Blogger Spotlight: Jen Thorne, A Beauty Junkie in London

Interview with Jen Thorne, author of ‘A Beauty Junkie in London‘ and a social media consultant. Jen spoke to us about how the blog has evolved in the past six years, the strong PR relationships built over time, paying the bills from the blog and why she’s “obsessing” over interiors at the moment.  

Why should people read your blog? What makes it different? Because it offers a combination of honest looks at the latest and greatest beauty products alongside other snippets of life – but I don’t take it all too seriously at the same time. I like to touch on all sorts from reviews of collections, skincare trials, to reviews of places to visit or eat in London or blog posts about various travels.

How do you measure the success of your website? That’s a tough question, I guess the biggest mark of success was being able to make it my job – and the fact I’m still doing it and managing to pay bills is my ongoing measure!

What’s your favourite blog and why? It changes all the time as I tend to read quite a few. I really love gh0stparties and Kate’s other site Nouvelle Daily – both a great read as they cover beauty but other bits as well. I’m a little obsessed with interiors at the moment so that’s the sort of content I’m gravitating towards.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a blog? Go for it, jump in but don’t make it too serious/heavy. Many people start out now with the goal of working for themselves as a full time blogger – which is great. But it all starts by being a fun hobby you’re passionate about. Going into it initially with the seriousness of a business plan sort of feels like it takes away the appeal of being a full time blogger. So jump in, don’t worry about being perfect – just be you and write about things you love and take as good quality photos as you can manage and take it from there.

How do you work with marketers and PRs? I’ve built good relationships over the six years I’ve been blogging, so now a lot of the work I do is direct with people I’ve known for years. But it all comes from getting to know each other face to face. So go to events, meet people and get to know them. Respect that it’s a two way street when it comes to brands too – if you want to work with them then be prepared to ‘sell’ yourself and why they might want to work with you – be open about your numbers and what you’re offering in terms of an audience. It doesn’t have to be the biggest, a small but really engaged audience can be just as valuable as a big one.

How do you use social media to promote/share content? What are the challenges? I do – I also work with brands as a social media consultant as that’s the background I come from. So social media is a big part of what I do day to day. I tend to use a combination of automated activity – so when I post my Twitter automatically shares the link, and it posts to Facebook too. Plus just being active on the platforms. More often than not I find just tweeting and being active in social media generates more traffic than posting my links out multiple times per day. The biggest challenge? Juggling it all when there are so many channels to share content on – and wanting to get the balance between sharing your content and spamming your followers!

What can PRs do in working better with you? The main thing I think is to respect that not everything can be reviewed (I’m only one person!) and whilst I’ll always try my best, sometimes being sent something – no matter how lovely – doesn’t equal guaranteed content. I’m always open to approaches though and definitely find meeting over a cup of coffee is the best way to get to know someone so find that the best way to work with people in the long run!

 What has been your blogging highlight? That would have to be either the travel opportunities – with San Francisco with Macy’s Tourism and Mauritius with Lux* Resorts being both life and blogging highlights. Or overall, being able to make this my job! Quitting a full time role to do this was probably the bravest thing I’ve done but I’ve not looked back!

 What will be big in your blogosphere in the coming months? For me, likely a bit more diversification – I want to blog about beauty of course but I’m also really interested in all sorts of other things that will be making more of an appearance on the blog too. Interiors for one and travel too – both things I love that I’ll be covering more frequently in coming months!