Blog Better Have My Money: From Blogger to Entrepreneur
Hilary Sloan of ShopStyle talks monetizing your blog and more!
The best part about being a successful entrepreneur and influencer is not the freebies or VIP access; it’s being able to use your creativity to share your passion with the world. Arguably, one of the biggest measures of success is to take your creative output and turn it into a business. Our successful colleagues in this industry who are savvy about monetization wear so many hats! Photography, styling, editing, PR, and sales, to name a few skills. So . . . how are you going to get from blogger to entrepreneur?
BE AUTHENTIC
It sounds easy, but it’s going to get much harder when the prospect of a much-needed paycheck is dangled in front of you. We all have been fans of a favorite blogger, only to watch her scale in following and then see her content become one irrelevant ad after another. It feels inauthentic. It alienates your hard-earned user base.
Don't be afraid to say no when a proposed partnership feels off-brand. Be polite, and if you choose, perhaps keep the door open for the future. Focus your brand partnership outreach where partnerships feel organic and where you know you can really create fun and compelling content. Here’s an example from my own social media platform (actually it's my dog's platform, but she's truly fabulous): I passed on a partnership with a brand because it didn't feel like it made sense with Ella Bean’s luxury persona, and I later saw the brand partner with some of the biggest names in social media. The campaign TOTALLY worked on those social channels, but it wouldn't have worked on mine. I was excited for my colleagues, and the agency actually told me they respected that I was so honest (polite, of course!). The flip side is we partnered with a luxury vacuum cleaner to make a fun video, and it was one of my top-performing posts in terms of likes and comments. The content was fun, on brand, and relatable. Engagement that is aligned with your organic content should be a benchmark of success for your business as you negotiate deals.
ORGANIC INCOME
Monetizing your platform(s) isn’t all about giant deals and big paychecks.
Are you using affiliate links? No? Then stop what you are doing and go sign up for ShopStyle Collective. No, really. It's hands down the easiest way to monetize your content from day one. The open platform makes it easy to sign up no matter where you are in your blogging career, and the tools make it simple to create tracking links on all your favorite products, enabling you to monetize all the content you are creating anyway. Vloggers and Instagrammers: you can optimize with these tools, too. We've got you covered. Don't wait until you've got a certain amount of followers or think because you might be newer to blogging that affiliate monetization isn't for you. Starting to consistently create affiliate links from day one ensures you'll grow your revenue as you scale your following. Bonus: you’ll also have insights into products and brands your users click and purchase. You can use this information to help guide some of your content and glean insights into consumer trends. You’re now empowered to be a consumer expert AND you are making money.
OPTIONS, OPTIONS, OPTIONS
While you are creating content with all those affiliate links, don't forget to give your readers options. We all obviously want the gorgeous Chloé crossbody bag you are rocking in your post, but your readers may have budgets that fall on the lower end of the spectrum. Use widgets to create options at the bottom of each post to give options at multiple price points. This is also a great tool when you are showcasing something from a past season or if you focus on vintage. Experts tell me that the rule of thumb is to have three to five options on the primary focal piece in your post. That amount of product is digestible for readers and manageable for you. Plus, you can just plug in your search term into ShopStyle and voilà! Options galore. You are welcome.
THINK MOBILE
We all know that converting users to make purchases on mobile is challenging, and that really is a bummer considering more and more users are spending time consuming your content on mobile. It’s time to get creative. One idea could be to create a newsletter signup so you can email users links to what you've worn. Make sure you stay up to date as new innovations roll out to get your users shopping on their smartphones. Challenge your affiliate partner to give you mobile monetizing options. Don't forget your mobile ad placements. If you've got banners and widgets on your site, optimize some of those placements for mobile, and don't miss out on that audience. Prepare yourself — mobile money is going to be all of our BFF.
THINK BEYOND THE BLOG (AND INSTAGRAM)
Your properties are incredibly important, and you should be creating content that drives users across your various channels. That said, maybe your photos are incredible. Have you thought about marketing your photography to your clients and time as a photographer for brands to use on their content? Are you a killer stylist and could crush the styling on your favorite brand's next lookbook? Can you edit a closet or stage an insane vignette? Brands crave unique content ideas. Get experience doing something that sets you apart from the pack as you grow your business. Offer those services to small brands or powerful influencers that you align with, build your portfolio, and barter for social and blog post mentions while you grow. You'll make deep relationships that will last a lifetime. You’ll benefit from editorial features and social mentions that will help you scale and gain experience that makes you totally unique.
