CLUMSY CHIC ANNIVERSARY – 5 IMPORTANT LESSONS I LEARNED FROM 5 YEARS OF BLOGGING

Clumsy Chic just turned 5 years old!

This anniversary is a special one for me because I feel like Clumsy Chic had a rebirth. When I won Grazia Style Awards Blogger of the Year last year, I cried when I got home because I had considered giving up the blog a few months earlier. I was so wrapped up with my baby blues and had some sort of identity crisis when I became a mom that I didn’t think Clumsy Chic was an extension of my life anymore.

It’s incredible how passion can ignite that fire within us again. I started doing little things to help me find myself again from styling my breakfast and taking photos of it to going out for a nice meal and blogging about it. It was during this low period that I sought to find a little beauty in my imperfect life and realized that this is what Clumsy Chic was all about. It’s about infusing beauty in our everyday lives, however clumsy it is in real life. Because celebrating beauty brings us happiness; at least it did to me.

So in celebration of my anniversary, I’m sharing 5 important lessons I learned from 5 years of blogging.

1. Passion is the fire that kept me going.

The number one piece of advice you hear when starting out a blog is to write about what you’re passionate about. But what they forgot to tell you is that passion is the number one driving force that will keep you going. Throughout my 5 years of blogging, I’ve experienced burnouts, dips in readership, doors shut in my face, and negative backlash. If you’re passionate about something, these setbacks won’t hold you back. It certainly has kept me feeling inspired all these years, given me a sense of tenacity, and led me to finding my purpose.

2. Know your purpose and why your blog exist

If passion is the driving force then purpose is the foundation on why your blog exists in this world. I started Clumsy Chic 5 years ago for selfish reasons to keep me feeling inspired and to do things I wanted to do. But posting cute outfit photos or pictures of food will not cut it in the saturated blog market. You have to know why your blog exist and what is it catering to people.

Clumsy Chic’s purpose is to help other women feel inspired by celebrating the beauty in everyday life, however clumsy it may be. Having this clear purpose is what makes my blog unique and authentic but it’s also the anchor to everything that I do from the type of blog posts I write to the type of photos I post on Instagram. I always ask myself ‘Does this serve my purpose’. Have you every asked yourself what’s yours?

3. Quality Content Should be a Given

You hear a lot of people say this but sadly, not a lot of people practice it. The bloggersphere is a wonderful digital space where you have the freedom to express and progress as a blogger and getting your blog to the level where producing quality content should be the main priority over gaining Instagram followers. Your content is the foundation of your business; it is your brand and it is your marketing tool. Would you consider buying a product you saw on a flyer full of grammatical mistakes with blurry images? Quality content builds your credibility as a brand.

I learned this the hard way as I was stubbornly set on producing content 5 times a week when I started out that I didn’t pay attention to the quality of my content. And these posts make me cringe when I look back at them now. I would much rather prefer to post quality over quantity even if it means being MIA for 2 weeks or more. Quality content to me means that the blog post provides value to readers, it serves my purpose, is on brand in terms of imagery and language style, and is free from mistakes.

4. Self Promotion is not a Dirty Word

I used to think that if I continued putting up good content that people would come to my site organically and would bag these awesome collaborations as a result. Dead wrong. People won’t know you exist if you don’t promote your blog or approach people for collaborations. I used to suck at networking and still have to work on selling myself whenever I talk to people, as I prefer to take a humble approach. Over time, I learned that self-promotion is not a dirty word and there’s a way of promoting yourself without sounding arrogant. For me, it goes back to my purpose and being genuine about sharing or talking about my goals or success stories in the hopes that it can inspire others, open up new doors and cultivate a community.

Social Media is a wonderful space to promote your blog, network, engage, and collaborate. I used to think that I had to hit a certain social media number or page views before I could start talking to people, but I found out that brands were and are keen to work with me as long as it’s the right organic fit and you can provide something of value, which I believe we all do. You just have to find that out and celebrate what makes your blog unique.

5. There Are No Shortcuts

If you’re looking for me to tell you a strategy or formula to have instant success, I have none unfortunately. Don’t get me wrong, it is possible to gain instant success as evidenced by some other bloggers, but that’s not my story. Clumsy Chic has seen slow steady progress and has only now started to gain traction. It’s down to one thing for me: hard work. I absolutely believe that you can do anything you set your mind into, but you also need to put in the time, effort, and dedication for it to happen.

This is what I am most proud of with Clumsy Chic. I may not have the biggest social media following of viewership but I have built a strong brand because I stayed true to what I believed in and never gave up. Sure, I have considered quitting 5,000 times but I also got up 5,001 times. And what success means to me is having the tenacity to follow your dreams and not be afraid to work hard for it.

Thank you to my readers for sticking around. I’m proud of the community I have built around this blog and you tag along in this journey with me for more great things to come.