STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Kitty · Hermes

I started a blog - advice?

Kelly · Hermes

first - I'm glad you started a blog! I've always loved your outfit posts

I don't know much about taking pictures with an iphone - I take pictures with a digital camera that has a timer - but one easy thing to do would be to crop your pictures down in photoshop or even MS Paint so you don't have the wall/mirror edges in there?

I also try to take my photos as pretty large files, so I can scale them down in an image editor which takes away some graininess if I have it, etc. And if you have photoshop, I usually do Auto Levels, Auto Colors, and Auto Contrast on all of them. It's super quick (I think it's in different places depending on the photoshop version so just search your Help for those phrases) and while it doesn't always make everything look better, I end up keeping the Auto Levels adjustments about 75% of the time and the Auto Colors maybe half the time or a bit less. Auto Contrast I can't always tell a difference unless it's a closeup jewelry shot or something.

Auto Levels fixes the brightness (so if you took it on a cloudy day or sunny day it will even things out)
Auto Colors fixes the colors (so if the light you took it in had a particularly yellowish cast or something, it will get rid of that)
Auto Contrast puts darker edges between color changes, I think.

Boots · Gucci

I'm so glad you decided to do it! I already clicked to follow. aww

I've always thought you had a great eye for styling your outfits. Maybe you could give more detail of why you decided to pair your items together? A blog I like to read is Gigi's Gone Shopping because she injects her personality into her posts. I'm betting you have fun planning out your outfits and would be great at letting your readers into your thought process.

I really like reading about your ebay items and how you plan on switching up the purchases with other items. Maybe you could do a bit on that (example, what else in your closet are you going to use with the sheath dress? Cardis? Accessories?)

I really look forward to reading you future posts!

Suasoria · Chanel

Cool, I just added myself as a follower.

I really like pairing the web/catalog photos of the item with your IRL photos. This should help people picture how something will look different/better on them.

I would take the time to write more text to go along with the photos in each post. You never know what people are searching for on google, but I come across interesting blogs all the time depending on what I'm shopping for (wine red slingback peep toe, camel crewneck cotton cardigan, etc.). You don't have to get all SEO-y, but I think you'd improve your 'findability' with some good descriptive text.

Another friend posts a lot of items she likes/covets, with a little bit about why she likes them, which I like because you get a sense of her style even when she's not taking pictures of herself. (Actually she rarely takes pictures of herself.) She'll include housewares/decor items she likes too, so it's more a general 'design/taste' blog versus a fashion diary. Just an idea that may inspire you!

Aurora · Marc Jacobs

Are you trying to make this more of a "focused" blog or a personal blog. If it is more of a personal blog (covering many subjects) then a quick and easy way to get followers is to start participating in the daily/weekly blog carnivals (sometimes called memes). The most popular one is Wordless Wednesday where you just post a photo of something you like and then you link up with other sites and hop around visiting others (leaving your link behind). People will then be inclined to read other posts and make weekly visits. There are tons of these types of things related to a lot of subjects - photography, crafting, reading, etc so you can get a wide range of people stopping by. You could also try to tailor it to fit your "niche" but that could start to get complicated.

Boots · Gucci

Just wanted to tell you that I love the new posts you've made on the blog. That DVF collection is insane! biggrin

I also really like the etsy post.