Bloggers and Brands 3

[CookingUpAStormTonight]

New thread I hope.

I find The Fashion Lift to be one of the least transparent of the bunch though I’ve noticed a few #ads lately. For some reason her lack of transparency doesn’t bother me in the way that AB’s does. I like the FL and just take it with a pinch of salt and assume that most things on her feed are gifted or paid partnerships.

The Fashion Lift is dreadful at using #gift or #ad. I really wonder what the reasons for not doing so are.

She had a blog post today featuring all things Marks & Spencer’s with a one liner in the smallest of writing saying it was in collaboration with M&S.

Hannah Gale on her insta stories tonight even disclosed affiliate links - I think that’s great and am sure it won’t stop people swiping up for link. At last integrity is beginning to appear among IGers - I hope others do follow suit.

I was just coming on to mention Hannah Gale's current story. An excellent demonstration of how transparency is not rocket science.

I really really like Hannah Gale.
She discloses ads and affiliate links & does seem to use her gifted items more than once. Ok not all of the sponsored content is the most relevant or interesting for me, but she makes it very clear when something is an advert, so I can choose whether to skip past that post.

Also, she’s very open about doing outfit photo shoots instead of the “oh I just fell out of bed looking like this and happened to put on these 8 pieces of gifted clothing” unlike some other bloggers I could mention!

Is anyone else curious about why so many IGers were pushing Vero as an alternative to IG yesterday? So many on my stories were urging followers to try it. There's no such thing as a coincidence in The blogosphere IMO

I noticed that @chartreuse

I wonder if they could just have been trying to build up their followers on another platform but it seems to have been a bit of coincidence.

I woke up the other day and saw so many asking to be followed on Vero...never even heard of it, wonder why that is?

Err can I point out I have also never heard of Vero... 😳😳

There was an article on Vero in the independent the other day. I think the interest from bloggers is more innocent than assumed here, I know there have been many complaints from bloggers about insta changing their algorithm and basically changing business accounts loads to come up in their followers feed. Vero has a different financial model (not ad based but subscription) so in that interest it's a fairer platform in terms of exposure.

I was wondering about vero too, haven’t we all got enough things to follow. I think it’s a bad idea for people to add yet another thing they want us to follow. Blogs, FB, Insta, insta Stories, Twitter. I know not everyone uses all these, but to add another is overdoing it IMO.

*charging not changing

I'm sure I saw yesterday that the first 100,000 (or whatever number) of sign ups were free, so maybe that explains the Vero stampede?

Cara Sutherland rocking the disclosure this morning.....good for her.

I think the Instagram algorithms are really pissing many bloggers off.

Tess Daly, the make up artist, has been spitting feathers about it recently. She's someone who has a profound disability, so Instagram is her actual career. She's been complaining that some posts get huge outreach but then some are seen by hardly any of her subscribers. She's been saying that people have to post a minimum of four words underneath a post before Instagram considers it user engagement (or something? Don't understand it all, honestly). And unless you like 7 or her posts it's not considered engagement either? I dunno. So she's been urging people to like old posts and comment with four words.

It's all a bit baffling but I can see how frustrating it would for her to have these arbitrary views that are out of her control. Vero or whatever it is, promises to have none of those algorithms. But they must have some, so I'll believe it when I see it.

I've seen a few IG'ers complaining about the algorithm as well. My feed is doing some weird things I have to say, but I am sure I'm not alone in just looking up the feed of a few people I like and then skimming past the rest. I do miss the old chronological order though. Strange times though, with Snapchat and IG appearing to fall out of favour. Who will be the next MySpace?

I also can't see the appeal in paying to view a stream of adverts, when you can get them for free on Insta! The Vero business model sounds totally confused as well. It says it will be 'advertising-free' and yet transaction fees will be charged to merchants who sell via creators and brands that sell on the platform. How do you reconcile those two statements??

There’s now some negative stuff coming out on instagram about the business practices of the people behind Vero

The Vero model also talks about circles of intimacy so you can share different things with people depending on how well you know them. That doesn't sound like it has the potential to deliver a terribly positive experience. I can imagine teens (and adults!) getting hung up on whether they are a close friend or just an bog standard friend of someone. Surely the good thing about Insta is that its a leveller.

Quite funny reading about it on Twitter and people panicking about deleting their accounts after signing up. I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole until I knew more about it.

Bring back chronological order, it's sadly sadly missed.

A bit of a digression from disclosures, I was wondering the other day about Gucci in particular. Why is there such a gucci-fest over instagram? Gucci belts, gucci loafers, gucci bags, and most hideous of all t-shirts with a big gucci logo.How does the sponsorship work with them? Because tehy are not a store like say NAP or M&S, so do they gift these items to bloggers? Or is it just happenstance that all bloggers are so much into gucci? I mean yes fashion is somewhat of a herd mentality, but the ubiquity of gucci is just way too much.

And it is very irritating, I have started to actively dislike the brand.

Well vero seems to have died a fairly quick death.

Too right!! They're deserting it like rats from a sinking ship.

An app developed by a bunch of Russians, owned by a billionaire with a shady business history, where you can't delete your profile without their permission and who you give access to all your contacts to when you sign up. What could possibly go wrong?? (I hope none of my friends have signed up)

Love that so many flocked to sign up for it. BAAAAAAAAA.