Meet The Bloggers: Part II - From Online to IRL
Wearing Pretty Little Thing dress and Zara sandals.
Think of it as online dating for Instagram Influencers.
After perhaps 6 months of consistent blogging, I took a leap of faith and finally started to meet other Vancouver influencers in person. Initially, I will admit that I was quite hesitant to do so as I had no clue what to expect from other bloggers offline. In fact, I know that I am not alone when I say that such meetings are very similar to online dating encounters (not that I’ve ever had the opportunity to date online as I was married before such apps became really popular). Consequently, before taking such a potentially risky step, you should set down some ground rules for yourself.
Step 1: The Set Up
Firstly, you should make sure that you’ve been following each other for a while and have enough commonalities to avoid an awkward initial encounter. Mostly, this means that your branding and/or style is similar and that you regularly engage with each other posts. In my case, the first Instagram blogger I ever met was someone with whom I had connected through an engagement group based in Vancouver. After exchanging a good amount of nice comments and direct messages with each other, we mutually decided that it would be a good idea to meet up in person.
Step 2: The First Date
Secondly, I suggest that you start with something low-key such as a coffee date at a cute cafe. Since I work downtown, it’s usually quite easy for me to pick a nearby coffee shop for a first meeting. Usually, these blogger dates are reserved purely for chatting and getting to know each other better (although 90% of the conversation often revolves around Instagram-related matters). However, if we click and decide to see each other again, we will usually try to shoot outfits photos on our next date.
From experience, I’ve found that I should almost always trust my gut reaction to someone— it doesn’t take very long to see if someone is being genuine or if they share the same basic life values and principles that you hold. While the vast majority of Vancouver bloggers that I’ve met have been wonderful people, there have been a few “interesting” exceptions.
In fact, one of the first bloggers I started hanging out with turned out to be so high-maintenance that I had to slowly pull away from her. After routinely seeing her treat individuals in the customer service industry with little respect and frequently complain about her extremely privileged life, I knew that I could not hang out with her any more without losing respect for myself (or going crazy). I mean, who scrolls through Instagram while watching a movie in the theatre? Another cherished memory was when she took a very lengthy amount of time to take outfit photos and a slightly buzzed couple made an unfortunate comment about her taking too long. She then proceeded to yell at them for impolite and disrespectful. Talk about irony! (Honestly, there are quite a few other stories I could share but this post can only be so long…)
Needless to say, I was very nervous about meeting new people after that particular relationship had concluded. However, I eventually broke out of my shell and started to meet new people again. Since then, I’m happy to say that I’ve made some great friends from my blogger acquaintances.
Step 3: The Group Hang
The third (optional) step is the creation of a group date. This action is only to be undertaken if the first date has gone very well and you’re sure that the individual will mesh well with your other blogger friends. For purely logistical purposes, it’s ideal to have group dates of even numbers so that people can pair up to shoot each other’s outfits.
Standard blogger group date ideas include a weekend brunch (so that there will be sufficient light for shooting following the brunch) or weekday shopping and cafe dates (thrift stores have become popular spots as they soothe our guilt about receiving too many new pieces from fast fashion brands). During such occurrences, be sure to take plenty of “Behind the Scenes (#BTS)” Instagram stories of your zany blogger friends shooting pictures of food or each other. Last but not least, make sure to hashtag such stories as a #BloggerDate and make the photo-taking process seem fun (when in reality it’s almost always a major struggle).
The last stage of this evolutionary process (in my opinion at least) is the blogger trip. However, this topic will be more fully addressed in a future post— stay tuned!
To sum things up, I would say that this particular aspect of being an influencer/blogger can be the most rewarding part of being in this industry. While there are certainly ups and downs to the experience, I would say that it has greatly broadened my social horizons and has improved my general networking skills. Oh, and making actual friends is obviously an awesome perk!
If you are an influencer, how you do feel about notion of blogger dating? If you are not influencer, do you have any lingering questions about this brave new world of social-media-generated relationships?
Cheers, Debbie (aka The Stylish Wordsmith)
