The Business of Blogging Part 1 - the Informal

I've decided to write this post in two parts; the first will be about the informal Fashion blogs which are heavily concentrated on the social networking site Tumblr and the second will be about the more formal Fashion blogs and arguably more well recognised and legitimised blogs on platforms such as wordpress, blogspot etc as I feel these two platforms bring very different ideologies and approaches to Fashion. 

It is without doubt that the fashion blogosphere has exploded over the last few years. However, what is interesting now is that bloggers are being recognised and legtimised in a way which has never been done before. In my last post about the store & Other Stories, I mentioned that they had openly admitted that they had been strongly influenced and built their store around the demands of the current fashion blogosphere. Ever since the rise of Tavi Gevinson, young people much like myself have felt compelled to voice their opinions about fashion industry with regards to design, retailing, manufacturing, marketing and advertising.

Tumblr has served as an informal platform for the rise of micro fashion blogs to emerge all around the world. However, as social media has now been recognised as a potential source of income and various marketing opportunties for many creatives and brands alike. The Tumblr fashion community has grown from a community of creatives interested in Fashion to a resonance amongst industry creatives.

Dior's Tumblr

Brands like Dior, Alexander McQueen, Oscar de La Renta, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana and more are all using Tumblr as a platform to both connect with their target audience and market their brand and products efficiently. However, it is not just brands who have embraced Tumblr, magazines such as Oyster or Purple alike have both started using Tumblr. While Nick Knight and Pierre Debusschere through their Tumblrs  -  Show Studio and 254 Forest respectively, have paved the way for other industry creatives to take up the ever-growing social networking site. The list of both notable brands and industry creatives is rising every single day as many more recognise the benefits of Tumblr.

However, why has Tumblr succeeded and how did it become such a huge force in the fashion industry?

Of course, there were always fashion blogs on Tumblr however the bulk of it's growth started around 2010 - 2011.

In 2011 Tumblr started to truly recognised the growth of fashion bloggers using their site as they announced that they would sponsor around 20 bloggers to attend New York Fashion Week. In the end they sent a total of 24 bloggers to New York Fashion Week, eight bloggers where already stationed in New York while the rest had been flown in and accommodation was all paid for by the site. The bloggers were treated to full access to some shows and a private meeting with Mr de La Renta himself after the Oscar de La Renta show.  While they were also the exclusive curators of the official New York Fashion Week tag (http://tumblr.com/tagged/nyfw).

Screencapture of Tumblr's NYFW page

Rich Tong, Tumblr's fashion director explained that their reasoning behind the decision was to "...build awareness around the fashion community on Tumblr because it is one of the communities that we [at Tumblr] have noticed but not everyone in the [fashion] industry has."

From then on, the fashion community on Tumblr grew exponentially, with blogs popping up focused on all of the different aspects of the industry.

Although, the relationship or honeymoon as some have described it between the fashion industry and Tumblr was short lived. As Tumblr recognised it's full potential of it's influence in the industry, Tumblr's Fashion Week Sponsorship Proposal aimed at monetizing the coming New York Fashion Week tragically backfired. According to the proposal, Tumblr asked for upwards of $10,000 for private events with the chosen Tumblr bloggers, not including the venue and other administrative costs. Sponsorship of Tumblr's NYFW page and Fashion page are priced at $150,000 and $350,000 respectively. The pages were expected to generate about 1 million impressions over the course of the week which equated to an estimated CPM (cost per thousand impressions) of $70. In comparison, a front page takeover of the New York Times website costs at a CPM of about $2 to $3 and a package from acclaimed magazine publisher Conde Nast runs just about $30.

Tumblr's Sponsorship Proposal 

Another problem with the site was that Tumblr does not have an analytics board (in case you aren't familiar with the term, it's measures the traffic on the site e.g. how many pageviews per day, the referring urls, the countries which the page views are originating from etc.) The fact that Tumblr could not provide that information made it hard for sponsors to then determine their presence on the site making it unreasonable and unjustified for their unruly high costs.

As for the question how has Tumblr succeeded , the answer is simple. It's easy to use.

From personal experience, I've been on Tumblr for about 3-4 years now and I've stuck to it because it is so unbelievably easy to manipulate the html coding, reblog photos, post photos and share visuals.

As founder and editorial direction for DesignerSocial, Francine Ballarad stated, "as a platform Tumblr is almost purely visual. Most of what gets reblogged is prompted by a sort-of viceral response. So by definition, it has the potential to be a fantastic medium for fashion."

Tumblr is radically visual, convenient and quick, and is fundamentally different from traditional and more formal blogging platforms such as blogger and wordpress in the way that it comes with a built-in community. Tumblr users are able to customise their experience much more and tailor their experience around their own personal interests.

In particular, Tumblr has managed to attract a passionate community that is largely composed of young, influential creatives. For both the fashion media brands and the industry in itself, this is what they have been looking for. Tumblr is home to a community of high-value demographic people who have an appetite for content, share their discoveries and voice their opinions with their respective communities.

All in all, Tumblr is the reason that I have this blog today and I have it to thank for that.