Tag Archives: pub101

Essay 2_ Not the end, but a new beginning.

Everyone has his or her dream job, so do I. When I first gain the access to the online platforms, I was amazed by the beauty bloggers and YouTubers. Undoubtedly, being a social influencer such as beauty blogger and YouTuber has become my dream job. In the past, I always thought that these online social influencers are the “easy profitable jobs.” To emphasize, they can make money very easily just by writing posts and filming videos via the internet. However, I totally change these stereotype on social influencers when I start writing my personal blog. In other words, I know now that being a blogger is not as simple as it seems. Today, I will discuss my personal experience of being a startup blogger.

First of all, the progress from 0 to 100 is extremely difficult, especially as an new blogger. To emphasize, blogging is not the hardest part for me throughout this experience. Creating a website from bare bone, for example creating menus, categories ,and tags, is a challenge for me as I am not as tech-savvy as the other people. However, once I persevere, it is a joyride from then on. In this case, let’s start with my original intention and goal of my blog. Before creating the blog, I am already familiar with buying and trying many different types of beauty products. Also, I really like to share my personal reviews of these products with my family and friends. As a result, beauty products are the main focused topic that I would like to share with my audiences. In these circumstances, “Maggie Loves to Share” is the first slogan that pops up in my mind when I start my personal blog. Hence, I set this line of sentence on the top of my website. In my opinion, this slogan not only clearly express my desire to share but also easy understood by my audiences. In addition, I choose pink as the main colour for my website. With this design, just like Emma- my peer reviewing partner states, the baby pink accent that I used represents a very charming appearance which is clear that my website is very girly and attractive (Emma, 2019.) Following on the setting and design of my personal website, I hope that my audiences are able to have a better understanding of products that they interested after reading my reviews and sharing information that I have provided throughout my posts. Moreover, to attract more readers and to find out more interesting topics are my first challenge. There are thousands of beauty bloggers around the world; yet, I have to figure out ways to stand out from the cloud. At this point, I decide to apply the concepts of “know [my] audiences” and “[build] the connection” that I have learned from the publishing class. Linking back to these process posts that I wrote within this semester, I believe that my family and friends are my main readers. In the case, I then ask them to help me to develop the connections to other younger females who may also like my blog. Thus, I have more chances to create diverse topics for my readers from these connections.

Furthermore, most importantly, there are many new lessons that I have learned since I start my personal blog. Significantly, in my opinion, Google Analytics is the most useful tool that I learned when I start writing blog. Even though I have never used Google Analytics before, being the online publisher, this new tool has helped me easily track various datas about my blog. In this circumstance, Google Analytics gives me the overview of my audiences’ reactions towards to my website. For instance, I personally think that bounce rate that is calculated on Google Analytics is one of the most important data that I should track. According to Shivar, bounce rate represents the number of people who land on a page of your site… and then immediately leave (2018.) Although Shivar has also mentioned not too focused on the numbers, from my understanding, the lower bounce rate tend to present the better performance for a startup blogger. To indicate, as an new online publisher, I want my audiences to stay longer on my website to explore around. In other word, the less people immediately leave my website, the more sense of accomplishment I will get. Myself as an example, the bounce rate has dropped from 56.25% to 50% via the last two weeks. From this outcome, I believe that there are more people actually spend time on visiting my blog. Additionally, Google Analytics has also informed its users about what page their audiences visit the most. With this valuable information, I can easily recognize what topics I should share with my audiences more in the future. For example, my “What’s in my causal bag?” recently has the highest views throughout my blog. Following on the result, I have created the collection of “What’s in My Bag?” on my website to attract more audiences. Despite of bounce rate and page views, Google Analytics eventually has delivered useful functions to the online publishers. Therefore, I will continuing to use this tool to improve my blog.

Ultimately, I really treasure that I finally have chance to achieve my dream-being a blogger. Looking back to the past thirteen weeks, I would conclude that it really required a lot of effort to be an online influencer from my experience. To emphasize, writing a perfect blog requires tons of time to complete it. In my case, it is really hard to come up different and creative topics to share with my audiences. Afterwards, I have to choose the best way to present my posts. However, the most difficult challenge that I have faced is my writing skills. I am not a professional English writer; thus, sometimes I am afraid that my readers will not continuously visiting my blog because of constant grammatical error. Although there are many challenges occurred since I start my first blog, I am proud of what i have done so far. I have never imagined that I am able to upload posts weekly not even to mention in my second language. Lastly, if you ask me: “will you continue to blog?” I would say, YES! Yet, I will consider to blog in my first language so I can express myself more comfortably and confidently. In short, “Maggie Loves to Share” is my first milestone in my online publishing life. I hope and I am looking forward for my next milestone.

Finally, I would like to thank Suzanne and Ellen for the wonderful semester. Also, much appreciation goes to my peer review partners- Emily, Helen and Emma for the very helpful feedbacks and insight on my posts. Most importantly, I thank my audiences for visiting my blog. I really appreciate for everything that you have done for me. Thank you!

References:

Adams, E. (2019, March 14). Sharing Is Caring. Retrieved from http://emmasworkingonit.com/assignments/sharing-is-caring/

Shivar, N. (2018, September 28). What is Bounce Rate & How should you use it?. Retrieved from https://www.shivarweb.com/1168/what-is-the-bounce-rate-and-why-you-should-care/

Su, M. (2019, February 25). Process Post_6 Know your audiences. Retrieved from http://mlovetoshare.com/poisel/process-post_6-know-your-audiences/

Su, M. (2019, March 11). Process Post_8 Connection. Retrieved from http://mlovetoshare.com/poisel/process-post_8-connection/


