Do you want to know how to become a beauty blogger?
Do you want to see yourself having a beauty blog on YouTube, gaining followers, and making money?
I am sure that your answer is yes. That is why you are here.
I used to be a dreamer too. I used to just dream about becoming a beauty blogger because I want to help those around me boost their confidence by doing my passion. I also used to dream of becoming one of those beauty vloggers that I see on YouTube who make money by doing what they love.
Beauty bloggers are not on social media just because they want to show to everyone how awesome and gorgeous they are. Many of us are there because we know that beauty blogging can make a difference.
Educating people about beauty can help those people who do not know how to express themselves with the use of makeup and fashion. With the beauty bloggers’ help, they can aid these people to realize that beauty is achievable no matter how you look.
What You Will Need
Before we jump into details, you should prepare the following must-haves of a beauty blogger. To tell you honestly, you need to shell out some money to buy the essentials. Think of these stuff as investments, because the return is high.
1. Camera and Accessories
Vlogging is in nowadays. There are over 1 billion people who watch YouTube and over 3 billion video hours spent on watching videos each month.
For this reason, aside from blogging, you should also consider building your beauty vlog on video streaming websites like YouTube, especially that you want to niche on beauty. You need to show your face to the world how you do your makeup or wear your today’s outfit so that your audience does not only imagine how you do it. You provide a real visual interaction with your followers.
However, if you do not like to create a beauty vlog, which is extremely not advisable if you want to succeed, you still need an excellent camera. Yes, there are free stock photos on beauty, but because they are free, you can expect that a lot of blogger wannabes use them. Also, limited resources cannot adequately portray what you want to express on a beauty blog.
If you want to establish your credibility as a beauty blogger, you need to show your face to the world. That is why you need a high-end camera. It is even a better idea if you can hire a professional photographer to take pictures of you.
If you can hire one, you do not have to buy your camera for this purpose at all. However, if you think you cannot afford to hire a professional photographer, you can employ the amateur ones. Photography students will be glad to do it for you because it will be a win-win situation for both of you. They can use your video as a part of their portfolio, and you can use their talent to create an excellent beauty blog.
In addition to the camera, you also need to consider its accessories, like the softbox. To create excellent videos for vlog or pictures for a beauty blog, you need good lighting, too. If you hire a photographer, you do not need to worry about the camera accessories too.
2. Computer and Internet Connection
As a beauty blogger, a computer and the Internet are the essential equipment that you must have. You use the computer to upload your files and edit your content before you publish it. Computer and Internet are the bread and butter of blogging; that is why you should invest in high-quality ones because it will pay off.
Of course, you can always choose to use your smartphone. However, if you are serious about producing quality content and videos, you need to use the right equipment. You also need to choose not just any other computer, but the one with the right spec, because you do not want
your computer to crash each time you edit your vids. Choose a computer with 8 to 32 RAM and a multi-core processor that is preferably i7 to i9. The computer should also have a dedicated graphics card like NVIDIA or AMD with 2GB memory, depending on the editing software you use. For the storage, SSD is the advisable one.
As for your Internet connection, you need to at least 40Mbps because you will be uploading and downloading large files.
3. Apps and Software
You also need to invest in video and photo editing software. Of course, you want your pictures and videos to look attractive to your audience. That is why editing is inevitable unless you hire someone to do it for you.
However, if you want to be hands-on to the videos and pictures that you want to publish in public, you should also invest in software. It does not have to be Adobe, but it should be something that can do the job. Among the examples of photo editing software that you can use are Canva, Picktochart, Adobe Photoshop, and the like.
For video editing, you can use the Adobe Premiere, iMovie, Final Cut Pro, and the like. Other software, apps, and services that you might want to consider are proofreading software, cloud storage, blog editors, and the like, depending on your needs.
4. Social Media Page or Account
Aside from YouTube, you should also consider having an account on Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter, or Instagram, depending on where your audience typically is. Social media engagement is critical in marketing, and for beauty blogging, you are marketing yourself.
Social media is an essential platform because it is where you can build awareness about your beauty blog, show how authentic you are, and engage with your followers.
5. Beauty Products
Of course, what is a beauty blog without beauty products? Depending on what kind of beauty blog you pick, you should also invest in beauty products like makeup, clothes, bags, and the like.
If you are a new beauty blogger, expect that you need to shell out from your pocket to buy your products, whether they are for reviews, tutorials, and the like.
