Elle.com

Ever had a cab driver ask you how you are and not drive you to your destination before you answer him sincerely? Well this was my arrival in NYC on Feb.15th for the IFB Evolving Influence Conference. Right then and there I knew it was going to be a great day. The perfect start to a day filled with messages of the importance of being sincere, honest and true.

Panel One: Fashion Blog Marketing Workshop

Moderator: Jordana Bruner / Clutch 22

Panelists: Pamela Castillo/Market Publique, Connie Leigh/Threadbanger, Erika Miller/Elle.com, Nicole Pace/Stylemom, Melody Biringer/CRAVE Company, as well as a guest appearance by Shubhankar Ray of G-Star.

This was an interesting panel because everyone on the panel had a message of passion; start with something you love. Marketing something you love is always so much easier than something you don’t because your message will be sincere. Chances are, if you love it, there are thousands out there waiting for someone to lead them. Having G-Star on this panel was very interesting.  Here we were a room full of over 200 independent bloggers at the cusp of this movement, making up the rules as we go, shaping this new medium as it slowly affects the fashion industry. The panelists were all saying you need to have your brand message solid before you even start, and here is G-Star a branded company saying – wait, maybe not. The brand is the anti-brand. Maybe we want to appeal to the independence in people and stay on the cusp, right on the fringe. He compared the independent fashion blogs to the the style magazines that erupted from punk and street style movement in the early eighties in Manchester, England. Some of style magazines started as xeroxed pages highlighting the style du jour. Fast-forward 20 or so years, and some of these leaflets are fighting for their editorial lives because they became the most influential magazines and struggle because of the medium. Maybe they have lost their original passion of promoting style versus promoting the one the can afford the advertising. As you can see this was a very interesting panel. I am so excited to watch and be a part of how it unfolds. Click here to see some video that Aneta from Bobbin Talk captured of this panel.

Panel Two:The Business of Blogging

Photo via GalaDarling

Moderator: Yuli Ziv/My It Things

Panelists: Gala Darling/iCiNG, Lauren Dimet Waters/Second City Style, Dina Fierro/Eye4Style, Aubree Nicols/Urban Signals, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond/Bluefly

Are you blogging for fun, or do you hope someday your blog can make money? Here are some of the themes that stood out for me on this panel.

Honesty: This panel was very honest about different things that have worked for each panelist’s particular blog. Lauren was very honest about the fact that Second City Style started as a business, turned into a hobby, and is now a thriving business about to hit their fifth anniversary. She noted the way you end up being able to monetize your blog may not be what you originally intended.

Originality: Gala began writing a book in addition to blogging and other freelance work, that’s a lot of work. She realized creating podcasts of the chapters as she wrote them would be interesting to her followers, now they can purchase them as they come out.

Advertising: All the panelists agree that advertising is important but you have to be honest about your page views (though page views aren’t all that matter), and be choosy about whether you sign on with an agency that generates ads for your blog versus pounding the internet pavement getting advertisers yourself. The message was clear about affiliate programs: be very careful and don’t let it dictate your content. The other piece of the puzzle, Gala said it very clearly: you have to want to write, love to write, and love what you are writing about. This will keep people coming back and build a loyal following. If you start going off topic because of an affiliate program, you will lose followers, lose page views, and eventually lose money.

Do your homework: Dina Fierro was great to have on the panel because not only is she a blogger she also works for a PR/social media company, her perspective of seeing both sides of the coin was very informative. If you are pitching to a blogger because you want to be written up, be sincere (can you see the theme here) and be on target with the blogs overall content. Approach the blogger with a personal message about your product that you really believe would benefit the community of this particular blogger. You will know what that message should be because you will have done your homework and read the blog you want to feature you. Get to know the blog and you will inherently write an email that not only intrigues the blogger but excites the blogger to research you.

Panel 3: Navigating Blog Ethics

Moderator: Wendy Brandes/ Wendy Brandes Jewelry

Panelists: Imran Amed/Business of Fashion, Diane Pernet/A Shaded View on Fashion, Gina Garrubbo/BlogHer, Clark Hoyt/ New York Times, Mary Scherpe/Still in Berlin, Jessica Schroeder/What I Wore

This panel brought up some really interesting points about what is accepted/expected of blogs and how traditional media has stricter guidelines as far as what is ethical when you are writing in terms of accepting gifts, products, and perks. Throw fashion industry practices of accepted gift-giving into the mix and you have a rock and a hard place for fashion blogs. Having Clark Hoyt (NYTimes) there sitting next to Jessica (What I Wore) was perfect because they are at different ends of the spectrum in terms of generation and traditional media v.s new media.  Jessica’s is happy to accept a piece of clothing from a designer or brand and write about it as long as she tells her readers. All on the panel agreed this is fine as long as they disclose the fact that a product was given to them to review by calling it a sponsored post or coming right out and saying so. (Though maybe not all in the audience agreed!) Clark’s advice to all of was to avoid scandal. We as bloggers don’t want to be the blog scandal every other blogger is writing about because of an unethical indiscretion.

So for any of you out there who don’t already know, when you see a Sponsored Post that means the blogger received either money or free product to write that post. Gina from BlogHer (a network of 2500 blogs) said they deal with the issue of advertisers or brands by starting a dialogue within specific blogs with relevant content to the brand. The posts that come from this are put in a special area of each individual blog, and do not show up in the editorial content of the blogs. I thought this was an interesting and diplomatic way of handling this sticky subject.

Imran, of BOF, was the one to say wait, let’s look at the fashion industry as a whole. There is industry wide gift-giving going on. Editors of magazines receive hotel rooms full of gifts during fashion week from brands wooing them. He asked the question: Should fashion bloggers be held to a different set of industry best practices than magazine editors? For me, I think if magazines want to survive the growing influence of fashion blogs they may have to give up the content driven by money in the way of perks and advertising. Go back to their roots of being passionate about about fashion and style regardless of who has the most money in their magazine. Diane Pernet agreed with the dilemma of the accepted gift-giving practices of fashion industry and added it doesn’t matter if it is a bottle of shampoo or a Prada bag being given to you. I have to agree with her, the action and the outcome are the same. Someone gave a blogger something, blogger writes about it, good, bad or ugly. The action of giving something prompted someone to write about something they might not have ever written about had it never been given.

There were a couple of big concerns coming from all the panelists. As a blogger if you have a great following, or are trying to build a great following, don’t let yourself be taken advantage of by companies that want to get in front of your audience. Protect yourself and realize you have a great product and it is your job to protect it. Don’t be swayed by the topic of the day or by freebies, if it isn’t something you wouldn’t write about don’t.  Most importantly, always, always be honest. Also very important, from Gala and agreed upon by other panelists: leave the negativity to someone else. Nothing good will come of it. If you don’t like something don’t write about it. Silence is a far greater force than being negative, for even negative press is still press. The negativity may have a way of biting you back one day.

I am so sad I couldn’t make the last panel due to holiday train schedules that day. One of the trials and tribulations of having headquarters in Chester, CT. We will find coverage of the last panel and get the info to you.

Huge congratulations to Jennine for organizing,  Jordana, Yuli, and Wendy for moderating, and sponsors: American Express, G-Star Raw, ModCloth, Windows 7, Degree Red Satin as well as all the panelists and volunteers – many, many thanks. It was a great day!

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