Process Post_11 Online Shaming

People often think that the internet has provided lots of advantages for their daily purposes. However, in my opinion, the issues of cyberbullying occur more and more often within the current society. This week, we are assigned to watch a TED Talk, “When online shaming goes too far,” by Jon Ronson. Throughout the presentation, Ronson uses a real story on Twitter to represent how cyberbullying can actually affect one’s life. To illustrate, Justine Sacco who unintentionally posts the funny little acerbic joke- “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” on Twitter. Sacco was just a PR woman from New York with 170 Twitter followers before making this post; however, all the sudden she was targeted on the cyberspace. Afterwards, people who saw and share Sacco’s post tend to start making jokes-very despicable ones at her. In this case, even her job and her employers were as well affected by this cyberbullying. In addition, according to Jon, [Justine Sacco] was Googled 1,220,000 times. Also, Google made somewhere between 120,000 dollars and 468,000 dollars from Justine’s annihilation (Ronson, 2015.) In other words, Sacco’s life was changed in a really bad way just because of this unintentional joke. Nonetheless, people who shame Sacco behind their electronic devices got nothing. At this point, even though Sacco should look before she leap the acerbic joke online, people should also think from different point view before they make the comments. As we know, there are more and more people take others’ comments very serious on the internet. In this circumstance, these sharp comments sometimes will cause the tragedy that cannot be undone. To indicate, there are many celebrities tend to be mental illness after reading the comments on social media. For example, Cindy Yang, one of the social influencer in Taiwan who suicided in 2015 because of cyberbullying. After understanding of these two cases- Sacco and Yang, I personally believe that cyberbullying does significantly affect human’s life. Therefore, people should really think deeply before taking these “shaming actions” towards each other via the internet since they do not know when these actions will lead to the unrecoverable tragedies. In short, cyberbullying no doubt is one of the serious problem that needs to be solved in this generation.

Process post_10 Multi-channel Marketing

Choosing and applying the best marketing strategy is the most important concept to introduce a product into the market. However, living in this “improved technology” generation, single channel marketing is no longer the best and only marketing strategy anymore. This week in class, we have Darren and Sarah from Capulet Communication to discuss about the importance of multi-channel marketing with us. Personally, I believe that the multi-channel marketing strategy does successfully help a company to bring its brand and product to its customers.

Myself as an example, I voluntarily work in my brother’s company to help them to hold the concerts- mainly singers from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in Vancouver. Yet, although there are many Asians in Vancouver, actually the tickets are really hard to sell if we do not apply the multi-channel strategy. To indicate, we have to apply different marketing strategy towards different targeting customers. For instance, we have to place many posters in different areas to inform about our shows; such as Asian markets and restaurants for people who do not usually use the internet and schools that have more younger Asians who might be interested in the concerts. Also, social media significantly are the main channels for us to promote the shows. For example, Instagram and Facebook help us to spread out the propagandas via the internet. To illustrate, whoever see our posts on the social media will share the information to their family and friends and so on. As the result, there will be more and more people know about our shows. Moreover, the one-by-one conversation is the most required service that we have provided to our customers. In this case, it is not only easier for our customers but also for ourselves to answer the questions regard to the concerts. Therefore, throughout these multiple channels to promote the concerts, we have successfully nailed the SOLD OUT show.

Ultimately, I have more understood the importance of the multi-channel marketing strategy after rethinking the process of holding the concerts. According to Darren and Sarah, if we want to favourably reach different audiences, achieve different marketing goals, we have to tell [our] story in different ways. In short, these multi-channels really help many companies to promote their businesses in this new improved technology generation.

Process Post 10 – Risky is safe, safe is risky

This week we had Darren and Sarah from Capulet Communications to share about affordable marketing in a multi-channel universe with us in class.

I worked in a PR agency as an intern for five months last summer. I mainly had to do clippings for our clients, mainly luxury hotels and resorts. I scan newspapers, magazines and screenshot online articles, social media posts when they got coverages. I realise that almost all our clients have several social media platforms to publicise themselves, mostly Instagram and WeChat (for the Chinese market). Part of my job includes helping the clients to look for influencers that match their brand images, and I realise that most of them are active on multiple social media platforms to develop their online self. Most influencers are active on Instagram as a platform to interact with their fans and audiences, while they use websites or YouTube channels as a relatively passive platform to allow audiences to know more about their work and private life. This is indeed a great way to increase its traffic.

There are a growing number of brands who rely on social media to expand their influences and reach a greater variety of audiences, even for reputable hotels who have a long history of development. They use attractive images, usually instagrammable spots in the hotels, and uses short captions to attract people’s attention. People now prefer bite-sized information rather than wordy passages, it is challenging for the PR to bring out the distinctive features and hotels’ selling points by just a few sentences when drafting for captions. There is so much information online and everyone can place ads, thanks to Google and Facebook. PR must, therefore, develop a gimmick or something authentic that creates discussion in our society.

If marketers and PR only stick with safe options, they would always be mediocre. Darren shared a quote today in class – “Risky is safe, safe is risky.” This not only applies to marketing, but also to our lives. We should take a step forward to leave our comfort zones, make bold moves and risky decisions to stand out from the crowd.

The post Process Post 10 – Risky is safe, safe is risky appeared first on lily in stripes.

Mini Assignment 6 – GIF!

via GIPHY

It’s almost the end of the semester and I’m trying to get myself together. Wipe my tears, take a deep breath and continue on my term papers. Hang in there guys, just several more weeks to go!! (This semester goes faster than I expected!)

p.s. One of my friends always says I’m good at picking gifs when texting, so I’m really excited when I get to make my own gif for the assignment! Can’t wait to send it to my friends!

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Fashion favs for spring

FINALLY. SPRING IS HERE. We are finally able to dress for warm weather without being too cold. I have some fashion favourites when it comes to spring fashion and I’ve been waiting to talk about it.

A t-shirt dress is a must. It is super easy to just throw on and pair with any jacket and any type of shoe. You can pick up these type of dresses in many colours so it looks like you are wearing something different each time. They are also super comfortable to wear.

The next item I think is a must to have in your closet for the spring and summer time is a pair of white pants. White pants are a staple because they look fresh and bright! You can pair them with any coloured shirt and pretty much any type of shoe.

I believe that it is crucial to have a skirt in your collection. Plaid skirts have become very popular again (even if your not in private school) and they are super cute to dress up, or dress down.

The last item that I am going to share is a long silk dress. I think these types of dresses are so cute because you can make them super dressy or super casual. They are very pretty on anyone and they look perfect for an occasion.

