Archive for: PR

MenswearStyle has once again been named the number one blog in the top 10 Men’s Fashion Blogs. The creation of editor Craig Landale, MenswearStyle is multi-award-winning, including two Vuelio Blog Awards and Best UK Blog. We spoke to Craig about the biggest issues in men’s fashion, his love of New Balance, how he works with PRs and the blogs he loves to read.

How do you describe what you do?
The simplest way to describe what I do is probably what I tell my parents; I write blog posts about menswear and men’s grooming, but in reality it’s much more than that.

How do different social channels work with your blog?
Pinterest and Twitter drive the most traffic to my blog posts, whereas Instagram is more of a branding medium that shows our fans a little more going on behind the scenes day-to-day. Facebook is quite useless unless you’re willing to spend money.

What’s the biggest issue in men’s fashion at the moment?
Men have come a long way in educating themselves on men’s fashion rules, dress codes and trends. However, I still see guys in suits going into the city on the London Underground wearing horrendous shoes such as loafers, which should have been thrown in the bin a few years ago.

How significant is waste and sustainability in the fashion world?
It’s so important right now and it has been a real eye opener. Britain alone is expected to send 235m items of clothing to landfill this year, the majority of which could have been re-worn, reused or recycled. I blame the large companies making throwaway fashion more than the people though. This is where true rapid change can happen.

Who is the best fashion designer we haven’t heard of yet?
Have you heard of Oliver Spencer? I’m sure some of you will have but he’s British and he’s pivoting his brand towards the sustainable route this year. He started out selling second hand clothes on London’s Portobello Road. Today he sells his own brand of clothing made up of high quality relaxed and modern style basics and classics.

What’s your favourite item of clothing?
I love my New Balance sneakers. I’ll wear them with almost everything, even a suit.

What are the best campaigns/collaborations you’ve worked on?
A recent standout collaboration I’ve worked on is with a new Northampton-made goodyear welt shoe company called Artisan Revolution. I showcased their four styles of shoes in a photoshoot and video shoot located around King’s Cross.

How important are press events for you, compared with releases or being sent product?
I find press trips have a big impact on the way I feel about a brand. I often come back from a few days away with a brand as a true advocate with a full understanding of a brand’s ambition.

What advice would you give PRs looking to work with you?
Just get in touch via email and we can discuss some ideas. I do like it when a project is already set with clear tasks and I’m invited to take part but I can also be flexible too.

What other blogs do you read?
I ready Glossy, Lean Luxe, Courier Magazine and Business of Fashion.

Hand Luggage Only has once again been named the number one blog in the top 10 UK travel blogs. Written by Yaya Onalaja-Aliu and Lloyd Griffiths, Hand Luggage Only is known for its detailed destination write ups and beautiful imagery. Multi-award winners at the Vuelio Blog Awards, Hand Luggage have also recently contributed to the Vuelio white paper: Instagram Blackout.

Here, the guys told us about the dream of travel blogging, their favourite transport and the best collaborations they’ve worked on.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
This is a funny thing. It depends on who we’re speaking to. If we’re speaking with friends and peers, we will describe our job as travel bloggers. Most people understand what we do but less people understand the mechanics of how it is our full-time career.

Typically, we find it easiest to describe it as: in a similar way to magazines, we travel the world, experience places and write about it.

How do different social channel work with your blog?
Each social media channel is completely different, each with their differing audiences. No social media channel is the same, so we always treat them very differently but essentially, if we had to describe two main things we use our channels for, I guess one would be more prioritised towards real-time updates (eg. Instagram) and the other would be more towards expanding the reach of new articles or videos we have just created for the blog (e.g. Pinterest).

For us, we always see social media as an extension of our blog where we can give immediate updates on what we’re up to, what we’ve seen and experienced. Plus, it gives us ample opportunity to chat with fellow travel enthusiasts on places and to connect with a community of people who love to travel (like us).

