According to the Pew Internet Project’s PIP Blogging Report, forty-six% of bloggers are a lady and the numbers are growing. However, many female bloggers are slightly dissatisfied with the shortage of reputation in their industry. After per week of research, I asked myself why aren’t ladies extra prominent on the web? Besides fashion and superstar blogs, a median of 12% of girls appears inside the pinnacle, a hundred of each listing of all the blog ranking lists. And a few assets have the nerve to think that fashion blogs are “non-public diaries of favor.” After doing a little research, I found out why so many bloggers and readers today perceive women bloggers differently than men:
- Many guys bloggers don’t link to girls bloggers.
- Less than 10% of ladies are political bloggers.
- 60% of ladies created blogs are labeled as “personal diaries.
- Nearly 88% of pinnacle bloggers are white American guys.
- Some men do not recognize being lectured by using women.
Instead of studying RSS feeds and learning list after list, I determined to move immediately to the source to get extra answers and discover how ladies power bloggers reached achievement, how they reach their readers, and what they consider the discrimination closer to expert women bloggers in latest running a blog network.
I communicated with 4 very one-of-a-kind ladies bloggers (Chanel Ward/Hip Candy, Charlene Li/Groundswell: Winning In a World Transformed by way of Social Technologies, Michele Obi/My Fashion Life, and Julie Strietelmeier/The Gadgeteer) and asked them the identical five questions: What is the point of interest of your weblog and why did you select this specific area of interest? If you can describe your readers in three sentences or much less, what would you assert?
How has blogging advanced your career?
On average, the best 12% of girls bloggers have featured on the top one hundred lists. Why do you observe that is? If you could deliver one word of advice to ladies bloggers today, what wouldn’t it be? After speaking with these ladies, I found out that an “electricity blogger” has nothing to do together with your ranking on a listing; however, the satisfaction of your posts, the notice of your reader’s desires, and the ability to look beyond repute and fortune and stay true in your situation remember. This is part one among an element collection presenting girls bloggers who have changed the arena’s perspectives and their readers. Today’s featured blogger is Chanel Ward from Hip Candy and Charlene Li from Groundswell: Winning In a World Transformed using Social Technologies.
Chanel Ward / Hip Candy
It’s hard to pick out one of my favorite blogs. However, Hip Candy could be very near my coronary heart. From the tag line, “sweet… But not in that fattening type a manner” to the blog’s owner, Chanel Ward, Hip Candy is sparkling, interesting, and new. Fashion designer/image artist/writer Chanel Ward was featured as 225 Magazine’s Top People To Watch in 2008 and for the accurate purpose. After being the voice for America’s Next Top Model Interviews and one of the finalists for Project Runaway’s fan preferred blogs, this fashionista changed into invited to experience and write about Fashion Week and is soon launching the great deal predicted garb line Hip Couture. Blazing a character and fashion trail, her blog, and her career have a life of their own but don’t take my phrase for it.
1. What is your blog’s focus, and why did you pick out this unique area of interest?
The cognizance of Hip Candy is my tagline. Fashion. Celebrity. Entertainment. Me. That’s basically what I blog approximately in a nutshell! I want to think about my weblog as fashionable fun! I selected this area of interest because my history is in Fashion Design (I graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles, 1999 – http://www.Fidm.Com). I’ve continually been intrigued via celeb culture, so I just thought it would be a journey to begin a laugh web site that would focus on those matters. At saAt time, it’d preserve me abreast of what became occurring inside the [fashion] enterprise. Hip Candy is a laugh discussion board for readers to return and percentage their critiques on style (the latest tendencies, style donuts…) celeb (what they were sporting, what have been they questioning?!) the ultra-modern happenings in leisure, with a bit little bit of what’s happening with me thrown in for properly degree.
2. If you can describe your readers in three sentences or much less, what might you be saying?
I changed into amazed to research these days that many of my readers are as young as 12! But I additionally have more “seasoned” readers, girls over 50 and past, as well as each age (and gender) in between. Hip Candy readers are very opinionated. Although most of them usually trust most things I opine and “wax poetic” about, they do not usually agree with the entirety I put down, and that is ok! Having a difference of opinion is what makes us particular! One of my most commented posts (69 comments at final depend) has a firestorm of robust reviews on it from beginning to finish (http://hipcandy.Blogspot.Com/2007/03/fashion-verdict-hetero-men-in-heels.Html) Anyone who takes the day out of their busy day to click onto to Hip Candy, examine a put up and percentage their opinions is greater than o.K. With Me.
3. How has run a blog advanced your career?
Wow. That’s this type of loaded query! I’d by no means definitely considered myself an “author,” however, after beginning Hip Candy, and I slowly started to permit myself to think in any other case. My blog has already reached ranges that I would not have imagined once I started it. I figured it would just be a fun hobby. The reaction because I began it’s been phenomenal already! It’s very humbling. Some of the more noteworthy advancements had been 1) exposure to the hundreds from conducting the “Top Model” interviews 2) getting credentialed and being invited to Fashion Week from my style insurance at the weblog coupled with stable readership three) That equal strong readership translating into monthly advert sales generated on Hip Candy 4) all-fee paid journeys to cowl exchange shows and occasions ([http://blogs.Dreambrizo.Com/kbis_2007/]) 5) recognition and acknowledgment from magazines, and in the end and the end, 6) built-in name reputation for a destiny clothing release! Blogging has genuinely been a marvel and a blessing, and I looked forward to greater in 2008!
