An Evening with The Body Shop

Posted on May 8, 2016 by suzie81speaks

I love the Body Shop – they were the first set of products that I ever used in my teens and over the years I have consistently purchased my favourites as part of of my daily skin-care routine.

Last Saturday I attended the grand re-opening of The Body Shop on New Street in Birmingham, along with a lovely bunch of bloggers from The Bloggers Parlour.

The store on New Street has undergone a revamp this year, and it looked stunning, with a nice layout, clean lines and beautiful displays. There has been some new introductions too, with an interactive section that allows customers to select products based on their skin type, and a new range of products that compliment their most popular fragrances. The Body Shop brand is known for their natural, cruelty-free products and I was particularly excited to get advice on their cruelty-free make-up range and brushes.

I immediately made a beeline for the make-up consultant, Jess, who spent some time going through the best type of products I could use for my skin, which is the ultimate combination of oily and dry. She then gave me some advice on making the best of my eyebrows (never my best feature), and showed me the range of make-up brushes that I could use for different parts of my face. If I could recommend anything in particular, it would be these brushes, particularly the fluffy blending brushes, and I was so impressed that I bought one immediately. I noticed that there are sets of brushes available too, at the extremely reasonable price of £20 and £30. Continue reading →

Oh My Gosh…

Posted on April 30, 2016 by suzie81speaks

It’s been an amazing few days.

I won’t go into a massive amount of detail as yet – I have a whole series of posts lined up for them, but in the last three days I have attended a ‘Meet the Artist’ event with Willard Wigan, MBE, at the exclusive Colmore Club, been to the grand reopening of The Body Shop on New Street, and then this afternoon had an informal meeting with the lovely director of a networking company about building and delivering a series of workshops about blogging to local entrepreneurs, business owners, bloggers and anyone else who is interested throughout the year.

Holy sh*tballs. Little old me. Talking about blogging. To people who want to listen to me do so. (To be fair, many of my family and friends and polite enough to listen to me get on my soapbox about it, but I have noticed that their expressions often become a little glazed over after a while…) Continue reading →

Why I Won’t Be Writing Any More Blogging Advice Posts

Posted on April 25, 2016 by suzie81speaks

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Yesterday, during #SundayBlogShare, a single tweet got my attention. It was a simple statement without a link – I can’t find the actual tweet now but it went something like this:

A blog post that isn’t about writing a blog post.

In the last twelve months or so, I’ve seen a huge increase in this type of content. Indeed, Pinterest and Twitter in particular are littered with them. There are entire blogs who are devoted to the complicated and time-consuming art of blogging. It’s the one type of post that any blogger can do, and fits with any niche or theme.

I’ve done a number of posts myself that I refer to as ‘Blog Advice’ – hints, tips and guidelines on everything from increasing traffic, understanding the insignificance of how many times a WordPress post is liked, replying to comments, and using hashtags and group boards to build a following and community – and I have based these on my own experiences of what has worked for me. At the time, it always feels like these sorts of posts always get more traffic than any other – there’s usually an immediate and positive response that is accompanied by a number of social media shares and comments.

However, upon closer inspection, they aren’t as successful as they initially appear. Indeed, within my ten most successful posts of all time, there isn’t a single blog advice post – my most popular posts are ones where I have shared a personal story or thoughts on teaching (and quitting it), relationships, pets and emotional intelligence. There aren’t even any in the top fifteen. It isn’t that I have done any less promotion on them than any other post, but it seems clear that, while they may be useful at the time, my readers aren’t as inclined to share or revisit them – once they’ve read it, they have the information they may feel that they need and don’t return to it again. Or, potentially it could mean that they thought it was complete nonsense, and were too polite to say anything… Continue reading →

Best. Search Term. Ever

Posted on April 18, 2016 by suzie81speaks

I like to check out my search engine terms as often as possible – I’m always intruiged to find out how people have stumbled across my blog.

They never disappoint – I get all sorts of weird and wonderful sentences, often involving feet for some reason, but today I found this:

I love the Internet.

Don’t forget to check out tomorrow’s post, when I will be announcing the winners of my Guest Post competition. I had such a large response it has taken a while to go through them all, and I’ve decided to do three opportunities instead of just one.

Enjoy!

I’m trying to get my Instagram page going – hop on over to http://www.instagram.com/suzie81speaks for pictures of buildings and Dougal, my sister’s pug puppy. What more could anyone want in life?