Do you think travel blogging will be your job forever?
This is a really interesting question. For us, Hand Luggage Only is our dream – we love what we do so much and we feel so passionate about what we do.

That said, the online world is constantly changing and it’s hard to know exactly where things will be in a year, let alone a decade. We’d like to think we will be still blogging or at least running Hand Luggage Only (in whatever capacity it continues in). We’re so excited about the future and what our blog could become.

Where’s the best place for street food in the world?
Oh, this is a tough one, there are so many places! For us, it’s probably somewhere like Thailand or possibly Vietnam. Singapore is also really amazing too – the influx of different culture there makes the food scene in Singapore pretty exciting.

Which country has the friendliest locals?
Another hard one! I want to say everywhere. To be honest, we’ve never met a group of people that are unfriendly. I think a large part of that really is paying attention to the local culture and being respectful. That’s not saying there are not a few bad eggs but generally, human beings are social animals and we’ve found that to be fairly consistent across the globe.

What’s your favourite mode of transport?
Can we include a private boat with 10 bedrooms and a swimming pool? Ha!

I think it’s got to be a plane for Lloyd. Lloyd wanted to be a pilot growing up, so he loves it!

For Yaya, it’s probably just walking. There’s just something about slowly getting to see a place on foot (we also realise this is rather impractical for cross country travel…).

Do you accept press releases?
We don’t accept press releases. In our experience, it’s generally unsolicited, generic information and we’re yet to receive one that has made us think, ‘Oh, I want to act on this!’.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
We love working with Visit England, Atout France, Germany Tourism and KLM who always understand what we do and the best ways to work together. A bit further afield, Visit Florida is also great to work with. I guess the thing they all have in common is that they let you just be yourself and have experiences that are natural to you, which is just amazing to find in a collaboration partner.

What advice would you give to PRs/brands reaching out to you?
For us, it would be to always have conversations with bloggers about what they think would be best for their audience and readers. The project needs to be collaborative, not instructive. Fully formed ideas without any blogger input typically don’t account for the nuances of different audiences and generally just seem unnatural. It’s always best for this to be a two-way discussion and for the blogger to be able to have a say in what they’re creating.

What other blogs do you read?
We read lots… it’s really hard to pinpoint just a few. For us, we love a good read of food bloggers, a fair few fashion bloggers and of course travel bloggers. It also depends on the time of year as well, I guess (like winter time we’re all about food and summer is all about travel).

Queer Little Family has once again been ranked in the top 10 LGBT+ blogs. Written by Bread, the blog shares a personal journey about being queer and raising their child, Snappy. Known for being honest and direct, Bread told us about society getting worse for the LGBTQIA+ community, brands working with the community and their favourite blogs.

How do you describe what you do?
I write. I write about being a queer parent, I write about mental health, I write about being queer. I write because I love writing. It’s the only way to describe what I do, why I blog, accurately. It started and continues as a writing project more than anything else.

How do you use different social media channels with your blog?
I don’t use Twitter much for my blog, I think I need to have a bit of clean up, but I do use Facebook to post articles I find interesting or are relevant, as well as memes. I can’t resist a good meme. I use Instagram a lot too with pictures of my kid and stuff we’re doing. I was a late comer to Instagram and dead against it, and I’m still not a big fan of filters but I love it now!

Is society getting better or worse for the LGBTQIA+ community?
Worse. If you asked me six months ago I wouldn’t be saying that – but homophobic and transphobic attacks are on the increase, by 90% in some areas. People are protesting outside of schools, and disrupting the lives of kids over the fact LGBTQIA+ people exist and a book that depicts two male penguins raising a chick together, and transphobic ‘feminists’ are taking over the media with lies and scaremongering that is definitely affecting the entire community. I am pretty isolated here on the edge of nowhere, but I’ve never felt this unsafe, never felt this anxious about leaving my safe haven.

Have you ever experienced online trolling?
I dislike the word trolling, because I think it minimises what these people are doing and the effects they have on people like me. It doesn’t matter what their intention is, they are harassing people online, spreading hate and bullying people. And yes, I have been subject to that, but I’m pretty tough and don’t let it stand. I fight back. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequence.

