Stress!

Today has been the most stressful day of my entire FMP process. The past week people have been having meltdowns and panicking however I have been fine.. until today. I was in the library doing some last minute touch ups when my laptop decides to break on me. All of a sudden lines appeared on my laptop and it just turned off. My first reaction was to go to the Apple shop to see if they could do anything but by the time I had got there it was too late to see someone. At this point I was walking back to the library with my broken laptop in my hand and tears falling down my face with my brother and mum on the phone telling me to not panic. The only thing going through my mind was that my deadlines were a couple of days away and my work was all on my laptop. Luckily for me, I had emailed one piece of work to myself but because I was working on my evaluation, I had not backed it up and that was the only thing I was really worried about. I was so thankful to myself for deciding to do an online project because all of my work was already live on my blog so I wasn't able to lose that, it was just my essays.

From this experience today, I have learned to ALWAYS back up my work because you never know what is going to happen. Tomorrow morning I am going to go back to the Apple store and hopefully they will be able to fix my laptop .. which I have so much hate for at the moment.

Bad Quality Pictures

I had a blog post idea yesterday that was going to tell students in Southampton a cheap place to go for cocktails with friends, family or even a date. I had work during the day so had planned to go in the evening and once I had got ready to go, we went to take some pictures in my room however the lighting was horrific. Everything looked yellow and fuzzy so I tried to play around with the camera settings however nothing was working so I decided to abandon the idea. Next time I attempt to take any pictures in the evening in my room, I am going to get and get old of a ring light or some other kind of lighting to help. Luckily for me, I am going back to the cocktail bar next week so I will just mention it in that post instead.

Tutorial Feedback

Today I had a group tutorial where I presented my work so far to Elizabeth, Anna and Emma. At first I was nervous to present my project so far after hearing and looking at everyone elses work, because mine was so different. Blogging is something I am passionate about and enjoy doing to I stick to my decision of doing this. I personally think that the future is digital so I think the way forward is to create something online.

Change in blogging days

Whilst researching for another project, I found that the best days to post online are Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. I have been posting on these days however because I work all day on a Saturday, I don’t really get the time to properly promote my new content. This is why I have decided to post on a Sunday instead. I still work all day on Sundays however because we close earlier, it gives me more time during the day to share my new post.

I have also found through this process so far that because I post three times a week, it only gives me two days to promote that piece of work before I have to move onto the next one. Sometimes I feel like it would be better to post twice a week instead and that way I would have more posts planned in time and I would be able to give them the time they need to be promoted. I may alternate some weeks by posting twice or three times to see if it makes much of a difference but that I don’t want to confuse followers who know the days I post on.

When it comes to promoting, I’ve found that twitter is the best app for me, some viewers do some from my Instagram but not as many compared to my twitter account. I have created a twitter account purely dedicated to the blog where I follow others bloggers and whenever I publish a new post, I use the relevant hashtags. As there is a blogging community, other bloggers tend to retweet my link so that my content gets viewed by a wider audience.

Stats & Social Media

Looking through my stats on posts i've already posted shows that my audience like "Outfit of The Day" and Haul posts a lot more than my other posts so this is something I am going to take on board and do more of which is good because these are my favourite type of posts to create. This must show through my work and may be why I get a good response to them.

Looking further into my stats, I've found that I am starting to get views from different parts of the work which is amazing! I've noticed that I have started to get views from United Arab Emirates and I think this may be due to the Youtube video. This makes me feel happy as it shows me that my blog is working and I am reaching my target audience (women/men with a similar skintone to me) as well as others from Brazil, Canada and United States. The majority of my readers are from the UK and this could be because I talk about and mention products which are more accessible here so I may seem more relatable to them.

Making a schedule

To become more organised, I have downloaded a PDF calendar of the month so that I can plan out my posts. I feel like this is a good idea because I can visually see what is going to be posted when and if I need to move any posts around. The downside to this is that I am going to have to try and stick to the schedule which may be difficult for me because If I create a post I am proud of, I’m going to want to post it as soon as I can. I really want to create more collaborations with other students however it’s so difficult to find a time when everyone is available and the weather / lighting is good. I feel like this projects would probably have been better for me to do during the summer as everything looks better then in terms of lighting. I think I am going to carry on blogging after this project is over because I love creating new content and seeing it live on my blog. I am always happy with how my posts look on my blog and that always motivates me to carry on and create more content.

NEW LOGO

My friend who said would help with my new logo has been quite busy recently and I didn't want to keep bothering her so I've decided to just make my new logo by myself.

I went onto DaFont.com to look at the fonts they had until I found a couple I liked. These are the ones I managed to narrow down. 

Publishing Valentines Day Tutorial & 1-2-1

Today I published my valentines day tutorial and it made me realise how much fun I had filming, editing and publishing and has made me realise I want to make more makeup tutorials.  I had another 1-2-1 with Elizabeth today so I showed her the video and I was happy with the response and feedback. Elizabeth showed me some Instagram accounts I should follow for inspiration for new makeup tutorials and she really reassured me that my FMP was on the right track.

My next step is to film a YouTube video where i'm actually speaking directly to the camera however, this is a big step for me. I think even though I have enjoyed making this youtube video, blogging is still the best option for me and that maybe i'll slowly ease myself into YouTube and maybe post a talking video in the future.

Late Night Library

Today after I finished work, some of my housemates were going to the library after they had their dinner so I decided to go with them. Whilst I was there I managed to write 2 blog posts (Mothers Day Gift Guide & Points Cards Worth Having). I couldn't think of the first image to have for the Mothers Day Gift guide so I decided to make my own. I want my blog to look minimal and clean so I decided to use a white marble background which I found on Pinterest. I then went onto DaFont.com to download a font I liked and one that suited the vibe for the Mothers Day post. Once I had that sorted I then decided I wanted the font to have a metallic/foiled effect. I created my business card with the foiled effect and I really liked the outcome so I had a play around with Photoshop until I remembered how to do it. The next thing I had to do was find images for my Mothers Day Gift guide. As much as I love taking my own pictures and using them on my blog, for this post I had no option but to use images other had took which I found online, however I made sure to give credit to each image.

Logo Ideas

Taking Elizabeths feedback on board, I contacted a friend of mine from work who graduated with a graphics design degree to see if she could help me create a new logo. She said she can and to send her over some ideas of what I was thinking. I've been looking on Pinterest at different fonts as I want my logo to be minimalistic. Here are the samples I have sent her.

First 1-2-1 Session

Today I had my first 1-2-1 with Elizabeth and I showed her the work I had done so far. The feedback I received was to make my logo more clear as it was difficult to read and also to put spaces in-between my pictures as this would make flow easier. It was helpful to be told that my logo was unclear because I would show my friends and get their feedback as to what they thought but they already knew that my blog was called "Kits Beauty Edit" so they would know what it said. Following this 1-2-1, I went to a stationary store to buy a notebook to write down and blog post ideas I had as I want to have the majority of my posts already created before they need to go live so I can stay on top of my work.