The Ultimate Blogger’s Guide to Twitter Hashtags, Retweet Accounts and Chats

Posted on April 16, 2016 by suzie81speaks

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I’ve been on Twitter for a while now, and I find that it is a great source of traffic for my posts. However, I am discovering that there is also an incredible community for bloggers available through the use of hashtags, retweet accounts and chats that cater for every niche.

Hashtags

Hashtags are labels that allow potential readers to find posts and content within a specific theme. On Twitter, there are endless hashtags that can be used, depending on the theme of your post, but there are a number of specific tags that I have found to be particularly useful, and use on a regular basis Continue reading →

Things That Bloggers Need to Stop Getting Stressed About

Posted on April 6, 2016 by suzie81speaks

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How to blog. There are so many questions that I see being thrown around continually among bloggers. How often should I post? Should I create a Pinterest or Stumble Upon account? What plug-ins should I use? How often should I share my posts on social media? Should I be self-hosted? There is no definitive guide as to how to create a successful blog, and therefore there are no definitive set of right or wrongs. Most of what I have learned has been through trial and error, and from advice given by bloggy friends. Some of it has worked, some of it hasn’t, and I have shared my experiences in the hope that they prove useful for others. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that my advice will be successful for everyone, if indeed anyone at all. Focus on doing what works for you, don’t be afraid to try new things, and most importantly, don’t be afraid of failure. Blogging is an exciting process where I’m learning new things all the time, and that’s one of the many things that I enjoy about it. Continue reading →

How to Avoid the Blogging Bubble

Posted on March 16, 2016 by suzie81speaks

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‘I never see you on my blog any more…‘

I received a message from one of my oldest bloggy friends the other day.

The message hadn’t been sent in a nasty or malicious way at all – he was one of the first online friends I made I first started Suzie Speaks almost three years ago and we’ve kept in touch ever since – I value his opinion and it made me take a step back and think.

He was absolutely right.

And then, as if the blogging universe was trying to give me a sign, I read this post by the ever lovely Hugh from Hugh’s Views and News.

Indeed, over the last few months I have fallen prey to what I like to refer to as ‘the blogging bubble‘ – the point where bloggers focus solely on their own little space of the Internet and forget about the potentially millions of similar spaces out there, just waiting to be explored.

Three years ago, I was in a very different place. The blog was a way of coping with a very difficult time, and I churned out post after post of whatever was in my mind at a particular moment, mainly in an effort to mentally establish some sort of order in what seemed like a big mish-mash of nonsense that seemed to be permanently floating around in my brain. My writing was inconsistent and, at times, erratic, but it was solely for me and me alone. Continue reading →

I Wanna Know What Love Is… Blog Party and Competition

Posted on February 14, 2016 by suzie81speaks

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After waiting for nearly two weeks, the day is finally here folks!

Yes, it’s the mahoosive blog party that Steve and I have been getting all excited about, and what a day we have planned – with a blog party, a radio show and a competition to win a huge amount of Organique products, what more could you wish for?

Blog Party

For those of you who have never participated in a blog party before, the rules are simple (PLEASE READ THESE FIRST BEFORE POSTING)…

1. Choose your favourite post from your own blog. The subject of the post can be anything you love (it is Valentine’s Day after all) – blogging, food, parenting, life, travel, thoughts, photography… Note: This should be only one post at a time or it will get sent straight to the ‘spam’ folder and I may not be able to find you for a while. You can share up to three links, and for maximum impact I would suggest that you wait a little while in between posting them rather than in one go. Continue reading →

How Companies Are Taking Advantage of Bloggers

Posted on February 12, 2016 by suzie81speaks

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I’m going to send you an email.

In that email, I’m going to give you a theme. It could be about anything – a time or a place, an event, lifestyle choice, food or a holiday that is approaching. I’m then going to ‘invite’ you to write a blog post about that theme, and ask you to return my email if you’re interested in doing so.

When you reply, I will ask you to include a link to my blog in your post. I’m going to give you absolutely nothing in return, but I may offer you a vague indication that your blog post will possibly be featured on my social media pages. However, I won’t commit to anything – my focus is that your blog post includes information about me.

Would you do it?

To be fair, some of my readers probably would – I’ve known them for a number of years and value their friendship very much. I love promoting other bloggers, and I do so on a regular basis both on the blog and my social media. I don’t expect anything in return when I do this – I love the community and if I can help another blogger I will.

But if you didn’t know me or anything about my blog, I can pretty much guarantee that you’d ignore my email or tell me to get lost. Continue reading →