Why are Pride events important?
For the reasons above. The increase of hate crimes on the LGBTQIA+ community, the online bullies, the media lies about transgender people. Pride is a protest and more important than ever. It’s important to stand united against hate, to show the next generation that they can be themselves, and be happy and healthy and loved.

What’s the best ways for brands to get involved without them just woke-washing?
Include LGBTQIA+ people in campaigns outside of June. Involve them in campaigns outside of one marketed to LGBTQIA+. I find not drawing attention to it, just LGBTQIA+ people just existing in campaigns without it being Pride month, or having anything to do with being queer makes all the difference. Include us on lists of blogs that aren’t just LGBTQIA+ blogs, include us in campaigns with cishet people.

What are the best campaigns/collaborations you’ve worked on?
I don’t really have anything this year. I stepped back from blogging for a little while and am only just getting back into it over the last six months.

What advice would you give PRs looking to work with you?
Actually read the blog. Actually know who you’re talking to. Know what the blog is about before trying to sell your business that is so far removed from any of the topics on my blog. Stop sending me emails that are gendered. Hell, at least change your template to reflect who you’re emailing – I can’t tell you how many lazy PRs have done that recently. I will call you out and block your emails.

And be very aware that I do charge. I don’t work for free but I do donate half of everything to different LGBTQIA+ charities and Domestic Abuse charities.

Do you accept press releases?
Yes, but usually you have to tell me what you want me to do with them. Do you want me to tweet about it? Link to it somewhere? I get too many emails that tell me about something I may or may not be interested in without asking me what they want. I find it much easier if people specifically send me tweets or Facebook posts to repost/retweet.

What other blogs do you read?
LesBeMums, Papa, Eden and Me, The Milky Gay and TwoDads.U.K..

Jamie Beaglehole is one half of Daddy & Dad, which has once again ranked in the top 10 UK LGBT blogs. What started as a means to share adoption information for same-sex parents, Jamie and partner Tom have now become a major force in the parent blogging world with sons Lyall and Richard, and have featured in national television campaigns for the likes of eBay.

We spoke to Jamie about social media (and Lyall making sure they’re on the right platforms), homophobia in society, supporting LGBT+ all year round and going mainstream when working with PRs and brands.

How do you describe what you do?
We’re Jamie and Tom, dads to Lyall and Richard. We share our family’s adventures via the Daddy & Dad blog. Our ‘no filters’ approach helps prospective adopters and young people get a feel for real-life parenting from a gay dad’s point of view. The blog and social channels became my full-time job last year. Through partnerships with global brands and publications, we aim to raise the profile of LGBTQ families; showing the world how happy, settled and thriving our kids are with their two dads by their sides.

How do you use different social media channels with your blog?
There are so many channels now! As a thirty-something dad I’m trying my best to keep up. The Daddy & Dad blog has always been our main focus and I established our Instagram as a convenient gallery to run alongside the blog. Quite quickly Instagram became its own entity with its own troupe of followers and an outlet for brand-collabs. The engagement we receive on Instagram is fast and easy to respond to. Twitter is our channel for giveaways, general chit-chat and allows me to respond to LGBTQ current affairs. We’re new on YouTube – we have a few clips on there, already attracting thousands of views. We’re also new to Facebook (believe it or not!) and we’ve been blown away by the level of engagement our page generates.

I should also mention, Lyall’s pestered us into signing up to TikTok – we’ll be trying a few things out on there in the coming weeks. Brands have an expectation that influencers are conversant with all the latest social apps and channels so Lyall’s a great resource for me!

Is society getting better or worse for the LGBT+ community? 
Do you know, a couple of years ago I would say better, but now I’m not so sure. The current political climate (I won’t mention the ‘B’ word) has created a comfortable environment for homophobia. When homophobia is unchallenged by our political leaders and influential celebrities, people with extreme opinions come out and join ‘the debate’. The trouble is, there’s no debate. Prejudice against LGBTQ people is inherently wrong, whether it’s born through religious teachings, family, upbringing, peers, whatever and it has no place in the UK in 2019. Unless we have the full, explicit support of the Government and our leaders, things aren’t going to get better on their own.

