Fashion & Retail – Importance of Blogging

Blogging has become an increasingly important aspect within the fashion and retail industry. From fashionista’s posting their daily #OOTD glamour shots, to fashion and retail brands adopting brand blogs, blogging creates the opportunity for storytelling and content curation beyond a static website, such as an e-commerce platform.

3 recommendations that could help fashion and retail companies leverage the power of blogging:

1. Leverage other channels to drive blog traffic – while creating the blog or adding content is simple enough, brand blogs are often underpromoted or buried within the website. A brand can create brilliant content or hire the best guest bloggers, but customers need to be aware the blog even exists. Leveraging existing social media channels, e-newsletter, and website to link back to the blog is key to increasing blog awareness.
2. Blogger partnerships – The influential power of bloggers have lead to the creation of companies, such as Wanderlust Management, which liaison between online personalities and brand partnerships. Brands now understand the importance of tapping into bloggers and their loyal followings to attract new customers.
3. Offering value not just sales tactic – Blogging has become a win-win for both the brand and shopper. Brands interject more personality, the point-of-view of one of multiple bloggers, and a conversational dialogue with their customer all while offering fashion advice and value. Customers can interact with brands in easy to digest blog articles and access a variety of content which may not be show on the brand website (eg. behind the scenes, “how to” articles, top 10 lists, etc). Blogs have allowed brands to take the position of a less corporate sales pitch, and more of “a best friend suggesting items”.

What are some of your favourite fashion brand blogs?

Sarah

 

Post-Celebration – Weekend Brunch by the Breakfast Courier

I’m not typically a brunch kind of girl. Mainly due to the fact that I love sleeping in on the weekend – I don’t just love it, I really LOVE it – making it difficult to get up, look presentable, and get myself to a restaurant before brunch-time ends.

Photo: Instagram @breakfastcourier

A perfect solution: The Breakfast Courier. As seen on Dragon’s Den, this local and up-and-coming food delivery service offers the chance for restaurant quality brunch within the comfort of your own home. With a small, yet on-point breakfast menu, classic breakfast options include: pancakes, French toast, omelettes, and eggs bennie. We opted for one of their specialty items – the French Biker. A beef patty topped with two strips of bacon, a fried egg, maple mayo all between 2 slices of French toast. Plus, a side of hangover battling shredded hashbrowns.

Meals arrive hot and on time courtesy of a Breakfast Courier cyclist with a large insulated backpack. The Breakfast Courier offers service 7 days a week with areas of service including Downtown, Kitsilano, Fairview and East Van up to Commercial Drive (full coverage map here).

Overall, the Breakfast Courier is a great choice for the brunch connoisseur who finds that wearing pants while eating is more of an option than a requirement.

Cheers!

Sarah

Let’s Celebrate – Top 10 Party Essentials

There’s so many occasions and reasons to celebrate – birthday parties, Halloween, job promotion, or sometimes even just making it to Friday is reason enough to celebrate. I’ve put together my top 10 essentials for throwing a party, whether patio drinks at the cabin with friends, or an all-out costume theme party. Of course, not all 10 are absolutely necessary – BUT, if you can manage to include all 10 at your party, then you can count on me hitting “Going” on Facebook 😉

1. Good company – It wouldn’t be an official celebration without having your BFFs there to toast with.

2. Drinks – While this can come in many shapes and sizes, having a welcome cocktail for guests can be a great way to kick off festivities.

3. Décor – Subtle decorations can be the icing on the celebration cake.

4. Cupcakes – Delicious and event-themed!

5. Photobooth – Long gone are the days of just putting a photo album on Facebook, instead snap a photo of every guest and make a photobooth-style collage.

6. Selfies – Thank you Ellen for paving the way for group selfies to be an acceptable form of event photography.

7. Hashtag – Obviously, you’ll instgram your party photos, so might as well use the event hashtag. (We brought out our red mittens and Canadian flags for this Winter Olympics themed party.)

8. Costumes – Normal clothes are from 9 to 5, check out how we celebrated Diwali (the Festival of Lights) in style.

9. Late night eats – 2am rolls around and sometimes you just need a snack. I’ve become the master of late night grilled cheese making.

10. A good breakfast – The next morning isn’t always easy, but start it off with a cup of coffee and a splash (or two) of Baileys.

What are your party planning “must have” items?

Cheers!
Sarah

Cheers to you, Tourism Vancouver!

Photo credit: Inside Vancouver Facebook

Cheers to you, Tourism Vancouver – on your informative and easy to navigate website and blog, Inside Vancouver!

Tourism Vancouver’s website is chock full of information for any tourist to plan their vacation including links and info on accommodations, events and attractions, dining options, transit and transit, plus contest links and partners. Their blog, Inside Vancouver, provides locals’ perspective on topics including food and drink, shopping, events, the outdoors, and sports.

While both sites appear different (visually, content-wise, and who they are targeting), what’s interesting is that both sites link back to the same social media accounts. Their Facebook page (80,000 “likes”), Twitter (73,000 followers), and Weibo (144,986 fans on Chinese Twitter) follow a similar strategy of consistently posting a photo plus article link, generally with event-based content. Ultimately, both drive traffic back to the Inside Vancouver blog for the full article. Their Youtube channel (1887 subscribers) is updated less frequently and content ranges from promotional videos to their latest video with 8753 views simply about Vancouver rain! Lastly, their Instagram is inconsistent with their other social media strategies as it mainly regrams (reposts) photos of Vancouver from other users.

With their large Facebook and Twitter fanbase, Tourism Vancouver could further create engaging content by establishing more of a conversation with their fans, as opposed to leveraging social media as a platform to share links. However, Tourism Vancouver is successful in demonstrating their vast knowledge of the city and as the information experts on everything Vancouver related. Their frequent posting and captivating images on their social media channels allow Tourism Vancouver to control the content of what Vancouver represents rather than having an external travel site promote various events and attractions. Tourism Vancouver succeeds in capturing the readership of tourists and locals and maintain their position as the “go to” source of information for Vancouver.

Cheers!

Sarah

Hello world!

Hello World!

Let’s celebrate this awesome city that we live in and Cheers to You, Vancouver! plans to do exactly that. From posting news about upcoming events, restaurant reviews, or retail grand openings, there’s always a reason to celebrate.

Stay tuned and happy reading!

Sarah