4. On common, the handiest 12% of girls bloggers are featured on top 100 lists. Why do you watch that is?
I hadn’t heard this statistic earlier than, but it is pretty staggering given that I did hear that approximately 1/2 of the people blogging proper now are ladies. I do not virtually recognize why more women aren’t considered top bloggers. I want to find that out myself. I’d love to discover what we as ladies ought to do to stage the playing area. I’m not as privy as I’d want to be on how to blog ranking works. I’ve made a pair of lists in the past; however, except you’re a web page like Technorati who ranks blogs on several unique statistically primarily based standards, I’m now not positive how a lot of weight it holds. That being stated, I’m continually thankful to be protected on humans’ “Top” list, whatever the standards!
5. If you can supply one word of recommendation to women bloggers today, what wouldn’t it be?
My word of advice to girls bloggers would be not to surrender! Many of us who may also have a robust voice on anything fall by the wayside after starting blogs and does not ever see the full fruit of what could have been. Unless you’re a celeb, no person ever begins out with millions of readers! I’m still striving for that myself! So it’s truly a method, and developing pains are a part of that procedure. I can recall when my mom and a few of my friends made up everything of my readership. But if you’re setting out exact content material, readers will usually comply with it. Have religion in yourself and what you are doing! Especially if you adore it.
Charlene Li / Groundswell: Winning In a World Transformed through Social Technologies
Charlene Li is aware of what she’s talking approximately, and she is passionate about it. Groundswell: Winning In a World Transformed through Social Technologies is an excellently written blog on the internet duration. Charlene is an expert on technology like blogs and social networking and uses this information to lead the marketing and research group at Forrester.
Charlene does not just write about her passion, and she consults others approximately trends and methods surrounding her area of interest. She is one of the maxima quoted analyst and has appeared on The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, CNN, NPR, and BBC, in addition to The Wall Street, Journal, The New York Times, and BusinessWeek. As a dependent on truth, while scripting this biography and getting to know Charlene’s accomplishments, an industrial for 60 mins phase on Facebook turned into marketed, Charlene furnished history on that tale. Reading Charlene’s blog has, in my opinion, superior my career as a technology leader inside my enterprise and has kept me completely updated on progressive advertising and marketing solutions thru social networks and blogging. I am very commemorated to have her take some time to reach out to my readers on girls’ subjects and running a blog.
1. What is your blog’s focal point, and why did you pick this particular niche?
The recognition is trends in interactive and social technology mainly for marketing purposes. The focal point is mostly on the usage of social technologies and supports a new book that I was published in April 2008. The blog is an extension of my work at Forrester Research.
2. If you may describe your readers in three sentences or much less, what would you assert?
I have 3 particular readers: 1) Businesspeople inquisitive about leverage interactive and social technologies, on the whole in advertising and marketing; 2) Influential press and bloggers; three) Thought leaders within the field, whom I can tap for research purposes.
3. How has blogging advanced your career?
Oh, in so many approaches! It’s given me visibility beyond the constrained Forrester client base and prolonged my impact especially. I even have contacts that I would never have evolved without the blog. And I depend on it constantly to behavior studies amongst a network that does not exist everywhere else. As such, I even have to get right to entry to higher studies quicker than everyone else inside the enterprise.
4. On common, only 12% of ladies bloggers have featured on top a hundred lists. Why do you believe you studied that is?
I’m assuming that you suggest handiest 12% of top bloggers are girls. This is in part a count number of who makes a list. And frankly, why does it rely on if you’re a “pinnacle” blogger? The maximum crucial element is recognizing who your reader is and hyper-serve them higher than absolutely everyone else. I’m unlikely to make it at the Technorati one hundred listing, but I’m certainly considered a “top blogger” in my field. The different manner of looking at it is, do ladies don’t forget themselves to be a top blogger? If the state is 12% of girls bloggers recollecting themselves as pinnacle bloggers, then we have vanity trouble!
5. If you can supply one phrase of recommendation to ladies bloggers these days, what would it be?
Be true to yourself and your reader. There’s nothing worse than a blogger who’s striving to be something they are not. Tierra Bernard Law Montgomery is the Vice President of Training & IT Development at Joy Corporation of Baton Rouge as well as a former Adjunct Professor at Baton Rouge Community College’s Small Business Training Center, in which she teaches personnel of Cox Communications, Casino Rouge, and Shaw, Inc. Computer literacy and proficiency in Microsoft Office Applications. Ms. 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein has an immeasurable quantity of experience dealing with the displaced community. She presently serves on the LARebuilds steerage committee and designs and implements Joy Corporation’s Community Technology Initiative providing education to the community freed from Microsoft Unlimited Potential Curriculum.