Bonus tip: not all payments happen to be made via money. Social currency is incredibly valuable when scaling your presence online. If a brand doesn't have a budget to work with you but you know that brand is an ideal partner, think about how to make it worth your while. Trade content for features on their various channels. Make the content and social exchange a recurring feature.
Through all of this, don’t forget to have fun. You got into this world to create your own business, so enjoy the process and remember to savor the wins and view challenges as opportunities to push your skill set and learn. Cheesy but true: in my experience, the hardest challenges I’ve come up against have made me smarter, made me faster, and allowed me to score higher revenue opportunities than before.
Hilary Sloan leads ShopStyle’s East Coast business development team and works with top brands like Net-a-Porter.com, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Barneys New York to monetize via affiliate and creative partnerships. In building relationships with brands and working with ShopStyle and ShopStyle Collective’s blogger community, she realized that many young bloggers don’t quite have the tools to get started on building their business. She’s spoken in the past at Create + Cultivate, IFB, and other blogger conferences on the topic of monetization, revenue, and brand partnerships. When not at ShopStyle, Hilary can be found applying all her skills to her own mini influencer, her dog, Ella Bean.
MORE ON THE BLOG
SnapChat Is Now Shoppable Thanks to This App
All it took was two emojis.
When there's an app, there's a hack. Especially when it comes to brands figuring out how to monetize social platforms that aren't yet shoppable. Like Snapchat.
Since its launch Snapchat has been the mystery meat in the social media sandwich, confusing brands and influencers alike on just how to use it. There are a couple of kinks in the snap chain: it's difficult to know how many followers you have, the videos are only available to your followers for 24 hours, and there is no way to link out.
Until now.
"Since launch Snapchat has been the mystery meat in the social media sandwich, until now."
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PopSugar owned ShopStyle is offering the first solution to the "what now" problem of Snapchat, introducing a new e-commerce app called Emoticode™. PopSugar CEO Brian Sugar told Digiday, "It was clear that people wanted to take action from our snaps and it wasn’t as easy as it could be. The lightbulb went off."
That lightbulb lead the way to Emoticode™, a Snapchat companion app which uses the combination of emoticons and screen shots to create what is effectively an affiliate link program. Sugar again, told Digiday, “It works for shopping. It will work for recipes, workouts, articles, really anything you want to engage more with beyond a snap or an Instagram post.”
Here's how it works:
ShopStyle Collective members can search a product they want to share on Snapchat or Instagram. When they tap “Copy Emoticode” below the product, a shortened affiliatized emoji link is created. The first two characters are emojis. They paste the unique emoticode in their post.
The Collective members receive credit for the clicks and conversions made through the Emoticode™ integration.
Followers will need to download the ShopStyle App or the Emoticode™ App, screenshot the post with the unique emoticode, and upload it in the ShopStyle app to shop the product that's being shared.
It's not completely seamless because there is still no way to link out directly from Snapchat, which has yet to introduce brand integration into the platform, but it is the first app that has addressed the two main issues everyone has asked from gate: why do we use this and how does this make us money?
Emoticode™ is the first way to track sales and facilitate revenue sharing for influencers. It may also encourage bloggers who have yet to really engage on Snapchat to integrate the app into their social playbook.
"Emoticode™ is the first way to track sales and facilitate revenue sharing for influencers."
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Julia Engel of Gal Meets Glam (and C&C DTLA mentor) told Digiday, “I really like the idea of Emoticode, especially because the screen-shotting behavior is so natural. I screenshot everything.”
It will also save time for bloggers who are spending time answering individual messages from followers about what they're wearing.
For brands, the power of Snapchat is yet to be seen, but this is the first real step in Snap monetization.
via Brian Sugar
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Your Blog Is Money and You Don't Even Know It
Affiliate marketing is the gateway to $ marketing.
SO YOU'VE GOT A BLOG.
Your analytics are telling you that people are reading your content. Now you know you want to make the leap into monetization on your website without losing your authentic voice. What’s next?
AFFILIATE MARKETING.
I know it doesn’t sound sexy, but I can assure you, it is. This is your gateway to $$$!
Affiliate marketing at its core is simply placing trackable links within your content to get paid when your users shop. Aside from the obvious benefit of getting paid for promoting products you already love, affiliate marketing will give you data around your shoppers’ behaviors. This data will be crucial for you as you learn about your demographic. You’ll gain insights into what products and brands your readers respond to. You can then use these statistics and success stories as part of your media kit and story when speaking to brands and marketing yourself. You’ve just armed yourself to become an insanely professional, money-making machine.
[define it: Affiliate Marketing: At its core this practice is simply placing trackable links within your content to get paid when your users shop.]