Have you ever experienced online trolling?
Yes we have, I’m afraid. For example, a beautiful picture [right] of our family at Disneyland Paris during Magical Pride was distributed to international news outlets in June and went viral. In the picture, Tom and I are kissing, with the boys looking very proud of their dads. As a result, we were unexpectedly launched into the public eye. To us, it was just an ordinary family photo – one of hundreds we snapped during our Disney trip. But we received a lot of feedback, including several nasty direct messages and comments and one particularly threatening death threat that we shared across social media before reporting to the authorities. Don’t worry, we’re thick-skinned. But we do worry about vulnerable LGBTQ people on social media. Bullying is completely unacceptable.

Why are Pride events important?
As a family, we absolutely adore Pride events. The colourful people, the music, the atmosphere – everything. There’s a misconception among some people who assume Pride events are unsuitable environments for children; too sexy perhaps. But that’s not our experience at all. They’re very family-friendly; in fact you’ll find more adult content at a football match.

As mentioned before, the UK is experiencing a resurgence of homophobia, ranging from a subtle ‘why flaunt your sexuality?’ or ‘lesbian, gay, whatever – we don’t care so why keep shoving it down our throats?’ rhetoric, right through to harassment and assaults as you’ll have seen in the news. Pride events are crucial to show the world we’re here, we’re very proud of our progress and we aren’t going away. Essentially, Pride events are the direct response to people who would rather LGBTQ people weren’t visible.

What’s the best ways for brands to get involved without them just woke-washing?
So many global brands have adopted rainbow branding this year – it’s fantastic to see. But, woke-washing is a problem. Brands should make it very clear which LGBTQ cause they’re supporting and the Pride theme should follow all the way through to the branding on their website. Otherwise, customers click through to their website to find no sign of Pride whatsoever and it’s very disappointing (Marmite, take note!). I think that’s the answer – if they’re genuinely interested in showing solidarity, brands should openly collaborate with an LGBTQ charity and really throw themselves into the theme. Either way, all these lovely rainbow logos are bringing LGBTQ right into the mainstream. Temporarily, I might add!

What are the best campaigns/collaborations you’ve worked on?
As a family we’ve been very lucky to work on several national campaigns with some huge brands. Every single one has provided an incredible experience so it’s very difficult to pick a favourite. We featured in our own Christmas TV and radio campaign with eBay – that was our first big TV job. In February we interviewed the stars of The Kid Who Would Be King movie – that was incredible!

We joined Mo Farah’s family in a home-cleaning challenge for Mr Muscle in April. In May we reported from Magical Pride at Disneyland Paris – Disney’s world-first official Pride event. In June we took part in ‘Screen Free Fathers’ Day’ with Vodafone. During all this we’ve also been visiting and reviewing the country’s top theme parks. We’ve been very busy! I guess if we had to pick a favourite, Disney’s Magical Pride was utterly wonderful, and we’ve never felt prouder of our family.

What advice would you give PRs looking to work with you?
We love working with brands on family-friendly campaigns. Same-sex families are under-represented in the blogging world and in mainstream media so we’re aiming big. While we do work with brands like Disney on LGBTQ content, our mission is to be considered a mainstream parenting blog and a resource for brands who want to feature a happy, active family in their campaigns. The fact we’re two dads should really become less important as time goes on. If you’re a PR and reading this, we’d love to hear from you – please do get in touch!

Do you accept press releases?
We do, yes. We’re especially interested to hear about family-friendly events, movie releases, father-and-son fashion and theme park attractions.