Step-by-Step Tutorial on How to Be a Beauty Blogger
1. Compute How Much Capital You Need.
First of all, do not expect that by starting a beauty blog today, you will earn your month’s electric bill from it by tomorrow. It does not work that way. Therefore, make sure to stick to the job that is giving you an income.
You can only quit your job if your beauty blog is already paying well. Also, you should expect that there are bills to pay as you grow your blog. The first thing that you need to put your money on is your capital.
I already mentioned the equipment and tools that you will need for beauty blogging, and most of them are not free. Camera, software, and microphone are among the examples that need purchasing.
Therefore, before you start your blogging journey, make sure that you have the budget. Blogging without a financial plan is like jumping into the lion’s den. You do not want to jump into blogging and realize that all the time and effort you invested has gone to waste because you cannot establish a critical impression.
Building authority is crucial for blogging or vlogging. To do it, you need to produce quality content. What better way to create good content with a good camera, editing software, microphones, computer, and the like.
As you grow your blog, you also need to consider the monthly bills for electricity and Internet subscriptions that you invested in it.
2. Decide if You Will Work for Somebody or Not.
Typically, when it is your first time in blogging, you work for yourself, because you need to prove yourself to the industry first. However, if you can show that you have what it takes to work for a company or agency, you are free to apply.
You can apply as a journalist or as an employee. The only thing that you need to do is search for job openings in this field and send your resume.
However, if you create a blog for an institution, it has a high expectation that you can hold people’s interest proven by likes and shares. There are times that you need to deal with difficult employers or clients.
The big plus about working for an agency or company is that you are sure that you get a salary in an instant. You do not have to wait for your blog to grow followers before you can earn a decent income.
On the other hand, what is great about working on your blog is it establishes authority. It also becomes your portfolio once you decide to work for a company or agency or if you want to collaborate with brands. Moreover, once your blog grows, you are sure that the money that gets from it is yours alone.
3. Identify Your Niche.
Let us face it. There are a lot of beauty bloggers today; that is why you need to find your niche.
To find your niche, you need to answer the question, “what is it that you can offer to your audience that is unique.”
Nowadays, almost everything is already on the Internet. What most bloggers do nowadays is incorporate some personality on their blog to make it unique. Take note that you also have to be specific in choosing your niche.
Beauty blogging comprises of different subcategories. Some beauty bloggers focus on doing product reviews. Others focus on nail care and arts, while some focus on doing makeup or skincare tutorials.
It is essential to pick the niche that is right for you, depending on your passion, so that you can fully show your expertise with personality in it. It also paves a way of knowing who your audience is.
Take note that you must not be extremely specific that you might run out of content ideas. You also have to consider your competition. Learn how others do theirs and think of the ways you can be different.
4. Find out Who Your Audience Is.
Your audience is an essential consideration in blogging because having a considerable amount of followers from it is what pays the bills. For this reason, you should know who they are.
Knowing your targeted audience is vital because it is going to be your basis on how you will create your content that does not bore them. When writing a blog, you should adjust the tone and personality of your voice based on how your audience communicates.
Many aspiring bloggers think that it is easy to identify who their audience is. Although they may not admit it, a lot of new bloggers fall into this pitfall. As a result, they end up creating content that only pleases themselves and not their audience.
What they do not know is that knowing your audience is more than just knowing the gender and age of your targeted audience. It is also essential to understand the audience’s interest, social status, income range, demographics, and the like.
Knowing this information will help you identify which product or brands to collaborate with, you will have more idea what content to do next.
By knowing what motivates your audience to read your posts, you can always create engaging content for them.
5. Choose Your Platform.
To create a blog, you need a platform where you can place your content. Although vlogging is commonly on YouTube, you have a lot of choices when it comes to blogging.
For blogging, websites like the Blogger.com and WordPress.com are the ideal choices because of their user-friendliness and popularity. It is advisable to buy a personalized domain because it is one of the proofs that the audience consider to prove that you are an expert blogger.
6. Be Patient.
Patience is an intangible resource that any aspiring bloggers should have. Blogging per se is easy, but growing followers take time and effort.
If you happen to build your website and post your first blog, do not expect that you will earn from it right away. Blogging success does not happen overnight; that is why it is essential always to remind yourself to be patient. It takes several months before you can see the fruits of your effort.
One of the main differences between successful bloggers than those who are not is that the latter tends to give up when they see no results on their first few posts. Therefore, it is another reason why you should blog about the stuff you love.