Hope you guys like some of these items and check them out online! You will find many more items like them on the Aritzia website. Thanks for reading!

xx

PEER REVIEW No.3: Eats and Feats

After a long semester of hard work, Eats and Feats has produced a useful series of food and location reviews for Vancouverites looking for adventure. The title is so terrifically catchy while the subtitle–”explore Vancouver, BC”––does a nice job of orienting any passerbys as to the overall thematics.


“I genuinely believe Vancouver has so many things to offer, delicious food, amazing events and gorgeous sceneries and I love to explore so I decided on that. I wanted to write a blog that would help people see what there is to do here because there is never a shortage of things.”

–– Eats and Feats author Helen writing about her purpose

Let us jump into the review below, which will gradually unpack the visuals, written word, and overall premise of my classmate’s great blog.

THE VISUAL STRUCTURE

HOMEPAGE
Underneath the horizontal menu bar, Helen has good combination of three main visual elements (the title and then two featured posts), which align with the suggestions proposed during our guest lecture by Mauve Pagé. The featured posts are well-selected as some of the blog’s finest, with bright and attractive imagery of food. Not only do those pictures attract the eye, they also activate viewer engagement given their “clickability” (scroll function). So, as a visual element, these featured reviews seem to be integral to the website’s immersive capacity and accessibility, while also being foundational to the website’s success as a whole system––specifically if we consider encouraging desirable outcomes for page traffic and bounce rate, which were outlined as important factors to growing a business according to our other guest lecturer by marketing expert Monique Sherett.

SIDEBAR
In addition to what has already been mentioned, I would like to commend Helen on the use of her sidebar which really encourages readers to conveniently explore other posts from the blog. Not only does she include a juicy little glimpse of her longer About Me, there are many links (in the form of both tags and titles) which make navigation from one page to the next a lot smoother than in other websites I have seen (including my own).

PHOTOS
Also, I would be remise not to highlight the extremely comprehensive and necessary use of food and site photography. Particularly when it comes to images of meals, Helen is careful to crop and angle her photos, and ensure that other factors like contrast are tweaked so that all the relevant textures and colours are accurately conveyed. This plays a crucial role for the viewer as they imagine themselves interacting with what is described, and the images are always well arranged so as to perfectly complement the written descriptions.

While there is always some room for improvement that could be considered, namely in the form of customizing the visuals, the visual structure of the site mostly serves the viewer quite favourably.

THE WRITTEN WORD

TECHNICALITIES
Although the grammar is not completely consistent throughout the blog, Helen’s careful use of descriptive language really illuminates the scenes she describes and does a good job to pique viewers’ interest.

FORMATTING
The immediate impression is that Helen has an excellent sense of paragraph structure and dispersion, something that I struggle with personally. She is thorough when including important information such as location, menus, and pricing, although I would suggest potentially bolding, italicizing, or adding icons to these areas for “skimmability”.

PREMISE
I have to respect that Helen has committed to creating a positive “public sphere”, if we can recall Nancy Fraser’s description of this term coined by Habermas. She gets to the point while impressively weaving in a tone of warmth and welcome for her readers.

Given some of the sinister things we have read about the internet this semester, I think we can all agree that websites with more upbeat attitudes, such as Eats and Feats, are probably needed in the larger scheme of things. Importantly, from a strategic standpoint, this could potentially help Helen achieve some form of monetization either through sponsorships or the kinds of affiliate ads debated by Tom Bleymaier in his article titled On Advertising –– Maria Popova.

However, Helen’s “favourites” will have more value if they are allowed to shine through comparison and contrast. By this I mean to suggest that introducing some experiences that are more negative could potentially suggest more credibility in the minds of Eats and Feats’ readers, and potentially even contribute some playful humour.

THE OVERALL CONTENT + Suggestions

In a city often critiqued for a supposed lack of activities and cultural opportunities, Helen is clever to centre her blog around dispelling this mischaracterization about Vancouver––one blog post at a time. It is a solid initial premise and one that can also serve her well in the long term.

This foundation works well because it allows Helen to better tailor her content towards a specific audience, very much in line with . In short, the blog knows it It is a solid initial premise and one that can also serve her well in the long term.

WHAT IS AT STAKE HERE?
With that said, going forward I would encourage her to ponder the following questions: What makes this content well-suited to the blogging format? What knowledge is imparted that distinguishes my posts from Yelp reviews or a “foodstagram”? By brainstorming some answers to these questions, I can envision an exciting future in which Helen leans further into her own unique opinions and investigates new possibilities for content.

A FRESH TAKE
Beyond the food/activity review structure (which seems to be the blog’s “bread and butter”), investigating other thematic pathways could present exciting avenues for readers to live vicariously though the author. For example, potential premises for engaging content might include replicating favourite restaurant dishes at home, trying out intimidating new activities like paddleboarding around English Bay, or chronicling a week of eating out on a relatable budget. Of course, it is perfectly okay if the author dislikes those specific suggestions: The point is that there is still somewhat of a need for Eats and Feats to distinguish itself as a unique voice amongst all the noise. I am simply suggesting that one way to “stand out from the crowd” would be by diversifying the scope of subject matter by incorporating an element of risk or challenge into future posts.

Granted, we must keep in mind that is always easier said than done! And, in fairness, Helen has made some subtle disclaimers that she views this website as a first step into navigating herself within the digital landscape. Thus, the everyday casualness to her tone is a natural and understandable extension of such a context.

SUMMARY
All of this is only to say that I would encourage Helen to really go for it. Perhaps she wants to lean more into the diary-like lens of everyday adventures or perhaps her angle will be to illuminate the underrated underbelly of Vancity: Either way, she is already off to a solid, well-reasoned start, complete with enticing imagery and relevant information. Well done, Eats and Feats––I hope you continue your blog after our course wraps up so that I know what adventures I can explore during those long summer days!

Check out her extremely generous review of my blog here.

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Peer Review 3 – The Honest Skincare Guide

If you’re interested in skincare or new to skincare and wish to get honest product reviews and recommendations, tobi’s routine is the place for you.

