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Kristina McInnis on Fashion Blogging

We’re going into the world of fashion today. I know, we’re not that fashionable really. However, we have a fashion influencer and blogger as our guest today, Kristina McInnis! She’s all the way from Portland, Oregon, and is going to tell us all about fashion blogging and about both her experience of and journey into the fashion blogging world.

What interested you in fashion blogging?

Originally, Kristina wanted to be a vet. However, she ended up getting an internship with Nordstrom during high school where she was introduced to fashion and people win the industry. She became part of their fashion board, learnt about the different positions within fashion, going to fashion shows. She also had a three-day intensive course where she learnt about marketing, design and was part of a show. That led her to thinking about how she could go down this avenue further.

Fashion blogging wasn’t something she had initially thought of. However, she worked for a company in New York, called College Fashionista. They employ college students nationwide to talk about fashion, lifestyle and college life. Writing for them monthly gave Kristina an experience of blogging.

Do you make fashion or do you follow it?

Kristina definitely has her own style, but she bases her blogs on top trends, podcasts and instagram group feedback. As a result, she can be on top of the news in fashion.

She talks about fashion, the lifestyle and she also does interviews with people from different industries that fit into fashion. Essentially, she uses a lot of different influences that she can write about.

One of the main things she has to remember is that, despite her not being at college anymore, spring break and other college events are up and coming in people’s minds. Therefore, she creates collections for college in this way to keep current with her college readers.

 

Lockdown

Kristina is indeed in lockdown in Portland, Oregon. However, she can still go for walks (and so takes her dog!) and there are limitations on numbers in shops, etc.

Graham says masks don’t do it for fashion but Kristina disagrees! People are getting really creative with it.

Lots of people are finding a lot of business in this area, especially through making them fashionable items.

Kevin, however, is not wearing a mask while he walks his dog. As he noted, being North of Hadrian’s Wall means he sees very little people on his walks. He was out for an hour and a half and saw 3 people the other day! And, more of a revelation is this: Graham went out for his first walk outside in 3 weeks!

Portland, Oregon

It’s definitely growing and becoming super busy as people move in. Portland is a hot new place to go to on the West Coast side, an hour from the Oregon coast and 45 minutes from the mountains. So, it’s an ideal place for beaches or skiing!

What’s the next best city from Portland, Oregon?

Seattle is 3 hours away – home of Starbucks!

What do you blog most about?

Her avatar is a mid-twenties graduate, living down town and with a bit of money that she can buy high-priced items with. Kristina tries to write to her whenever she is blogging.

She talks a lot of pieces that are dupes of high-end brands. She talks about pieces that are a third of the price of what the branded items may be. She has a particular focus on bags where she compares high-end brands and the dupes that look identical.

How did she come up with her avatar?

She grabbed a big group of people who had been following her for a while and asked them questions via a paid Zoom meeting. Because these people had been following her for a while, Kristina knew this was definitely her demographic. As a result, she asked them things like what were their spending habits (when do they spend for pleasure), and then built her avatar ‘Tiffany’ on them.

That translates to any market really. And also, it really helps to speak to your demographic or target market in person because you gain more personable information which gives you a deeper understanding of what you are doing as a result. You can learn so much by asking questions and you’d be surprised by how readily people will answer.

Being an influencer and fashion blogger, people think it’s an easy career. However, Kristina puts a lot of her life online and commits to her followers which takes up a lot of her time.

Photography and image

Graham’s daughter-in-law is a budding photographer and is very meticulous about the staging of her shots. It looks like Kristina is too. Her style has changed a lot. So, she used to testing with more colour, more staged images, more raw images, etc and sees what gets the best reactions and feedback. She might get lots of likes or comments or direct messages.

Likes don’t pay the electricity bill; how do you translate your following into an income?

  • Affiliate links – shop styles and brand styles. She can link her products, sell those and make a commission on it.
  • Sponsored content – that comes in a wide variety. It could be a company who wants her photography style, or maybe for her to promote a product. For example, Pretty Little Thing are having an awards ceremony and they asked if she could repost some of their content and, as a result, she would get paid by them.

 

Fashion blogging income: what’s the split between affiliate income and contracts?

Kristy gains more income from the sponsorships than the affiliate links. She does make a lot on affiliates but it really depends on the brand negotiations, rather than her choosing her own rate.

Networking

 

When you become a fresher you do eat and drink a lot. So, Kristina’s idea of talking about immunity and health for that demographic is a good idea…

How are you going to develop in the next few years?

So, Kristina graduated in December and she ended a company on influencer relations. She closed that because you can’t make a lot of money unless you’re an events planner, really. Now, she is doing the three pillars:

  1. The blog
  2. The Bottle Blonde – her podcast where she talks booze, boys, business and beauty
  3. KCM connect – continuing with her social media management and branding. It would be a big achievement if she could keep her business with her 11 full time clients going.

The Next 100 Days…

Rebranding her clients’ websites, as well as her own. She is starting from scratch and she also wants to get solidified on her purpose. Kristy wants to figure out what she wants to bring to the table as an independent and forthright individual.

If you want to contact Kristina, follow the link here.