Blogging takes effort and thorough research, especially if you want to cut off the costs of your capital by doing some things yourself. To gain followers, you should know some content, SEO, social media marketing, and some web development. Learning these topics requires patience.
7. Monetize Your Blog
There are several ways on how we can monetize our blog. The most famous one is through affiliate marketing. It is one of the most popular because even as a starter, you can already use this system to monetize your blog.
Even if you do not have your products and services to sell, you can always go to affiliate sites and choose which products to market.
What you only have to bear in mind in using this monetization system is to create a content that is related to the product or service you sell.
The second one is through advertisements. AdSense is the most popular way among bloggers. To make money through this method, you offer some space for ads, and advertisers would bid into that space to promote their products on your website.
You may also want to publish an e-book. Through an e-book, you can teach your followers makeup techniques, skincare procedures, and the like. You can make money out of it because it is simple to make.
If selling an e-book does not interest you, you can use your authority by selling courses. Another way that you can make money out of your blog is to use it as a platform to sell your products and services.
What most successful way that famous bloggers do nowadays is brand collaboration and sponsorship. However, to be able to monetize your blog using this method, you need to prove that you have a massive amount of followers. You also need to be upfront and honest about stating your readership amount.
8. Collaborate With Brands.
Although we already mentioned the brand collaboration in the previous step, we will delve deeper into this in this step because of the different ways that you can do it. First is through affiliate marketing, which I already mentioned.
Second is through making reviews of the products or services that some brands would send to you or pay you to write about them.
Third, which is the most important, is brand ambassadorship. Only those bloggers with a massive amount of followers can take advantage of this kind of brand collaboration. Among the different ways you can collaborate with brands, it is the type where you should be picky.
You have to choose which brand to represent because what people want is authenticity. Followers can sense if you are not genuine about the product that you are representing, and they do not like that. It is highly advisable to pick the brand that you are glad to advertise to people.
Also, when you collaborate with brands through ambassadorship, the brand you represent can affect your credibility. You also have to bear in mind that whatever you do or state on your blog, it will also affect the brand’s reputation.
One example is the controversy about the racist remarks of Sondos Al-Qattan on Filipino maids. Because of what she did, several huge brands like Chelsea Beautique and M Micallef pulled off their sponsorship, including the Max Factor Arabia. Max Factor defended the company by stating that Al-Qattan’s remark is subjective, and the company has nothing to do with it.
For this reason, As you grow, and brands are already dying to collaborate with you, always be aware of the content you post.
9. Be Sociable.
As a blogger, it is highly advisable to own an account on at least two social media sites. Exchange responses with fellow bloggers by replying to their posts and favoriting or sharing them, because it is one of the ways you can gain networks with fellow bloggers and followers.
It is also advisable for you to join blogging networking events where you can meet your fellow bloggers. Networking is one of the best ways to learn from them and establish your brand.
For this reason, if you want to become a beauty blogger, you should know that there is no room for shyness. You have to get out there and build a relationship with your fellow bloggers and followers.
10. Respond to Your Followers Kindly and Professionally.
To increase engagement, you need to interact with your followers from time to time. Of course, being kind in your response is easy if your followers are replying in the same way.
However, Internet trolls are inevitable. They are causing trouble in the community by eliciting an emotional response that can hurt you or other followers.
You can get rid of these trolls by not allowing them on your blog in the first place. What you should do first is to establish community guidelines or policies. You can also tweak some filters on your blogging platform so that you can moderate the comments appearing on your site.
You can also delete and block them. You do not need this kind of followers in the first place. However, if in case a troll’s response leaked in the comment section of your blog, ignore it.
What a troll wants is to elicit a negative response from you, and you do not want him or her that satisfaction. Commonly, some of your loyal followers typically handle the job of defending you.
If you really cannot take what a troll says, diffuse it with humor or kindness and move on with your life.
Conclusion
Did you enjoy reading the 10 steps I created on how to become a beauty blogger? I hope that these lists have helped you on your journey to becoming a beauty blogger.
I know how difficult it is at first. Yes, it is easy to write or create content based on your passion, but let us face it. We also want to feel recognized, and we also want to earn from it as other successful bloggers do. I have been there, and I know being a successful beauty blogger takes time and effort. That
is why I hope that this article has helped you in some way. If you think that my post has helped you or you know someone who can benefit from this post, kindly comment, like, or share.