Hello! As part of my ongoing blog birthday celebrations, I wanted to share with you some things I have learnt along my blogging journey. I wouldn’t say I am a completely expert by any means but looking back to when I first started there is a lot of things I wish I had known at the time. So if you are a blogger or thinking about starting a blog here are some lessons I have learnt from blogging which I hope you will find useful. (This is probably more geared towards beauty and fashion bloggers)

1. Don’t hide away, I had this misconception that I could be a ghost writer and no one would ever know it was me. As blogger people trust you and your opinion, they want to know who you are so they can relate to you. As a beauty blogger, people want to see you using products and how products look on you. You are your brand, so share who you are and don’t be shy.
2. Get social, you need to become a social media addict and completely understand which social media platforms work best for you. You can create separate accounts for your blog choose and how much of your personal life to share or not. You will find Twitter will bring in a different following compared to Facebook and that of Instagram as well so you need to be present on all of them.
3. Photography is so important! These days iPhones are fab to start off with and you can take some great quality images for your blog with your phone. I now look back at some of my old posts and cringe at my photography but there is always room for improvement and this is how you grow and learn.
4. There is an app for everything, so don’t struggle, just search around. You can edit your images and make them look amazing, fix blemishes, schedule tweets and the rest.
5. You need to be so organised to stay on top of things and enjoy what you are doing. Blogging is not easy, people, brands, PR’s and even readers can be demanding. You may get inundated with samples, press releases and then actually need to make time to review products, take images, shoot videos, edit everything and then write it all up and then share, share and share, not forgetting the 100s of emails that come in on a daily basis. This all takes time! Make lists of what you need to do, what you need to send back and basically lists of everything. Take days out just to organise yourself, it is completely worth it.
6. Don’t forget about old posts, they still bring traffic to your site and they are out there on the internet to be found. I recently went back to my most popular old posts and updated the images because I was not happy with the old ones. Also be sure to go back and check all the links on your popular posts are working properly.
7. Brands love bloggers, because there are so many bloggers around and some huge bloggers around it can feel intimidating when approaching brands but brands do love bloggers and a lot more brands are becoming a lot more blogger focussed.
8. You can make do with what you have for now until you can justify spending loads of money on camera equipment and lighting. As I said before, you can take great images on your phone and use apps to enhance your images. Before I had a tripod I used to tower up various different boxes from around my house to get my camera at the right height. I still have not invested in lighting so I have to film before 3.30pm in the winter and in front of a big window. You can just make do.
9. I did not know you can auto publish blog posts to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn until I was about four months in. This made my life so much easier! (Just as there is an app for everything, there is usually a plug-in too)
10. Last but not least, delegate! You cannot do everything, I am not very good with technology so someone else has to take care of that for me. There is a lot of help available through other blogs, YouTube and blogger forums. The amount of technical quick fixes I have found through YouTube or a forum chat is unbelievable. You will also find you are not the only one facing these issues.

So there are some tips for you all which I hope you found useful. It’s not everything I have learnt but probably the most helpful tips for me. If you have any questions or comments please comment below and I will try my best to help but at the very least I will say hello back! Don’t forget to read all about how I started blogging and please be sure to follow me on Instagram and Twitter for instant updates that go beyond the blog. Also be sure to subscribe to the blog here, so you are the first to know about new posts ♥

Don’t forget to enter the big birthday giveaway to win all four Naked Palettes here! I also have a festive giveaway where you can win the Selfridges advent calendar here!