This is Me.

Dear Ban.do, Can I pretty-please join your girl gang?

Why, you ask?
Well, because I believe glitter makes the world go around, bright colors are my friends, flamingos are an obsession, unicorns are my spirit animals and mermaids are my soul sisters.

Boo in her “best” ugly sweater and Maggie playing Santa-dog.

#kittens….
Who doesn’t love them? I rescue them. I know you do too. Truth being told, I love all animals and I haven’t met one I don’t like yet.

This little girl could be me from back in the day. (Except my cat Petey was a one-eyed, one-eared black rescue.) We patrolled the neighborhood on my red bike with a silver glitter banana seat with Petey in the basket and tassels flying in the wind.

I already feel like you are my BFF’s.
Your pastel hair, cute outfits and quick-wit grace the feed of my Instagram every day. Like you, I believe in empowering women. LIFT THEM UP! There are already too many people saying “you can’t” and I believe it’s my calling to say YES, YOU CAN! Be a dreamer, a tinkerer, a doer, a woman that can “make your own thunder” (as “my mom always said).

Who’s up for forging their own path?
That’s what I did. I grew up in a small southern town, famous for spring break and wet t-shirt contests. That’s not me, never was, never will be. I bucked tradition and left home as soon as I could, put myself through college, moved out west and never looked back. Some would say I’m the black sheep of the family for leaving, but I prefer to think I’m the silver glittery sheep. 

What’s in it for you?
I have a BA in Communication from the University of West Florida and have been a designer for over 20 years. I’m currently working on a Masters in Communication with emphasis in Social Media from the University of Florida. I hope to merge my design skills with digital strategy and be a “force to be reckoned with.” I believe in working hard and love a challenge. 

How about a karaoke date?
I know you ladies like karaoke nights after work. Here is my latest car-jam (please excuse the potty language).

Or maybe we just hang out for an 80’s movie night.
Breakfast Club, Goonies, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Sixteen Candles are some of my favorites, the girl gang likes rom coms just as much as I do.  I make a mean veggie GF pizza.

To give you a giggle.
I love your quirky sense of humor and I hope you like mine. One last little video I wanted to share — a moon-walking, singing pony. I can’t listen to this song anymore without seeing this #danceponydance!

So, Ban.do girl gang, let’s be friends. I’m not too proud to beg.
Please contact me here or check out my Pinterest to find out about all things me.

My Favorite Blogs.

What can I say? I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for design, home decor, fashion, food and travel. Oh Joy!, Gluten Free Girl & the Chef and Wit & Delight can keep me entertained for hours because of the fresh, original content. While Oh Joy! and Wit & Delight inspire my home’s decor and professional design with colorful, funky, indie finds and minimalist approach, Gluten Free Girl & Chef helps me eat safely even with a gluten intolerance.

Oh Joy!

Oh Joy!’s, “What’s in my bag” post.

Oh Joy!’s Joy Cho has been blogging for about 10 years. She started out as a graphic designer and was able to parlay her design skills into a highly successful, professional blog now run by a team with Joy as the leader and “face” of the brand.

Joy Cho

It is not only a blog, but also has e-commerce, which sells books inspiring others to create blogs and does freelance design for companies like Target, Land of Nod, Urban Outfitters and Solly Baby. (A personal confession, I became “mildly obsessed” with Oh Joy!’s designs while shopping at Anthropologie quite a few years ago.) As a designer myself, I appreciate the posts on design style, DIY projects, travel stories, career motivation and her take on enjoying life through the trials and tribulations of being a successful, full-time creative wife and mom. When you read her blog posts or watch videos, you feel like you are taking a journey with a friend because of her relate-able, conversational style. Original content (including pics and video) is uploaded every day on the blog and is promoted on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter , YouTube and of course Pinterest which make the brand easy to find and easy to share on social media.

Joy Cho and baby Coco, who is featured in many of Oh Joy!’s posts and social media.

Oh Joy! has quite a few followers — 252K on Instagram, 13.1M on Pinterest, 66K on Facebook and 77K on Twitter which are driven back to the blog with links. Conversely, the blog has social share buttons at the end of every post. When you subscribe to the Oh Joy! blog, content is pushed directly to your inbox everyday. The blog does contain endorsed or sponsored content, but it is not blatant. (There is an asterisk or “courtesy of” in the caption to indicate paid content.) If I had to change anything about the Oh Joy! blog, I would recommend posting even more video, adding podcasts to increase readership and share-ability and “sponsored or pinned for you pins” on Pinterest.

Gluten-Free-Girl

Gluten-Free-Girl blog post encouraging readers to have gluten-free potlucks with friends

Gluten Free Girl & the Chef is also a successful, professional blog about living gluten free (GF) and is run by Shauna and Danny (the Chef) Ahern. For the few of us “blessed” with Celiac or gluten intolerance, you’ve probably heard of Gluten-Free-Girl recipe books and blog. Along with links to their books, videos, in-person baking classes and e-commerce site, Shauna posts fresh content a few times a week for those living a GF lifestyle and her husband Danny (James Beard award winner), is the chef supplying yummy recipes to make you feel like you are eating regular food.

A recipe for baked halibut with asparagus, leeks and dill by Gluten-Free-Girl

Blog readers can subscribe to weekly emails and they even have an app which helps navigate GF holiday cooking. Both Shauna (199k followers) and James (7K followers) post to Twitter, Facebook (112k likes), Instagram (21.5K followers), Pinterest (3.4k followers) and there are a few how-to videos posted on Youtube. All of the posts can be shared via social media which helps drive traffic to the website and vice versa.

Ad for Freschetta gluten free pizza on the left rail.

The site does have a prominent ad under its navigation. There are also multiple sponsors of the site, each with links to individual blog posts written about the company’s food products and link back to the company’s website. In return, the individual sponsor’s website links back to the Gluten Free Girl & the Chef which increases traffic. In my opinion, the actual content is great, but it is a little hard to follow and navigate. I would re-architect the site to make site navigation easier and highlight the great photography which would lend itself to a better design. Also, I would increase the video quality on youtube. Most people are ok with lower quality video on blogs, but personally, I like higher production value.

Wit & Delight

The Wit & Delight Blog

Finally, Wit & Delight, is a very successful, professional lifestyle blog started by Kate Arends with over 2.9 million unique followers. It is a bit of a hybrid as it’s content comes from Kate and a team of bloggers predominantly from Minneapolis or Chicago. With fresh daily content about home decor, design, beauty, fashion, lifestyle (book reviews, travel) and witty random musings, Wit & Delight has something for almost everyone and even has an e-commerce site filled with their favorite products curated from blog posts.

The specially curated e-commerce site.

I personally found the blog through a “picked for you pin” on Pinterest which has 2.9M followers, but they also have other social media channels including Twitter (11.9K followers), Instagram (204k followers), Tumblr and Facebook (8k likes) which all tease content from the blog and link back for more in-depth information. Wit and Delight has also designed home goods for Target which helped them increase their blog and social media following. There are no ads on the site but there are sponsored/endorsed products for posts and they do sponsored contests with give-aways.

Sponsored Skin Care Giveaway on Wit & Delight.

I don’t think Wit & Delight lacks any content, but I would like to see a regular podcast so commuters can listen without having to go online. This would still drive traffic to the site while allowing more users to access the content. I would also like to see more behind-the-scenes video as well. To me, the sideways left side navigation is not intuitive, so I would re-architect that to top navigation.

Links:

http://ohjoy.blogs.com

https://glutenfreegirl.com/

http://witanddelight.com/