Finding good programs to use is another issue so here are some places to look:

Images: Blogs like Just JR and Miss Dior Couture make wonderful collages with found images. I don’t know what software comes standard on you computer, but chances are, you may not have Photoshop. It’s an essential tool for blogging. I used it for nearly every post. If you can’t shell out the $1000 for a licence for CS2… try GIMP, it still has a bit of devlopment to do… but you can give it a try. I’ve seen the features, and it looks pretty extensive particularly for what we do as bloggers, so if you have a super old copy of Photoshop… you might want to give this a try.

Email: I don’t know what kind of blogger doesn’t need a good email program. I use gmail for all my accounts. I recently bought a domain name, and didn’t want to have to pay for the extra hosting for the emails, so I used google apps. With that, you can have like 100 email addresses and it uses the gmail interface, so I didn’t have to learn anything new. I’ve also heard that Mozilla Thunderbird is a great email application.

Hosting: If you are just starting out, and are intimidated by paying up front for hosting (many companies give a discount if you pay up front) going to NearlyFreeSpeech allows you to pay for what you use. A beginning blogger may not use too much space… so it’s worth a dabble. As you learn what you need, you’ll feel more comfortable about investing in your website. Again… I know I should have said this earlier, but it helps to have your own domain name. They aren’t expensive… but after I had to move from Blogger to Wordpress, it was a hastle to inform everyone… change all my feeds, etc… I lost traffic, and my new site doesn’t have the same pagerank as my old one. But now I have way more traffic than before… pagerank… well.. that’ will change too.

Templates: When I moved, it was because I couldn’t find the right templates to with my old platform. Wordpress has tons of open source templates it was just a matter of finding one I liked with a support forum that I gelled with. Once I got my site up and running the author of the code complimented on the work I did! It was really nice.

Tracking your blog: I used to use Technorati, but lately I’ve lost interest in them because I knew that there were links that weren’t showing up. Google now has a blog search that you can Google your blog address and it will search the entire internet for every link that pops up. It also has an RSS feed option so it can also email you when someone links to you!

Image by icanteachyouhowtodoit

This is the third time since I started blogging in July that I’ve gotten that irritating “sorry” message with sad face from Technorati. Is my blog really “under review”? Are latex leggings and Anne Boleyn controversial? Perhaps my desire for fish feet is in such bad taste that I’ve been singled out for the sad face! Damn you, fish haters! Today, I read in the New York Times that David Sifry, the founder of Technorati, likes to monitor his own blog mentions and comment back. David, please come here and explain yourself! Change me from a harsh critic to an evangelist! Until David Sifry turns up, you other bloggers who have experienced Technorati problems are free to vent here.

It’s a little-known fact that Munch painted The Scream while dealing with Technorati.