BEAUTY writer Carly Musleh, founder of BeautySauce.com, has been chatting to fashion journalism students at the University of Sunderland about her career.
The 35-year-old, from South Shields, who had the same agent as Zoella and Tanya Burr, said budding writers needed to ‘be unique and have a passion’.
Carly has over 100,000 followers across her social media channels, as well as her award-winning blog, and has a particular interesting in writing about cosmetic science.
Credit: Instagram carlymusleh
The-mother-of-two also suffers from anxiety and wanted to show students that they can still achieve their dreams despite suffering from the condition.
She says: “They might find comfort in knowing that you can have anxiety and still do things like go to events and meetings with PRs.”
Here is what students learned from their talk by Carly:
Esther Mulumba, 18
“Promote your blog on your Twitter and Instagram and keep an eye on what type of content gets the most feedback so you know which to write more of.”
“I really appreciated Carly’s encouragement to do stuff we really like to do and are interested in, even if other bloggers are writing about something which is more popular in that time.”
Brooke Murphy, 19
“Carly’s talk gave me a better understanding of how to build up a following using social media and how you could benefit from using your blog to attract a brand’s attention.”
Eve Franklin, 18
“The process of creating a unique name for your blog/youtube channel and how to make it safe e.g not having the same name as anyone else’s blog or a brand. Also, how affiliate links work and how to add them to your blog posts.”
Rebecca Redford, 19
“It is not always best to be under management, sometimes it is better to manage yourself so you have full control over what you can post and which brands you would like to work with. You don’t have to post content all the time, less content but better quality works well with readers.”
Grace Cassidy, 18
“Cross link your blog posts and social media to get more people to view them and write blog posts you’re passionate about as it makes better content. Write posts that are unique and find your own path not just following trends.”
Megan Hagel, 18
“You should try to create content that is evergreen rather than trying to keep up with the trends and copy content from other bloggers, as this will keep traffic coming to your blog for years to come. You should also crosslink all of your content across your social media platforms and your blog to create more traffic and promote your content.”
Hollie Ellison, 20
Lucy Mclaren, 18
“I found it interesting that if you review products you can link the ones you reviewed and get commission from them and link in other items as well, this would be really useful with fashion as well. I also learned that it is okay to be different and this is what would make your blog stand out and keep your audiences attracted to whether it be your blog or social media.”
Nicolette Ftackova, 21
“Carly was inspiring and I received a lot of great tips on how to create a successful blog. I most admired the fact that Carly goes into depth when she make posts for her blog, it is not just about ‘make-up’ and shallow content. She does lots of research in order to provide the best content for her readers.”
Olivia Harding, 19
“I learned that to stay relevant and keep views coming in you need evergreen content. Also that you can earn commission from sales from blog posts.”
Tzu-Yin Chen, 22
“Carly taught how to create a channel and how to increase followers in a personal Instagram or channel and that Youtube also can help brand marketing.”
Jia-Rong Xu, 21
“Carly mentioned how she set up a website to introduce the beauty products and she said she put a lot of effort on it. The most impressive two things that she mentioned is that how she attracts the audiences’ attention. First, we need to know clearly about our target audience and we need to know how to interact with the audience. The second thing is reliability. The words and the information that you suggest to your audiences should be reliable.”
Yu Hsin-Lin, 20
“Carly spoke about how she creates her content. She tears the pages of magazines to find inspiration, pays attention to the media and everyday issues. Carly also has a distinctive way to search for inspiration which is walk out and get close to the nature. This way, she can observe the views, the colours of flowers and so on. Through these observation, she is inspired to create content such as Spring makeup looks. and so on. I think the way how Carly creates her content has given me a new way to think of fashion, letting me know to pay more attention to the little details in life. Before Carly shared her story I would probably think being a Youtuber or a blogger is the easiest a thing to do but the truth is Rome wasn’t built in a day. It took Carly ten years from the start to today. It takes determination , passion and efforts to succeed.”
- Visit Carly’s blog at Beautysauce.com.