Design and content

Tobi uses the Savona Theme which has a minimalistic and chic design. I like that she uses a simple design where there aren’t many distractions, my focus goes directly to her content when I clicked onto her website. There are plenty of white spaces to balance out the heavier focus. It’s comfortable to browse through her website, not only because her content is interesting, but there’s also a unity of design present on her website. The colours she used on her website is mainly black and white, even for the photos she picked, they are all in white backgrounds. This makes the whole blog looks harmonic and clean due to the consistency of colour. The only colours that appeared on the website are the photos of the beauty products. This allows the content to stand out and it’s the first thing that catches my attention when I read through her blog.

Tobi’s blog is user-friendly. She clearly listed out the categories in her main menu, which is very accessible for users. There are search, recent posts, recent comments, archives and categories on the sidebar. I could easily navigate and search for a particular post.

Content

Tobi always includes an excerpt, so readers will know what the post is mainly about before clicking into it. Reading through her posts, she always includes some skincare tips and her experiences, it makes readers feel relatable. I like that there are three related posts on the bottom of each post which I think can make the website more engaging and attract readers to stay longer on the website.

Audience

Tobi’s blog is a place for people who are interested in skin care and are looking for honest reviews. She shares good recommendations for products that are suitable for young girls and don’t have specific skin concerns. There are plenty of beauty bloggers out there but I think what Tobi did to stand out from the crowd is that she includes her first-hand experiences and reviews for her audiences.

Many of the beauty reviews on YouTube are usually sponsored content, viewers thus don’t know whether the products are really that worthy or are that just for the sake of earning money, as many influences nowadays rely on ad revenue to keep their blogs/channels going. In one of the weekly readings – The Toast Is Toast: Literary Humor Site Shuts Down Over Ad Revenue Woes by Shelby Carpenter, she mentioned that online revenues have a huge impact on both big and small sites. Using ads is one of the common ways for websites to reach their target audiences. Reading the ad-free tobi’s routine, I know that all her content are truthful and reliable. When influencers nowadays rely on ad revenue for a living, they do not enjoy the autonomy that Tobi enjoys, where she can write about anything she likes.

Last week, we had Monique Sherrett from Boxcar Media TBC sharing about marketing, monetisation, audience and analytics. She talks about the SMART objectives and the customer journey.  I will share about my customer journey as a visitor to Tobi’s blog.

  1. Awareness – I know about this site because of PUB101. I think it would be great if Tobi can include her social links on the blog as well, such as Instagram and Facebook. I think it will increase the site traffic if she includes her website in any of her social networks. I’m sure people are interested in beauty product reviews!
  2. Engagement – There aren’t many comments on her blog posts but I can feel that Tobi is working hard to connect with her audiences. She uses “I” and “you” quite often in her blog post, like in the What’s exfoliating, she reminds audiences about the cautions of using scrubs. The way she writes make readers feel like we’re close to her, even if we don’t really know her in person. I think this is a good way to interact and bring her readers closer to her life and style.
  3. Retention – I definitely had a great first experience and I will definitely return to this website in the future. Keep it up! 🙂

Overall, it is a website worth visiting and I look forward to seeing more beauty tips from Tobi!

The post Peer Review 3 – The Honest Skincare Guide appeared first on lily in stripes.

Feel Good Playlist

Music is one of my favourite ways to past time. I feel like many people are in the same boat as me as well. I think people really connect with music because songs are very easy to relate to no matter what you are dealing with in life at the time. There is always a song to express the way you are feeling no matter what and that is why I love it. I have so many songs that I love so I have decided I am going to do a few posts that have to do with my favourite songs. Hence the title, this playlist is going to be my ‘feel good playlist.’

Here are all my feel-good songs that I love to jam out to in the car. All of these songs can be found on Apple music. There are so many more songs that I have on my playlist but I thought that my top 9 picks would be enough for now.

TOP 9 “FEEL GOOD” PICKS

Girls need love (Remix) (ft. Drake) – Summer Walker

Lil bebe – DaniLeigh

Westworld – Evan Giia

Never be like you – Flume

Pretending – The Boogie Wit Da Hoodie

Baby Blue – Rence

From Time (ft. Jhene Aiko) – Drake

Lost In The Fire – The Weeknd & Gesaffelstien

Say something – Lucas & Steve

Hope you guys enjoyed reading!

xx

Process Post_9 SMART Goals

It is the 9th week since I have developed my personal blog, “Maggie Loves to Share.”  However, I notice that being a blogger is not that simple as I thought. Indeed, as a blogger, I understand that there are many things that I still need to learn in order to improve my blog. From the last nine weeks, I have gradually understood some important sources that I need to take care of as a “startup blogger.” To illustrate, from the previous process posts, “know your audiences” and “connection,” I understand that it is important to know my readers more if I want to attract more readers. At this point, I have to observe what kind of topics my readers would like to see more through my blog. Also, maintaining the connections between my audiences and myself is another important process needed to focus on. In other words, I have to link with my audiences through building up different connections. However, despite of knowing my audiences more and building more connections, setting up the SMART goals is also another important concept that I need to do for my blog.

This week in class, we have the guest speaker, Monique Sherrett to discuss the importance of setting up the SMART Goals for our personal blogs. The SMART Goals are described as follow:

S– Specific – setting up the specific target to hit; Benchmark or starting point is clear.

M– Measurable – a metric (target) that can be tracked.

A– Actionable and Achievable – it is possible to improve based on this action.

R– Relevant and Realistic – based on the history of performance, this is a reasonable goal.

T– Time-based – timeframe; how much time is required to reach the target.

Although I have learned the concept of SMART Goals from other classes, actually I have never thought about setting up a smart goal from the blogger’s point of view. In this circumstance, I decided to set up a smart goal that I can achieve in the short-term period for my personal blog. My smart goal will be described as follow:

S– create more criterias to attract different audiences.

M– looking for different interesting topics that my readers would like to read.

A– asking for different suggestions from my current audiences (eg,. My family and friends)

R– it is possible have the weekly or monthly meeting with my recent audiences to discuss about how my blog can be improved.

T– this smart goal plan can be runned for the short-term period (eg,. 2, 3 or 6 months goal)

Throughout this smart goal plan, I believe that I can attract more audiences from different perspectives. Ultimately, I would like to thank Monique to bring up the idea of smart goals in class. In my opinion, I think setting up the smart goals is no doubt a really important process to improve my blog.

