DIARY directory recently caught up with Hayley Walker from Tea Party Beauty. Hayley previously worked in the beauty industry as a Beauty Therapist, Holistic Therapist and Body Piercer and set up her beauty blog in 2013. Tea Party Beauty has grown to now encompass a diverse range of topics; from the latest make-up release, to finding the right bra, as well as documentation of her latest travel adventures and travel advice. Hayley has previous participated on a Tried & Test panel for Tesco Living and has worked with a number of brands and PRs. 

UK beauty & lifestyle blogger

Founder of #BloggersBlogAwards

"A pitch that is short & snappy, possibly with images, is a sure-fire way to get a response"

Listed in DIARY directory in the digital influencers subsection, along with 1000+ categorised influencers for PRs to work with, Hayley provides insight on the Bloggers Blog Awards; how she best balances working full time with the hobby of a blog; the importance of a social media strategy; and how best PRs can work with her.

Who are your core readers?

Over 90% are women, which is no surprise, but they vary in age from early 20s to late 30s which is nice to see as it means people at different stages in their life still find something on my site for them.

What catches your eye in a press release/PR e-mail?

Warmth in a release or pitch really makes me want to reply and find out more. Emails don’t always have to be personalised to me as I know that takes a lot of time to do; however mass emails that still show some personality and warmth are great. On the flip side emails that are really long and just full of facts make me lose interest really quickly as I tend to read my emails whilst at work, so if it’s long and drawn out I tend to not have time for it.

 
What advice / top tips would you give PRs looking to promote their clients through your blog?

Make sure the products are relevant. I get a lot of press releases aimed towards women with children and that just isn’t right for me, and it's not what my readers come to my site looking for. Other than that a pitch that is short and snappy, possibly with images, is a sure-fire way to get a response from me, failing that some smiley faces or emojis are always a winner.

"Blogs became popular because they were not glossy magazines & because it was just someone in their bedroom telling you what they love/hate. That's what readers want, your honesty in all aspects of blogging. " 

You set up the Bloggers Blog Awards, tell us a bit more about this and the process of why it was started...

I set the awards up in 2015 as the blogging community was becoming bored of the usual blog awards that focused mainly on larger more popular bloggers. The community felt they were going by unrecognised and fading in to the background. I wanted to remedy that so put my spreadsheet in to action and set them up as a small online thing, but it grew beyond my expectations and I ended up making it in to a full awards ceremony with prizes and sponsors.

It was so popular last year that I decided to run them again this year, but up the ante and make them slightly bigger and add in some new niches such as travel and photography. So far it’s been a great success and the awards are set for 1st October in Leeds. The awards are run alongside a charity each year so that any money made from sponsorship fees and raffle tickets is given back to a good cause, this year it’s in aid of Allerton Cat Rescue. Last year we raised around £400 for Alzheimer's Research, had over 32 million Twitter impressions and over 6000 tweets.

If any brands would like to be involved in next year’s event with raffle prizes, event sponsorship or sponsoring an award then send please get in touch.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt since starting your blog?

The blog life balance, although I am still learning that one. I could quite easily spend all my free time on my blog, but I have to remember to go out and have a social life. My blog is my hobby and I absolutely love doing it, which means that I am likely to spend every waking hour on it given half a chance - which is possibly why I am still single.

You juggle working full time with blogging, what are your top tips, how do you manage your time?

I have no personal life :) I am 30 now so a large percentage of my friends are all married off or settling down so we go out less and less, which means more time to blog. But, I am also a spreadsheet freak so I track and log most things and plan around 6 weeks in advance. This has been a life saver recently as I have started to do more freelance work so it really helps to manage my time and know exactly what I am supposed to be doing at the click of a colour coded cell.
 

Blogging can - to an extent - be seen as a numbers game, however we believe that numbers don't always measure up to engagement. What does success mean to you and how do you measure it?

Oh I am all about the numbers - well, I mean I am all about tracking them. I have spreadsheets set up to track my weekly followers and views so I can figure out which platforms are starting to dwindle or stop and where I might need to focus more energy on.

I tend not to focus too much on comment engagement as the numbers can be manipulated by commenting on a lot on other blogs, plus not everyone who reads has time to comment on your post. A lot of my readers work full time and read my posts on their commute, so commenting isn’t always possible. It’s a lot easier to send a tweet to someone to say ‘wow, I loved your recent post’ than it is to sign in to the bloggers commenting system.

As long as I get a tweet every now and then I know I am doing well… That and my pageviews.


Do you use product placement & what are your thoughts on disclosure for ads?

I think everything should be fully disclosed, even ‘gifted’ PR samples. Even without any laws/rules/regulations surrounding this it’s always best to be honest with your readers, as they’re half the reason you’re getting samples and ad offers. Not only that, but I am incredibly proud when brands want to work with me and I want to shout about that to anyone who will listen.

Blogs became popular because they were not glossy magazines & because it was just someone in their bedroom telling you what they love/hate. That's what readers want, your honesty in all aspects of blogging.

Do you have a rate card? Can you give us an example of a cost?

I don’t have an official fancy pants rate card but I do have a set list of prices that I write down in emails if I am asked. I find it less time consuming as my prices change every few months as I gain more followers or readers, so it’s easier to just pop them down in writing in an email than it is to edit a designed card.

I currently charge £30 per tweet or a group bundle of 3 tweets for £75 for example. For blog posts I have fees in place but brands/PRs usually already have a budget in mind. If that's lower than my rate but a campaign I love I usually work with the brands to meet their budget and my work time for that price.

Are you forthcoming when it comes to PRs/brands requesting stats?

Yes - I have nothing to hide :) Although I am rarely asked as it’s fairly easy to gauge a bloggers' popularity from social media platforms and using Chrome plugin tools like Similar Web or Alexa Rank.

How important is a social media strategy for bloggers? How do you keep your blog at the forefront?

It’s very important and personally I believe it’s what sets bloggers apart from other traditional forms of media - the fact you can speak openly and frankly with a blogger on Twitter for example, you can connect with them on a personal level and get to know them. This is the same for bloggers; you can connect and get to know the people who read your blog, you can gauge what they want to read and what’s interesting to them.

What other bloggers / influencers do you follow and why?

I like to follow a wide selection of bloggers/YouTubers as then you can get such a varied look at others, the products they love and how they feel about them. I love bloggers around my own age (late 20s to early 30s) as their life, beauty regime and wants are generally the same as mine. One of my favourite beauty people is Stephanie Nicole as her reviews on products are very in depth and unbiased. I also love to watch a lot of SFX makeup artists and influencers such as Pink Stylist, Elli Mac SFX and Made Yew Look - as an ex makeup artist watching their creations inspires me to pick up the liquid latex again.

Contact

Hayley Walker in 'digital influencers'