FAQs I absolutely LOVE whenever you guys ask me questions! Anytime I get an email or DM it seriously makes my day. I thought it would be helpful to compile a list of some of the top questions I receive- I always try to respond individually, but I think it’s easier to go into detail here 🙂 Do you blog full time? Maybe some day! For now, I am crazy content running my blog alongside my full time job. I work in tech consulting and have been working for my firm for a bit over year (plus a previous summer internship!). My blog world and work world make me use completely different parts of my brain, and are so separate from one another, but I love having those two sides of me! My career is extremely important to me, and I also love getting to put my more creative side to work through my blog; I’m super lucky to be able to pursue both. What is Like To Know It? How do I use it? How can I use it as blogger? I’ve written a post answering all of these questions and more here! What kind of curler do you use/How do you curl your hair? I use what must be the world’s east curler: the Beachwaver S1.25. It’s targeted for longer hair, but I also used it pre-extensions on a shorter length and it worked just as great. You basically take a small piece of your hair, clamp the curler down at the ends, hold down a button, and it automatically rotates the barrel for you. This curler comes in a smaller size, but I like the 1.25 for big, beachy waves. I always curl my hair in two layers ( I swear this is the trick). I put the top half of my hair up into a little bun and then curl what’s underneath. Hairspray, curl the rest, then gently brush through the curls a bit, it makes for a ton of volume! I only wash my hair a couple times a week, and if I curl my hair, it’ll usually hold up for a few days. Day 3 curls + dry shampoo is my ideal look! Do you have hair extensions? I do! I wrote a whole post about them here. How/When did you start blogging? I started my fashion/outfit Instagram account back in May 2014. I’m honestly not really sure what possessed me to do so; I think I just thought it sounded like a fun thing to do. I was pretty private about it; I usually posted outfit flat lays, didn’t show my face, etc. I hit 1,000 followers on Instagram after 8 months, which was a crazy milestone I was never even really thinking about. After almost 2 years of that, I was feeling a bit uninspired with just doing the Insta thing; I had virtually no growth for the longest time, and I didn’t feel as connected with it as I used to be. Something was telling me to stick with it, and one random Saturday night in March 2016 of my senior year, I was enjoying a night in and to myself, and I decided that what I wanted was a blog. I’ve been doing creative writing for classes or for fun as long as I can remember, and the two really seemed to go hand in hand, plus it provided a space for me to expand on my little Instagram project. So, I started it right that night and the rest is history. What are some ways a blogger can grow engagement? Starting out as a blogger can really suck. It’s a really saturated market, it’s hard to figure out how to nail the whole IG thing and create a good “theme,” and it can be really disheartening at times, especially if you see other people growing at a much faster rate than you! I would really encourage any blogger to try and just ride it out; you definitely will need a bit of patience and persistence, but there are a number of super easy things you can do to maximize the speed of the process. Start by building up your content. Establish a posting schedule for your blog and social media and try and follow it as best as possible; you definitely want to focus on quality over quantity, but if you could aim for posting on IG at least every day I would try and do that- I tend to find that growing your IG following will correlate to the amount of traffic you get on your blog. On top of this, try and engage with other bloggers- write comments on their blog posts, comment on their IG posts, etc. I personally like joining blogger message groups, so you can have a forum of people to ask questions to and get advice from. I’ve made a ton of blogger friends through doing this as well! I have mixed feelings on doing giveaways; I think small ones with a group of bloggers that you all personally follow and love, are great ways to expose yourself to different following bases. In regards to the big “loop” giveaways, they are no doubt a way to get some instant growth and be exposed to a tooon of accounts, but the downside is that most of these people are only concerned with winning the prize. You’ll usually experience a lot of unfollowing afterwards too, so it begs the question of whether it’s a smart tactic. I have done them in the past, periodically over the last year and a bit, but have decided to take an indefinite break from them. It’s harder to measure organic growth when you do them, which right now is more of the focus then how many followers I have. I’ve always said that you shouldn’t be concerned with the number you have, but the engagement you get. I think creating a steady, and solid following base will eventually serve you well!! On top of this, I think it is really important to figure out what exactly you want your blog to be, and what you are offering to people. What kind of topics will you post about? What is your tone of voice when you write, how will you edit your photos? These are the kinds of questions you should be able to answer, in order to create something that will pull people in and make them stick around. In order to truly experience authentic growth, I think any blogger just needs to stay true to who they are, and focus on expressing their individualities when creating their blogs and their Instagram feeds. At the end of the day, you want to stand out as unique, and the best way to do this is just to be yourself. What are some tips/tricks for creating a cohesive IG feed? So, something that I didn’t realize until not too long ago, was that coming up with the perfect “Insta aesthetic” involves more than just using the right apps. I think it really boils down to coordinating what you