Peer Review_3

For the final peer review, I was assigned to review Emma’s personal blog. When I first open up Emma’s blog, I am impressed by her design. I really like what Emma do with her website. For example, in my opinion, the grey background color mixes well with the black texts- a smart choice to present her blog. Even though it seems quite simple to go with this combination of color, I can easily and comfortably enjoy reading Emma’s literatures. In this circumstance, compare to blogs that have color contrast that is uncomfortable to human eyes, Emma has made the great color design choice for her audiences. In addition, the other good design that I adore from Emma’s blog is the well organized and structured categories. Throughout Emma’s blog, I can easily navigate through the main menus- assignments, writing and poems that Emma wish to present to her readers. With these well organized menus, surely I can tell that Emma’s intended audiences will be people who love to read and write different types of literatures. Similarly to the colour theme of Emma’s blog, the majority of the titles Emma sets are simple BUT strong and meaningful. From these simple BUT strong themes, they reflect the personalities of Emma. Just like Emma states in her “about me” page, she wishes that her readers can understand the person behind the posts. From my point of view, the short introduction tells me that the contents are created solely by Emma and represented Emma herself- “Simple but Strong and Meaningful.” At this point, as Emma’s reader I would really like to read more about her posts once I see these “simple BUT strong” titles. For instance, the poem “confidence is key” have my attention right away when I see it. As expected, I am touched by Emma’s poem that “I wish I had as much confidence as the men who know they won’t be held accountable for their actions.” Through looking at Emma’s posts, personally, I definitely believe that Emma has the potential to attract more readers in the future. To emphasize, myself unfortunately is not a big fan of reading, especially not the literatures that are written in English. Nonetheless, Emma’s posts have the charm can draw my attention to go on reading her writings. In the circumstance, I think that Emma’s blog also has the personality to fascinate people who are not interested in reading. Ultimately, I would say that it is my pleasure to review Emma’s blog this week. I really enjoy reading her literatures and I will definitely keep following her writings in the future! Lastly, I would like to thank Emma for her review of my blog as well, really appreciate it!

Thank you for reading, if you are a big fan of reading different literatures, check out Emma’s blog, here!

SELF AND SKY: Digital Collages

MINI ASSIGNMENT No.4: Remix
Women silhouettes jumping over a mountain range

Jellyfish with eyes overlooks a tent

Little boy looks out the window at the cosmos

Photographic sources (links):
DANCING ACROSS MOUNTAINS:
> the women > the mountain range
THE GREAT JELLYFISH:
> the jellyfish > the outpost > the aquatic eyes
COSMIC DAYDREAMER:
> the child > the cosmos

Hope you found these my new collages to be enchanting. Which is your favourite? Let me know in the comment section below!

Best Shoes for Spring

Now that spring is around the corner we have to think about changing our shoes. Sounds weird, but it’s true. We will stop wearing snow shoes soon and go on to wearing shoes that are suitable for spring. I have a few favourites (some old and some new) but they all work for spring fashion.

Air force 1’s, sandals, Vans, Yeezys, Doc Martens, Mules

Air Force 1’s are a good staple shoe to own because they are a classic white sneaker. These are super cute to style with a loose dress and they can make a fancy outfit turn casual in a second.

Sandals are a super nice shoe to have in the spring/ summer because you are able to wear them with almost everything. They look good paired with a dress, shorts, jeans etc… and they can be dressed up or dressed down. I don’t have a specific pair of sandals to link for you guys but if you ever find yourself in Capri, Italy they specialize in creating custom sandals for anyone. They are some of the best sandals I have ever bought and they will last a very long time.

Vans are a classic. They work with almost every outfit and like the Airforce 1’s they can make any outfit look more casual then it might be. Vans have many different types of shoes with many different colours and patterns to choose from. They have a huge range of shoes and they are pretty cheap compared to other sneakers.

A pair of shoes that I own and think that I will get a lot of use out of them in the spring. These shoes are the Yeezy Boost 700 V2 “Static Wave” and I think I will wear them a lot because I don’t own a pair of the Airforce 1’s and these are my version of them. They are a classic white and grey shoe that will go with anything and again, make everything more casual.

My favourite shoe at the moment are my Dr Martens. It’s funny because these shoes used to be super popular in the ’90s and then they started to come back in 2008 and then people stopped wearing them until 2018 and now they are popular again. I have been wearing my Docs since December and I wear them with almost everything. I can’t wait to wear them in the spring with dresses and shorts. I think the creme colour would look super cute in the spring with outfits because when you think of spring you think of light colours instead of dark colours.

The last shoe is one that grew on me and it took a while for me to like them. This shoe is the mule shoe. There are a lot of knockoffs for this style of shoe, I have linked the Steve Madden version of the shoe. The original one is from Gucci but they are very expensive. These shoes also come as a fur version as well which are nice for spring because if it is still kinda cold then your feet are kept warm. These shoes are super cute because you can wear them with almost anything and they can make an outfit look dressier then it is. If you are thinking about getting any of these shoes, I would definitely recommend the mules.

Thank you for reading! I hope you guys find at least one of these shoes good for spring and hope you will go out and get a pair.

xx

PEER REVIEW No.2: Aylin Gis’ Blog

Examining the design of a fashion & lifestyle website.

This week, we will be taking a look at my lovely classmate’s blog, Aylin Gis. Named after the author herself, this website covers a variety of topics––from fashion trends, to product reviews, to lifestyle photography––all seamlessly unified under her personal identity and brand! My task will be to identify her stylistic choices and offer feedback as to whether these decisions either advance or detract from her content overall. For clarity, I have gathered my thoughts into three sections; atmosphere, imagery, authorial presence, and formatting.

A view of the homepage.


1. ATMOSPHERE

Aylin has chosen a refreshingly minimalistic, crisp look for her website. This is a strong decision that makes every subsequent visual element much more prominent, therefore presenting both opportunities and challenges. The overall impression is fairly light and airy thanks to the choices in typeface; thin sans serifs that are appropriately modern without being too trendy and an excellent initial decision for this blog. Because the text is always black on white, the only colour on the page comes from the images (more on those later) which certainly draws the eye towards the content, encouraging us to click. These are all important aspects to the overall look of the website that do function well to establish the perfect mood for us to enter into Aylin’s content.

