I hope everyone is staying home and safe during this quarantine! I have been slacking on posting lately so my apologies to you, dear readers. It's certainly been crazy times here so I have a guest post for you today from Gabrielle Sinacola of NeoReach. Gabrielle Sinacola is a digital marketing consultant and content writer at NeoReach. She has a background in computer science and business, merging technical and creative skills to drive impact for companies. Gabrielle is dedicated to propelling strategic marketing initiatives forward with innovative thinking and detailed execution. Enjoy!

How to Convey Your Lifestyle Through Your Blog

Just as you would furnish and decorate your home to reflect your taste and personality, so should you adorn your blog. It is much more complicated to not convey your lifestyle through your blog, that is to hide your lifestyle, than it is to share it. That’s because we inherently speak to what we know and love. This comes across in all forms of content you publish, from words to images to sponsorships. If something does not fit with your lifestyle, your audience will be able to tell. The ability to gain and engage a loyal following is accomplished through a natural flow of information. Information that matches who you are and what you stand for.

Read Between the Lines

I am sure you have heard the saying that it’s not what you say but how you say it. Commonly applied to situations arising in arguments, this idea also feeds into the written word as well. Beyond the words on the page, it is important to understand the unspoken component of your content. Your lifestyle comes through in the connotation of the blog posts. Think about how your posts answer questions such as:

• How does your audience feel when reading your blog?
• Am I speaking to a specific demographic (working mothers, varsity athletes, etc.)?
• How formal or informal is the language I am using?

As an author, your tone is vitally important to how your content is received by a reader. This is brought about through word choice– use of slang, industry jargon– and any anecdotes you include. If you are talking to busy mothers, you want to keep posts concise, informative and relatable. You would opt for everyday language as opposed to long explanations. To tell a fellow mother why a skincare product is safe for her children, you want to include easily digestible statements that get a bigger message across like “BPA free” or “no chemical additives.” You are not, however, going to start talking about the organic compounds used in the product and their reaction with the skin cells. Not only is that boring, but it is unnecessary to your audience.

You may share your own experience with dealing with eczema for your son/daughter and how it impacted your product selection. This additional personal touch adds to your credibility. By sharing little parts of your own life, you are providing windows into your lifestyle. Usually, these things come to mind when you are writing a blog post, but you ignore them or deem them unimportant to your reader. Those details that are specific to you and your blog will attract the audience most benefiting from your content and eager to consume it!

It Is All in the Details

I just talked about how it goes deeper than what you write, and I am going to keep building on that idea. Think about the nonverbal elements of your blog. Visuals.

There are a hundreds of ways to capture the same image with a camera that can differ in:

• Composition
• Focus
• Lighting
• Camera angle
• Filters & Editing
• And so many more...

Not only photographed images, but also computer generated images. You have a whole host of media forms to choose to include (or not include) that play into portraying your lifestyle:

• Video
• Animation
• Illustrations

With all of this, the overall color scheme and layout of your blog convey your lifestyle too. You can go all white with a very clean, geometric format. Or, you can choose to go with bold colors and odd angles to keep it interesting at every click. An easy way to get inspiration for this is to look at other blogs in your niche or who you would attribute to having a similar lifestyle as yourself. Look at how they organize their content and how that affects what you gain from it and how you perceive the blogger. Use different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest to find different juxtapositions of written content and graphics that fit best with what you are trying to achieve.

You Do You

Chances are you already have a pretty good idea of what and how you want to share your life with your blog audience. As the expert on your lifestyle, you have the best intuition on what is and isn’t going to work for your readers, and yourself. Write it out as a draft if you are really struggling and read it all the way through aloud. Pay attention to the inflections in your voice, the emotions that arise as you read, and the feeling you have once you have finished. These are all great indicators of whether or not you are properly portraying your lifestyle through your blog.

Looking to work with brands that are aligned with who you are and what your blog stands for? Get in touch with NeoReach’s influencer community to match with brands that fit your lifestyle!