What other blogs do you read?
Parenting blogs, mainly! We’re friends in real-life with loads of lovely bloggers (through events like the Vuelio Blog Awards and Dadcon) and we try to read them all. We keep up with LesBeMums and their days out around the south coast. We follow The Dadsnet and Dadblog UK for tech reviews. Howeydon is our fashion guru! We also read Nige’s blog DIY Daddy for his mental health and DIY musings. Our favourite new blog this year is Two Dads in London.

Monica Stott has been ranked once again with her blog The Travel Hack in the top 10 travel blogs. Originally started while camper vanning her way around Asia and New Zealand in 2009, The Travel Hack is now based in the UK but includes global adventures with Monica and her family.

Here, Monica tells us all about her use of different social media channels, the best places in the world for food, her advice for PRs – including the best example of a collaboration request – and her favourite other bloggers.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
It really depends who I’m talking to. I tell most people I’m a travel blogger and I feel like most people understand what that means. They usually assume my blog is a hobby rather than an established business and I often have an awkward couple of minutes where I try and tell them I actually make a living from blogging! I tell them I write about my travels and share advice, inspiration and guidance for anyone wanting to replicate my trip and that I work with travel and lifestyle brands to promote their products, services and destinations.

But if I’m talking to someone who is older or someone who doesn’t really use the internet then I tell them an ‘online travel writer’. This is essentially what I do, and it saves myself a lot of time and questions!

How do different social channels work with your blog?
I do use different social channels very differently.

Pinterest (if you can call it a social channel) drives a lot of traffic but I mostly have that all automated through Tailwind.

Facebook also drives a lot of traffic and has the most potential for something to go viral thanks to the ease of sharing posts, so I try to focus on creating posts people want to share.

Twitter seems to be mostly other travel bloggers so this is a great space for networking with my fellow bloggers and PRs.

Instagram is my favourite, although can be tricky with the algorithms and the need to spend a lot of time on the channel to see any major results. I see my Instagram grid like a shop window into my blog, one glance at this and you should get a feel for what The Travel Hack is all about. My grid is currently very blue and outdoorsy and this reflects a lot of the outdoor trips I’ve been taking recently.

Instagram stories is where the magic really happens. This is where I share everything and where I feel a real connection with my followers. This is where we chat and they ask questions and they get a glimpse into my whole life, not just my travels.

Do you think travel blogging will be your job forever?
I really hope so, but I think it will be VERY different in years to come. Travel blogging has changed so much over the past five years so it’s really exciting to see how it will change and evolve over the next five years.

Travel blogging is my dream job and it’s equally amazing and terrifying to find yourself doing your dream job! I feel so lucky but I’m constantly nervous about slipping and the dream shattering. I don’t think this is a bad thing though, it keeps me on my toes and pushes me to keep learning and evolving. Blogging is all about learning new skills and adapting with the ever-changing technologies available to us.

It’s a very exciting time to be a blogger and I can’t imagine doing anything else!

Where’s the best place in the world for street food?
I think everywhere has good street food these days because it’s such a huge trend and so many people are entrepreneurial foodies who want to start small businesses as side hustles to their day jobs.

But I’m going to have to say Thailand because this is where I properly discovered street food (many, many years ago!) I’d never had such fresh, tasty, delicious and cheap food before in my life! I hadn’t eaten much Thai food before my first trip to Thailand and I was instantly hooked on those creamy, spicy curries with sticky rice.

Which country has the friendliest locals?
Every country I’ve ever visited has the usual mix of horribly rude people and wonderfully welcoming people. I think people are essentially the same all over the world, it’s just some countries have chattier locals than others. I think it’s often down to confidence too.

I really enjoyed a trip to the Maldives when my son was nine-months-old because the locals were so friendly and welcoming with babies. We hadn’t expected it to be such a baby-friendly place to visit but they loved our son and were so kind to him. Everyone on the island knew his name and the hotel staff would offer to entertain him while we ate our dinner. I think you can tell a lot about a person by the way they react to children and the people in the Maldives were lovely.