However, I would love to see a bigger impact from Aylin’s homepage. Besides the title, there is no establishing focal point for readers to grab onto, and as we learned from Mauve Pagé’s guest lecture, this makes things a bit disorienting. So, a more dramatic and unifying element is necessary; both to more immediately convey a sense of uniqueness and to distinguish the homepage from subsequent pages.

Seeing as Aylin has a passion for photography, the natural solution to this focal point problem would be to introduce a website-wide area for banner imagery. If we take a look at Aylin’s theme, Kale, this can be easily accomplished by selecting some featured posts with strong imagery to be highlighted. Luckily, Aylin has a variety of photography posted already and this is the perfect opportunity to highlight past efforts and ensure that these posts don’t get lost. Assuming these are original images (it is unclear), I think this seascape, these barnyard outfits, and this flat-lay would be perfect stars.

In sum, it is clear that Aylin has the right mood in mind but she should consider making a stronger impression by introducing a focal point to convey a unique sense of place, which is lacking at present.

2. IMAGERY

As mentioned earlier, Aylin is clearly well-tuned to the nuances of images, I suspect in a manner that is akin to Tara Chittenden’s explanation of “aesthetic socialisation” whereby bloggers utilize the right visual codes to convey their familiarity with culturally significant trends. In selecting the thumbnail imagery for her posts, Aylin expertly utilizes photo curation and filtration techniques to convey a desired impression to her viewers. It seems these images are fairly consistent in that they are distinctly feminine, approachable, and a tad romantic––all qualities that work well to enhance the written content. In sum, Aylin’s confident selection of both stock and personal pictures is an important foundation to her website’s success given that she has chosen an otherwise sparse layout.

On the whole, Aylin’s colourful thumbnails jump from the page, sparkling like enticing little jewels, all lined up in rows. This orderly appearance, whereby all the posts appear as the same size on the homepage, could be slightly better maintained by making sure all the thumbnails are always properly cropped and scaled to be the exact same size. This inconsistency unfortunately appears repeatedly on this blog. While that may seem a minor adjustment, it is an important consideration when using a minimalistic layout.

Which one is Aylin? After clicking into the posts, I am pretty sure
that is her on the bottom left (the others are stock imagery).


3. AUTHORIAL PRESENCE
(via visuals to enhance brand)

These chosen images (above) seem to indicate that Aylin wants to integrate a sense of personhood into the visual vocabulary of the website. I feel the often personal perspective to Aylin’s content is not yet fully reflected in the visuals: There is perhaps a disconnect between the title of my classmate’s blog, Aylin Gis, and the fact that viewer’s don’t have a clear sense of who she is. (It is fine that Aylin seems to be a bit camera shy in her poses, but I find this puzzling because Aylin Gis has previously stated her affection for another fashion blogger, Aylin Koeing, whose coy positioning of face and body is the great uniting factor of that aspirational blog.)

After all, recognition brings familiarity and a sense of legitimacy that I think could be useful here; differentiating from stock imagery would also be key if Aylin is interested in partnering with brands or building up a fanbase. (Chittenden refers to this ideal position as “prosumer”––a hybrid of consumer and producer that acknowledges the monetization of blogs, whereby imagery is a key player in that success.) In brief, I would encourage Aylin to produce more original imagery of products, everyday life, and herself, whenever possible. In prior posts, when she has had the time, I better understood the future potential and look of Aylin’s blog.

There is one simple thing that can be done right away to enhance the personal aspect: I would encourage Aylin to make the About Me a more prominent visual element. She already has a brief About Me page, along with its charming picture, which could communicate a sense of orientation and permanency by being positioned into the right side of the blog (again possible according to the Kale theme demo). This would also add a sense of balance to the front page and is much more do-able than designing a logo.

3. FORMATTING

The trouble with formatting is that it can be very tricky to achieve good-looking text using WordPress. However, by looking back to the beginning of the semester as compared to now, I can see that Aylin is doing a great deal of necessary experimenting to appropriately improve the legibility of her text.

In the beginning, the text was very small with unappealing proportions and little spacing, but Aylin’s latest posts have enormously improved by increasing the type size. Her site is legible across devices as well. One small improvement that could be made is by increasing the spacing between text paragraphs and images. As you can see below, Aylin is careful to create wonderful spacing between images themselves (right) but her text could use some breathing room and a better proportion between line length and image width (left).



Overall, as demonstrated through our above discussion of her visual choices, Aylin clearly has a great aesthetic sensibility! I have every confidence that this will help her navigate future design decisions with clarity. With that said, there are a lot of easily-accessible customization options for her theme that have yet to be explored. My hope is that she will implement some of my suggestions, with the primary goal being a more impactful and considered representation of her content. Although there is certainly room for improvement, we can see that Aylin has already taken it upon herself to steadily improve the look of her digital space.

I look forward to seeing Aylin’s body of content grow by the end of the semester. Please have a look at her review of this website, which offered up some tremendously insightful suggestions. (Thank you, Aylin!)


Week 8: Remixing and Choosing

So for the mini assignment this week was about remixing something. At first I was very interested in the smartphone trends. For example, Tik Tok is gaining popularity over here in North America where you can post a video of yourself acting or lipsyncing to a song and someone can add onto yours or remix it. I thought that would be a great idea to do a remix, but it would just be copying someone else.

But just a few days ago, my girlfriend was in an elevator when these 2 dogs were interacting with each other. The Shiba Inu in the picture was very affectionate to the other dog, and the dog was quite hesitant. We exchanged a few edits back and forth then that gave me the inspiration to make my own.

While it was focused primarily on what I feel in studying, I guess I should give some background too. The courses that I’m taking in my last semester are heavily involved in technology. Sending in assignments, writing emails, and writing blogs. Mixed in with what I have to check for things I bought, my work schedule, updates on graduation, etc. it becomes exhausting. The Shiba Inu is representative of that. And I, kind of just taking it. I’m not claiming my remix to be deep, but a better context to how it fits overall!

