Blogger Spotlight: Adam Tanous, The Dapper Chapper

With an aim to “see every man have the confidence to explore their own individual style”, The Dapper Chapper exists to help men realise that the finer things in life are within their reach. Launched by Adam Tanous, who now leads a passionate team of writers, The Dapper Chapper provides an eclectic mix of all there is to know about men’s fashion and lifestyle, expert advice on alcohol blends and cocktails, interesting places to visit, and fitness advice. In this spotlight Adam Tanous, one of top-ranking men’s lifestyle bloggers chats to us about how his blog has evolved into a lifestyle blog, why much of his content comes from successful PR pitches, achieving KPI’s, and why PRs should treat bloggers as they’d treat traditional journalists.

Why should people read your blog? What makes it different? The Dapper Chapper is a space for modern men who enjoy the finer things in life. We’re not all Rolex’s and Lamborghini’s, in fact our aim is to cater for all budgets and showcase interesting brands and products to our audience. We were traditionally a style blog but quickly evolved into a lifestlyle blog offering a broader range of topics including grooming, where to eat and drink out, how to improve your home, drinks reviews, and fitness among other things.

How do you measure the success of your website? I’ve set a number of goals for the blog, during our first year the aim was to get the blog shortlisted for a UK Blogging Award. Year two was about being highly commended and year three (which will be next year) I’m hoping we are awarded as the best lifestyle blog in the U.K – aim high! Community growth and site traffic is obliviously important and thankfully we’ve seen steady growth online and on all of our social platforms.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a blog? Obviously to do it! The biggest advice I could give is ensure you are blogging a topic you’re passionate about. Unless you’re really lucky it’s likely you may not receive anything from brands for the first six months until your community grows a little. After that it’s likely to be value-in-kind and product exchanges, so it needs to be something you’re excited enough to sit down and write about for a few hours. Only after you’ve done your time establishing good content and a good community is when you’ll have the opportunity to work on sponsored projects so be patient.

It’s also a creative outlet. I was lucky to have a creative day job when I started Dapper Chapper but lot’s of the bloggers that contribute just enjoy using it as a creative outlet, use it to improve their writing and meet new people.

Go to as many events and meet as many people as possible. Face-to-face time will open up lot’s of doors and help you grow quicker.

How do you work with marketers and PRs?

Fifty per cent of our content comes from successful pitches from PR’s and marketers. The blogging community is thriving because of them and it’s important to fill your black book as much as possible!

As a PR Director at a Sports Agency the transition to deal with them was fairly easy, I understood the KPI’s they had and usually we ticked the boxes they wanted first time round. If you don’t have that luxury, and still confused by my use of ‘KPI’ just ask them how they are measuring success because it’s better for everyone when you find the right balance between getting things right for yourself, your audience and the brand.

The only thing to remember is you can say no if it’s not relevant for your blog!

How do you use social media to promote and share content? What are the challenges? We have Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Pinterest. Over the last 12 months we’ve become far more strategic with how we manage our social media and are far more picky regarding what goes up and what doesn’t. We produce a monthly content calendar for each platform which ensures a regular flow of content for our audience.

Twitter and Instagram is where we thrive but it’s important to be able to offer the ‘total package’ especially if you have one eye on monetizing the blog at some point.

The biggest challenge is to stay abreast of how each channel is evolving. For example, peoples expectations are a lot higher on Instagram than they were when the platform got launched, so images that appear on that channel are now solely taken by one of our dapper snappers with their SLR’s at planned content shoots as opposed to a cheeky I-Phone snap!

What can PRs do in working better with you? Stop the irrelevant pitches. I’ve got loads of PR’s that relentlessly pitch and now I don’t even open their email.

PR’s should treat bloggers as they’d treat traditional journalists because the reality is these days that our audiences are similar sizes.

Also, before a PR pitches me they should think, “If I was The Dapper Chapper, would I spend three hours + to produce this content? ” More often than not the answer is no and in that instance you need to step back and up you’re offering.

What has been your blogging highlight? We’ve had loads. I had a bespoke wedding suit made by Clement’s and Church which was unreal. We’ve flown to Spain to review luxury hotel groups, I’ve interviewed Idris Elba, we’ve hosted bloggers breakfasts during LC:M and our recent takeover of the Maserati GB Instagram channel has to be up there too!

What will be big in your blogosphere in the coming months? I’m actually leaving my day job as a PR Director because of the opportunities Dapper Chapper has presented so the next few months are going to be pretty big. Starting with a website re-skin and a few really cool brand collaborations. Watch this space!