You are probably wondering where you go to get these mysterious monetizable links. If you haven’t already, create an account on ShopStyle Collective, ShopStyle’s influencer network. You’re going to be able to access links, data on your link performance, and insights into your shoppers’ behaviors in one handy login. There’s even an app so you can monetize on the go!
Now that you’ve got your ShopStyle Collective account, there are a variety of ways to create links. You can do so within the interface, use the toolbar link generator, or create widgets for your blog. It’s fairly self-explanatory.
Now that we’ve discussed why and how, let’s talk about the most important issue: where.
You don’t want your site to look like one big advertisement, nor do you want to miss out on opportunities to earn revenue. The goal with affiliate marketing is to build upon content you are creating organically and simply add another layer of visual interest, while driving your readers to brands and products you love.
"The goal with affiliate marketing is to build upon content you are creating organically."
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Affiliate marketing also gives you a lens through which to think about your content calendar — do you want to create entire style guides for a season with looks for every occasion? Link those products! Create gift guides for holidays and special occasions. I personally love content where bloggers create how-tos and share ideas for how to wear trends or incorporate statement pieces. One of my favorite bloggers, The12ish Style, does a series where she re-creates celebrity looks in her own unique style. I actually just bought a sweater today from one of these posts (proof they actually work!).
KEY TIPS FOR PLACING LINKS
Make sure you are hyperlinking any photographs on your blog to the primary item you are showcasing.
Always use text and hyperlink, describing your products right underneath the top photo of your post — many readers won’t scroll down to read your entire post.
Hyperlink any text that describes a product throughout your post.
Provide alternatives — if you are showing a $2,000 Chloé bag, you can contrast that with a more affordable bag in a similar style as an added opportunity to drive traffic and convert your readers into shoppers.
Another great spot for links is within a scrolling widget beneath your post. ShopStyle Collective’s widget helps you generate a scrolling visual where you can add multiple product options beneath each post. These products can be directly related to your content or they can be another place to get fun and creative. Let’s say you are posting an amazing recipe for truffle french fries or a crazy-cool birthday cake. You can include your favorite cooking tools, new apron, dishes, or serving pieces in the widget beneath the post to impart additional visuals, stylish objects, and drive more traffic to shopping partners. The idea here is to give your readers access to your aspirational lifestyle, which they already want to re-create for themselves (and their own Instagrams).
One more idea: use the widgets for vacation packing lists — so necessary (and shoppable) with all the summer travel opportunities right around the corner!
Hilary Sloan leads ShopStyle’s North American business development team and works with top brands like Net-a-Porter.com, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Barneys New York to monetize via affiliate and creative partnerships. In building relationships with brands and working with ShopStyle and ShopStyle Collective’s blogger community, she realized that many young bloggers don’t quite have the tools to get started on building their business. She’s spoken in the past at Create + Cultivate, IFB, and other blogger conferences on the topic of monetization, revenue, and brand partnerships. When not at ShopStyle, Hilary can be found applying all her skills to her own mini influencer, her dog, Ella Bean.
Holiday Giving with ShopStyle's First Ever Charity Blogger Drive
'Tis the season for giving, and ShopStyle, the fashion search engine and e-commerce site, is hosting their first blogger drive.
'Tis the season for giving, and ShopStyle, the fashion search engine and e-commerce site, is hosting their first blogger drive.
The way it works is simple. On December 8th, bloggers who have signed up will publish a blog post featuring photos of them in a "power outfit." In the blog post, they tell their readers about what they wear to feel confident, and then share a story about the people who have helped empower them.
Bloggers make a promise to donate 10% of sales from the 8th-9th to Dress for Success, and ShopStyle will match 100%!
Every participant will be featured on the landing page and ShopStyle will link directly to each blog.
When we asked Eugenia Chien, Senior Manager of Strategic Partnerships at POPSUGAR (ShopStyle's parent company) why Dress for Success was the perfect fit, she said, "Working with bloggers everyday, ShopStyle sees that the blogger community is a tight knit group of women who have empowered one another along the way. Dress for Success has helped so many women achieve economic independence through a supportive network and providing women with style that makes them feel confident. That's the same kind of support and inspiration we see in our blogger community."
Dress for Success is a non-profit organization that provides new interview clothing, confidence boots, and career development to low-income women in over 75 cities worldwide.
Spread the word about ShopStyle's first ever Blogger Drive that partners with Dress for Success.
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Bloggers who have already signed up include: Gal Meets Glam, 9 to 5 Chic, and The Skinny Confidential. Sign up now and join the other women who are spreading fashionable Christmas cheer!