Essay 2 – Experiences as an Online Publisher

I have always had an online presence, whether it was through a Facebook or Instagram account, there is no denying that I have been publishing my life online for quite some time. Upon reading about this class, Publications 101, it occurred to me that I have never written a blog or created my own public website. As much online activity and experience that I perceived to have had, it was apparent that understanding how to create, design, and write for a website was lacking. So, my interest was peaked and my creativity was sparked to expand my experience of being an online publisher.

As Erin Glass notes, “Let students, not the Edtech industry, debate and determine the emerging design of the space which will carry their voice…let them reimagine for the full possibility of speech.” (2015). Glass’ comment rings true to my approach and understanding of the class as it provided me with an opportunity to carry my own voice and reimagine the possibilities of public discourse. Instead of being in a strictly academic writing environment, the process of building and designing our personal blogs pushed our creative abilities and offered us a means to stray from common educational pedagogy. Furthermore, as discussed by Audrey Watters, the ability to have our own domain gave us the agency in what we want to publish for our site and online self and how we want to do so. We can demonstrate our learning “beyond the classroom walls.” (Watters 2015) and be able to have a better position in controlling our work, data, and self (Watters 2015).

I wanted to showcase these aspects of online publishing, as described by Glass and Watters, and highlight my creation of publication based on a distinct subject and design that I care about. I wanted to use this opportunity to carry a voice and reimagine the full possibilities of online discourse. This was done through my intentions of creating my blog as a public platform that brings attention to important issues of race, gender, and sexuality – all of which can be hard to publicly address offline. As described by Lori Hubbard from Chron, and Monique Sherrett from Boxcar Media, having a target audience is key in developing effective communication strategies as well as providing content that users can appreciate. The public that I envisioned for my blog were young individuals and groups of people who appreciate the arts. More importantly, I created this blog for the marginalized; I created it for those within the LGBTQ+ community, people of colour, and for those who want to learn, understand, and challenge the rigid social constructs set in place within society.

As noted by Michael Warner (2002) and Nancy Fraser (1990), the concept of the “public sphere” and what we consider to be public is often skewed – representing the “bourgeois society” and European “public concerns” and “common interests” (Fraser 1990 p. 58). This is where the concept of “counterpublics” arises in that I have created an online space that aligns with the notion where “members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter-discourses” (Fraser 1990 p. 67). I argue that this is a key feature for my blog and something that is possible due to the rise of public engagement through the Internet. This concept has become of value for me and hopefully for others, as it does not entail a focus on monetary value and simply falls down to challenging hegemony and the problematic and systemic social norms. Here, There hopes to bring people together and to highlight marginalized voices.

Apart from the overall concept of the blog, how I addressed my audience through the editorial design, and content, also aligns with my initial intentions for the creation of the site. What I kept in mind for the name, Here, There, was a mixture of simplicity and minimalism intertwined with a contemporary feel. However, l still wanted to be able to evoke emotions and meaning. I wanted to encompass the idea that voices will be heard from here and there and that there is no boundary as to who gets to be a part of this blog or who gets to be a part of society. Moving onto the design of the blog, again I wanted to create a space that was simplistic and contemporary with artistic elements to capture an audience of young, artistically driven individuals. I wanted to use soft colours and shapes that were inspired by contemporary designs, brands, and websites, such as Bouquet from Montreal, Poketo from the United States, and the website Them. I also wanted to capture the attention of a younger demographic recognizing that moving into the future, these are the people who will be leading society. The design of the hands for the header image supported my intentions of a contemporary and artistic theme. In addition, providing a visual element that connects to my message of coming together and connecting. With the implementation of music playlists, I also enhanced the ways in which I wanted to speak to an artistic audience. Pairing this with my blog objective, the playlists also speak to marginalized groups and for those who have a desire to challenge their understanding of certain norms set in place within society. Lastly, the content itself is directly related to what I aimed for in terms of my online self and publication and for whom this space would be for. By focusing my content on issues directly relating to race, gender, and sexuality, I hope that I can both connect individuals from afar whilst highlighting the importance of diversity.

Moving onto the data of our publication, the info gathered from Google Analytics was quite interesting. The presentation from Monique Sherrett from Boxcar Media was an eye-opening lesson on how to analyze our analytics and what to look out for. Keeping in mind the four aspects of analytics: awareness, engagement, conversion, and retention, it was possible to see how my audience and the public were interacting with my blog. However, since I did not share my blog widely, the awareness and engagement for my site were marginal. The views of my site did come in waves with periods of no activity at all and some moments with a spike in activity. This was most likely due to certain moments during the course when it was asked of us to look through our sites. The majority of users to my site were returning visitors, with the average duration and retention on my blog just a few minutes, around one to three minutes. In some ways, I wish I continued to update my blog more frequently in order to feel comfortable promoting it through other platforms, which in return would allow me to see more activity and data from users.

Throughout my time in Publications 101, my experience of creating online content has expanded. Although I always maintained a certain identity online by carefully managing my aesthetics and posts of my public profiles, such as Instagram, doing so on a blog proved to be quite different. I have not had experience with WordPress prior to this class, so, understanding the technical aspects were both challenging and rewarding, but also highly educational. Integrating my own voice and personality and publishing this through my site changed my perspective in that it is not an easy feat – it takes time, effort, and a clear understanding of the self and your goals to have it work well.

Beyond this course, I imagine my goals as an online publisher will continue to be the same. As an individual who has created an online self for a few years, the blog has helped to enrich my practice and experience of developing content online. This blog has sparked inspiration to continue to create an online presence and self that can challenge the norms of society, but it has also reminded me to be proactive in listening to diverse narratives online and offline. Currently, I am undecided if I will continue the blog as my schedule has been fairly tight. Continuing Here, There may be of a challenge, but because of its significant and meaningful topic (not just to myself, but hopefully for others as well), I believe that it will have importance towards the overall public discourse. Possibly, when I do have more time, pursuing the blog can be beneficial not just as a space to share knowledge and thoughts, but also as a rewarding opportunity to engage and have a public voice has been made possible through the Internet.