What’s your favourite mode of transport?
Electronic bike! I’ve just returned from a trip to Switzerland where I did some mountain biking on an e-bike and it was amazing. You can either choose to put very little effort in and coast along without breaking a sweat, or you can put a normal amount of effort in and ride twice as fast! It’s so much fun and I really can’t wait for e-bikes to become more affordable so they’re an everyday mode of transport.

Other than e-bikes I’d have to say planes because they open up the whole world for us. Flying is incredible and it’s relatively inexpensive too, making the world such an accessible place for us.

Do you accept press releases?
Yes!

Like most bloggers I get over a thousand emails a day so I usually read a small percentage. If something sparks my interest, I’ll definitely read it and it often leads to something on the blog. I’m much more likely to read it if it comes from a PR already in my address book or someone I’ve worked with already.

I think press releases can be an opportunity many bloggers miss out on. It’s worth noting that when a brand or a PR sends you a press release, it’s because they have something they want to promote so it’s a great opportunity to get in touch and see if there’s a way to collaborate.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
I’m currently on a press trip with Jurys Inn, the hotel chain. It’s my second time working with them and I love working with this brand. They let me know what they want to achieve, the messaging they want to get across and the purpose of our collaboration, and then they allow me to make the creative content decisions. They trust me to incorporate their messaging into my content and, because it’s a brand I genuinely love and their whole ethos aligns perfectly with The Travel Hack, it’s a message I can incorporate naturally and with wholehearted enthusiasm!

I’ve been doing this for 10 years and I understand what my audience respond to and what type of content has the biggest impact, both for immediacy and longevity. I’ve worked with countless brands to incorporate their messaging into my content so I love it when I’m given the trust and the freedom to create the content I know my audience will respond to.

What advice would you give to brands and PRs reaching out to you?
Know what you want to get out of a collaboration and tell me straight away! I often spend days going back and forth on emails with brands while I try and decipher their cryptic messages and find out what they really want!

It’s so much easier when a brand emails and says, ‘We’ve got a new product and we’d like you to feature it on your blog and Instagram feed. Attached is a description of the product and some photos. We’d like two blog posts, one to be a dedicated review and one to be an editorial style post where the product is naturally featured. We’d like two Instagram photos which we’d like to re-share on our feed and we want them to be candid and natural photos similar to the style on the mood board attached. If you’re interested, please tell us your fee and your turnaround time for this content.’

This would be the dream!

But if the brand is new to working with bloggers then I’m equally happy if they’re honest and say they don’t know what kind of content I can produce but they have a budget of X and they’d love to know what I could do with that and the kind of reach I would expect to achieve.

I get so many emails from brands saying, ‘Please send us some ideas about how we can collaborate.’ I’m definitely an ideas person and I could sit down and spend all day writing down a thousand ways we could collaborate, so it’s really nice when a brand are specific about what they want to get out of a collaboration and the size of the collaboration they have in mind. Once I know the purpose of the collaboration and the budget they have in mind, I can reply with a detailed proposal with clear examples and reports from similar campaigns I’ve worked on in the past.

What other blogs do you read?
I read so many!

I love Hand Luggage Only as they travel so much and have such a huge variety of incredible trips.

I like Twins that Travel for their honesty when it comes to travel and I love the way they encourage people who feel nervous or anxious to get out of their comfort zone and travel.

I love seeing the collaborations between Wanderlust Chloe and An Adventurous World. They have separate blogs and often travel separately but the newly engaged couple also make incredible videos when they’re together.

I like Katie Ellison for family travel and WishWishWish for stylish travel guides. I love girl tweets world for honest and funny travel posts, especially now she has an adorable baby boy. I follow Tigerlilly Quinn because she has this amazing way of making everything look so stylish! And I’ve recent discovered Emily Norris for family content and clever mum hacks!

And finally, I love The Girl Outdoors as her whole blog makes me want to put my walking boots on and go outside! So many ‘influencers’ are all about selling clothes and makeup but Sian’s blog is the opposite and is a breath of fresh air that always reminds me that happiness comes from the little things and being outdoors!