wear, and the order of the outfits and poses you post; you kind of just want everything to flow together and appear balanced. And you want your clothes to seem like they are coming from one big “collection.” I think this is also great for letting people know what your style is, and what kinds of styling to expect from you. Then comes in finding the perfect backdrop— whatever that may be for you! Currently, I like white walls, pumpkins, and red brick. Me? Basic? Ha. Then the apps come in, and never underestimate the power of the apps! My bf always makes fun of me and low key judges that it takes me foreveeer to post a picture to IG, because it has so many apps to go through. It’s so extra haha, but totally worth it. Plus, I’ve actually always loved photo editing! Usually my order is Lightroom, which I use for overall brightening and how I get my theme so “light.” Then I use Snapseed, to whiten out whites even more, and color correct any photography issues. It has some tools I like to deal with overexposure, or to add in some natural saturation to certain parts of the picture. I then move on to VSCO to add filters and a little bit more adjusting. I use the 04 filter from the Legacy pack, and then quickly move over to Instagram to use their editing features (I like using their brightness and structure tools better, amongst a few others); for my feed I definitely like my pictures on the warmer side with a more faded saturation, with lots of white and bright photos thrown in. Lastly, I send my outfit pictures through my RewardStyle app, which is where I “link” the products I’m wearing, and enable them so you can screenshot it on your phone, and be able to automatically see it in your Like To Know It app. Honestly, theme is not everything, and it is something that not every blogger thinks about! I’ve said before that there is not one right way to be a blogger, I think it just comes down to what your priorities are. My Instagram “theme” has changed many, many times over the course of my account’s history, but it has always been something that I put a lot of focus towards. Who takes your pictures? What camera do you use? I do work with a few Chicago-based photographers, maybe on average once a month. You can probably tell which photos those ones are haha! Besides that, I invested in a Canon PowerShot G7 back in March, which has really made a huge difference in the quality of my pictures! My IG has typically always been a good representation of what I’m actually wearing and doing in my life- usually my boyfriend is on the other side of lens (and is literally the biggest gem for doing so!!) and we’ll snap outfit pictures on the way to brunch or whenever we’re about and about. The little Canon I have fits in all my crossbody bags and I can connect it to my phone through wifi, so it’s super convenient! Where should I eat in Chicago? I have a few of my favorite brunch spots reviewed and written up on the blog here! In addition to those, here are a few of my go to restaurant recs: Brunch at: Blue Door Kitchen & Garden, The Hampton Social, Maison Marcel, The Allis, The Dawson, Summer House Santa Monica, Little Goat Diner, Boho Bohemian House, The Little Beet Table, 3 Arts Cafe, Le Pain Quotidien, Clever Rabbit, Siena Tavern Dinner: Ada Street, Ema, Quartino, Momotaro, Fig & Olive, Mahalo, Sunda, Ramen-San, Topo Gigio, Mindy’s Hot Chocolate, Spiaggia, Green Zebra, Eatly, True Food, Monteverde, Girl & The Goat, Intro Some of my favorite places for sweets: Donuts at Firecakes or Stan’s donuts, nutella crepes from the Nutella bar at Eatly, sugar cookies at Sweet Mandy B’s, Sprinkles cupcakes, cookie monster ice cream at Cone, hot chocolate from Mindy’s, carrot cake from Hub 51, Fruit Pebbles Covered Churros from La Bodega del Barrio Where is your apartment furniture from? I’ll link my main pieces below! Silver sofa Gold coffee table White lacquer dresser Pink bar stools Gold skull Metallic cowhide rug Gold orb lamps Bedding Pink runner What is my every day makeup routine? Over the years, I have found the best products to overall decrease the amount of time it takes to do my makeup. I have one go to makeup look I do essentially for every day wear; it’s very natural and very easy to do. After I wash my face, I use a pump of Olehenriken Truth Serum, amaziiiiing for brightening skin (I’m not wearing any highlighter in the picture at the top of this post!) and hydration, and finish with moisturizer. I then blend a small dallop of Smashbox Camera Ready BB cream into my face with my fingers. I take the YSL Touche Eclat Radiance Perfecting Pen and apply small triangles underneath my eyes, v shapes coming out of the corners under my eyes, a strait line down my nose, and an X on my forehead. I give that a few mins to sit on my skin, and then use a beauty blender to gently dab it in. I take a bronzer brush and do light strokes of the Laura Mercier Matte Radiance Baked Powder bronzer along my cheekbones, right at my hairline, under my chin, and along the sides of my nose. I also will normally take my bronzer brush, coat it heavily in the bronzer, and slowly dab it onto my eyelids; totally fool-proof hack for lazy girl eyeshadow! To finish, I use Benefit’s They’re Real! Tinted Lash Primer, (I’m actually a longterm exclusive lover of drugstore mascara, but this I swear by), on my upper and lower eyelashes. It makes them look crazy long and ensures for no clumps when you put on your mascara. It’s GENIUS. The Loreal Voluminous Butterfly Mascara is my forever fave. It’s only $8.99 and you can get it at any Walgreens or Target. These two products paired together make for that really wispy, long, clump free lash look, which is what I always try and go for! I recently got my eyebrows microbladed (I will be doing a full post on this soon!), so I normally don’t use any eyebrow makeup on them anymore; if I do decide to fill them in even more, I use Benefit’s Goof Proof Brow Pencil, which is in fact goof proof. I normally will just wear Burt’s Bees chapstick every day and lightly dab a little Mac lipstick in Mehr onto my lips. Please always feel free to send me any questions via email at theblondeinpink@gmail.com!