Most bloggers complain about how the blogosphere is such a saturated industry, and how difficult it is stand out or get noticed. Some bloggers wonder how they would ever get noticed with new blogs popping up every minute, with new bloggers thinking they could be the next Zoella. I kind of understand where this ideology is coming from. I mean, all you need to do is to go through the #prrequest, #bloggerswanted or #bloggersrequired (I use these hashtags too) on Twitter to understand this point of view. The blogging world is a lot noisier now than when I set up Fashion and Style Police, three years ago.
Call me crazy, but I don’t see other bloggers as competitors, I see them as colleagues, and I don’t see any other blog worthy of me copying. I believe every blogger has something new to offer, a story to tell. We all go through life and have different experiences which influence our blogs, and that is our you-niqueness. It could be through how we style our outfits, our writing voice, our photographs, what we photograph, the critical eye we use in reviewing products or anything, every blogger is unique and every blog has the opportunity to shine.
The problem really is bloggers not setting up blogs to stand out, not bothering or wanting to offer their readers something different. They want to go down the ‘safe route’, which they believe is guaranteed success, so they publish tried and tested posts like ‘this month’s empties’, ‘outfit of the day’, ‘product review’ and so on. They go for blog content that they believe is guaranteed to get them noticed. There is nothing wrong with this post ideas (I feature some of them), or getting inspiration from other blogs or magazines (we all do that), the issue is bloggers taking inspiration a little too far by copying other blogs, and not bothering to put their own spin on their posts.
The issue is bloggers not being confident enough to celebrate their voice, they feel they have to write what everyone else is writing, wear what every top blogger is wearing, but the question is how do you stand out when you follow the pack? How do you make a name for yourself when you have nothing that sets you apart.
You copy other bloggers’ poses, writing style, tweets, outfits and you want to get noticed?
Everyone else is taken so I rather do ME. I celebrate my blog and all it represents, and I make sure I keep it a 100 every time I hit publish. I am not afraid to stand out. All the pictures in the post are from my early days of blogging in 2012 with my good old point and shoot Fujifilm camera, and my style being all over the place. My pictures are a lot better now with a Canon DSLR, and I have twerked my style as well, but sometimes I like to look back to where I started, so I can appreciate where I am, and keep my eye on where I want to be, and just ignore the noise.
Fashion and Style Police will be 3 in few weeks and I will be featuring a big giveaway soon so keep your eye out for that. In the meantime, enter my current competitions here and here, if you havn’t already.
Do you struggle to blog the way you want? Do you struggle to stand out from the noisy blogging pack? Drop me a comment, let’s chat.