References

Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. Social Text, (25/26), 56-80. doi:10.2307/466240

Hubbard, L. (2018). Why is Identifying the Target Market so Important to a Company? Chron. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/identifying-target-market-important-company-76792.html

Glass, E. (2015). Why We Need Social Paper. CUNY Academic Commons. Retrieved from https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/papers/45249/

Sherrett, M. (2018). Publications 101: Marketing, Media, and Analytics. Simon Fraser University, Harbour Centre. Lecture.

Warner, M. (2002). Publics and Counterpublics (abbreviated version). Quarterly Journal of Speech, 88 (4), 413-425. http://knowledgepublic.pbworks.com/f/warnerPubCounterP.pdf

Watters, A. (2015). The Web We Need to Give to Students. Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/bright/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713#.4d7j8rs6x

Essay 2: Reflecting as A Blogger

When reflecting on my own blog, I see a stark difference on what I expected and what the course has taught me. In the beginning, I had an innocent idea of blogs. It’s an online space to express yourself and connect with people who have the same ideas. I still keep that idea when I write on my blog. However, throughout the course, I have changed my perspectives because I am more conscious on how it affects cultures, individuals, and workers. As ‘neutral’ as my content is, I don’t feel ‘safe’ because I am vulnerable with my content. Anybody can find my information and turn it against me or misuse my words to feed their own narratives. I want to explore this ‘fear’ and how the course has made me more careful about what I post and what I share online. It doesn’t necessarily discourage me from using the internet and social media. But my awareness has allowed me to be more appreciative of the people who create ‘controversial’ content that can endanger them or the people around them just because one person on the internet does not agree with it. My goal is to express my self-awareness in an active role. It’s not enough that I consume media writing about someone’s demise to the pitchforks of the internet. I want to be aware of that in my daily conversation online and offline.

Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis writes about media manipulation and the dissemination of disinformation online (2017). They discuss the events revolving around Wikileaks’ distribution of the hacked emails of John Podesta, Hilary Clinton’s campaign chairman (Marwick & Lewis, 2017, p. 2). Users from the message board 4chan quickly spread misinformation about the emails and how subcultural groups such as the alt-right groups who have given this scandal greater media attention than Trump’s own allegations (Marwick & Lewis, 2017, p.2). These groups leverage their online presence and take advantage of the ‘vulnerabilities in the news’ and increase the coverage of their messages (Marwick & Lewis, 2017, p.3). This topical example has impacted U.S. politics today and in my opinion, gave voice to the hateful and divisive groups in America. I am reflective of how this affects my own online presence. It’s good to be knowledgeable and aware of the power of these groups, and I want to be more conscious about that in my own online interactions. In my blog, I speak about productivity and the impacts of smartphones on our day to day lives. I address the conflict between our attachment to our phones and this growing dependency to it. I think part of this conversation that I learned from the course is also the responsibility of the user. I cannot mindlessly use my devices and ignore what exists in the same spaces I connect in. I try to have ‘conscious’ content and express that throughout my blog.

Mike Caulfield writes a thought provoking piece on Digital Literacy and what we should follow (2016). What I found relevant to my reflection is his example of the Tree Octopus. These digital literacy acronyms and rules that are commonly shared to schools are useless in determining what is real or fake on the internet (Caulfield, 2016). The tree octopus is a fake cephalopod with a fake creature page that shows it has evolved into an amphibian and survives on land (Caulfield, 2016). What Caulfield found was they did not distinguish this by using acronyms to detect fake news, but just by knowing and learning that it’s impossible (2016). This leads to his proposal that to be digitally literate, you must know the web (Caulfield, 2016). What I think he means by this is that we must be aware and critical online as we are in our day to day lives. There are going to be groups and individuals who will misguide users because they don’t know anything better. Dissemination will be used for political gain or to harm minorities. I want to continue practicing these conscious ideas online. My blog is as vulnerable as anyone else’s. But I try my best to learn more and carry that knowledge with me.

I am reminded of UCL’s social media discoveries and why it’s important to be conscious of how it is affecting our day to day lives (2018). Discovery #12 writes that social media has a profound impact on gender relations (2018). This is a small example on this bigger picture of bettering myself in the online space. They find that users have benefits in using real or fake accounts to express sensitive topics and coming out against heteronormative relationships (UCL, 2018). Even though I am still cautious of my own personal information, I think there will be ways in which I can express myself. Knowledge and discussion will better me as a blog writer or an internet user. While I still carry this fear, I want to play an active role and this course helped me prepare for it.

References

Caulfield, M. (December 19, 2016). Yes, digital literacy. But which one? Hapgood. Accessed on November 26, 2018. Retrieved from https://hapgood.us/2016/12/19/yes-digital-literacy-but-which-one/.

Marwick, A. & Lewis, R. (2017). Media manipulation and disinformation online. Data & Society. Accessed on November 26, 2018. Retrieved from http://posiel.com/outline/full-semester-outline/.

UCL (2018). Social media can have a profound impact through gender relations, sometimes through using fake accounts. University College London. Accessed on November 26, 2018. Retrieved from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post/discoveries/12-social-media-can-have-a-profound-impact-on-gender-relations-sometimes-through-using-fake-accounts.

Week 12: Online Shaming

In our second to the last week, we got to watch Jon Ronson’s TED talk When online shaming goes too far. He gave plenty examples of people who got affected by people who take the original post’s context or message out of proportion. The talk was compelling because it’s telling of how mob mentality can be dangerous in social media. I’ve seen many examples where even sharing from one account to another already leads to problems. It can ruin people’s lives. This is the world we live in. Information feels infinite and we take these small, consumable tidbits of information and blow it out. Jon Ronson did a great job presenting the helplessness that these people feel. Justine Sacco intended to mimic Americans who were ignorant of Africa as a whole and tweeted this:

In context, it makes sense. It makes sense to her friends and the people who know her but once it was shared by strangers, she was part of a social media crucifixion. They were ready to see what happens to her when she gets off the plane. She received the most unbelievable hate speech despite not knowing who she is. Her life has changed because people held on to this small piece of the Internet and created their own narrative. Online shaming reveals the human nature of being a part of something, but for the wrong reasons.