My daughter’s blog
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Anonymous
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My daughter (16) has a fashion/lifestyle blog that is way more popular than I thought! She has over 10K Instagram followers (her personal account is private) and hundreds of clicks per day. She gets a lot of free products but She is now being reached out to by brands like Skinny Pop and Gap to do collaborations. She also wants to fly out to California in January for a bloggers conference.
Anyone with advice? |
Anonymous
| Are you sure you mean a blog? Not a Youtube channel? |
Anonymous
Yes, blog. She has made a few YouTube videos but it’s mainly writing. She takes photos of outfits, stuff like “how I organize my planner”, what’s in my backpack, my favorite breakfasts on the goetc. |
Anonymous
| It's weird that sponsors are reaching out to her. Blogging is mostly dead at this point. It's all on Instagram or Youtube now. |
Anonymous
Her blog is on Instagram. |
Anonymous
| she must be hot. |
Anonymous
This will be a money maker for her. Just stay involved as she'll be dealing with adults. But good for her! |
Anonymous
Instagram is not a blog lol. It’s just her Instagram account |
Anonymous
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Congrats OP
Your daughter is hot |
Anonymous
I don’t mean that she blogs ON Instagram- She has a blog that is on a blog domain, but she also posts pictures on Instagram as part of the blog. This is obviously not my daughter, but here’s what I mean: http://lovetaza.com https://www.instagram.com/Taza |
Anonymous
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DD’s best friend is at this level now and she’s using the money she earns from it for college. She started it when she was 15 and now has over 15k IG followers and I’m not sure how many blog followers.
Her parent’s are fine with it as long as the photos are tasteful (she mainly does OOTD) and it doesn’t interfere with school. She’s gotten some cool “influencer” options out of it like an invite to fashion week and an invite to Coachella. |
Anonymous
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People who are siying blogs are dead aren't reading blogs, or aren't following fashion influencers. There are very few stand alone blogs anymore - most fashion types i read have a blog, an instagram, a twitter account, sometimes a youtube channel, etc.
Fashion still likes blogs because you can have more text and more pictures, widgets, etc. But you still cross pollinate content on each platform, in slightly different ways. I'd remind your daughter it's a business, and that she should treat it as such. That means a contract, and setting appropriate rates. A few conferences might be a good idea, but I think I might want to go with her at 16. She can decide how seriously she wants to pursue it - some freebies and extra cash are fine and good for a high schooler. You probably don't want her to take it so far she'd want to do it full-time instead of college for example. But if she pushed it aggressively it could be a good money maker for a while. It could also be a fun hobby thet brings her some fun benefits. Riht sizing will be among her first challenges. I might seek some professional advice - tax lawyer, blogging expert - there are rulesAnd she'll be signing contracts. (or she should be, if she's going to be promoting items). Wardrobe Oxygen is a local blogger who posts often about the business of blogging. For a full time blogger, I will say she seems to stress/complain about he business side of blogging A LOT (though not as much lately). Totally outside your daughter's niche, probably, but might be worth reading. |
Anonymous
| Thank you! That is the kind of advice I was looking for! |
Anonymous
| Seconding that she needs advice about taxes. Income is income at any age from any source. |
Anonymous
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Hi,
I've done some work in social media with influencer marketing. I think my comments would be congratulations on her hard work and coming up with a strong group of followers, encouraging in that she should look to expand her network across multiple platforms and increase her following, and cautionary in that the Internet (and in real life IRL) can be pretty spooky at times. 10k followers is a decent number and as she is discovering worth a few freebies here and there, though she will need to grow this number to make this more profitable. She should take a look at some influencer marking platforms like Famebit, Influenster, and Tribe (there are dozens of others). Here she can connect directly with brands for cash and goods based on her account. If she wants to take this more seriously I would strongly recommend cross-platform expansion into other social media networks, like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and whatever else comes next. This does not take much time, especially with services like If That Then This (IFTTT.com) which will cross-post her Instagrams to Twitter and FB automatically, and vice versa. She should also seriously consider video as this is where quite a bit of money is and will be for the coming few years. It also gets her in front of a camera practicing public speaking which is always a good skill to have. She is getting some income which is good and will need to be reported, so you should be on top of that. Not sure a lawyer is needed just yet, but some professional advice might be helpful. If she really wants to take this off as a business, my advice would be to spin this into some sort of influencer platform, i.e a brand with other employees and influencers working for her rather than just a one-woman show. Take a look at Michelle Phan on Youtube who started a company called Ipsy. I think they raised about $100 million on a $500-$800 million valuation a few years ago. Yea, this can get pretty nuts. Finally, a word on safety. The net is filled with some scary whackjobs and she should be incredibly careful with her personal information. You mentioned she has a separate personal account, which is good, but she should be very aware when posting information and photos online. Never geotag anything in the neighborhood, never mention specific places she goes or visits regularly, never post photos of readily identifiable places near her places she goes personally (i.e. don't post a picture in front of some street art next to her school or somewhere she frequents, etc). Just to illustrate this point, a friend of mine was doing live videos in England on Twitter and Youtube. She's an attractive young 20s fashionista and would occasionally live stream her day to day errands and talk to her fans. One day she gets a note like many others saying "hi, I'm a big fan visiting London and would love to meet up if you get down to London sometime". She passed as she wasn't in London proper that week and the person said "ok, maybe next time." The next day she gets another note from the fan saying "I'd really like to meet you" and she replied "I can't get to London, sorry" and the reply was "It's ok, I'm standing in front of your house". The fan, who turned out to be a rather weird and strange mid-40s guy, was outside her place in Suburban London. She had done a live video driving around her town and stopped in front of her house and the guy used Google Street view to find the place. She went outside (with her brother in tow) and said hello. She said the guy was in tears he was so happy to meet her. She said a few words and then the brother escorted her back inside. She then swore off doing any more videos in her town ever again. I just wanted to mention this as an example of the depths some people go to catch up with fans. I'm not telling her not to do this, not by a long shot, but I am recommending you have a good review with her every now and then about safety and security. You might want to go over this story with her and continue monitoring her posts in the future to make sure she stays safe. Good luck. |