Blogger Spotlight: Paidaishe Chingombe, Paidachingz

Covering everything from lifestyle, beauty, current affairs, and PR, Paidachingz offers an eclectic mix of topics and is authored by Paidaishe Chingombe, a 20-year-old Journalism and PR university student. Describing blogging as therapeutic Paidaishe uses her blog share her thoughts, feelings and ideas about the things that  matter to her. In this Spotlight, Paidaishe chats to us about how she started blogging, being transparent, how she measures success and using her blog to comment on everything from the Syrian airstrikes to Beyoncé’s lemonade album.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what made you start writing your blog? I’m a student at the University of Lincoln and I’m going into my final year this September. I study joint Journalism and PR and I started blogging in March 2015 as part of my assignment, I literally fell in love with blogging. I wanted to evolve so I moved all my posts from WordPress to my new site where I blog about anything that interests me. I’ve always loved writing and reading other people’s blogs inspired me to start my own. I enjoy blogging about health as I am a fitness freak and love all sports, especially athletics, tennis and basketball. I also enjoy blogging about PR, as it’s a very interesting industry that I want to break into so I’m always ready to discuss and debate issues in the sector.

What new things are you exploring on your blog? My blog has ‘soft news’ alongside ‘hard news’ and by that I mean I love discussing not just makeup but politics and what is happening in the world. This is why I have a current affairs category and I discuss important issues. In the past, I’ve blogged about the Paris attacks, Syrian airstrike vote and Beyoncé’s Lemonade album.

Why should people read your blog? What makes it different? PaidaChingz is different because it’s my thoughts, opinions and outlook on life through my eyes.

Although in my posts I recommend products and advise students, my blog is a platform for me to just write down my thoughts and reflect. If people read it then that’s a bonus, but having a place to just express myself, it makes me feel good and is very therapeutic. It also gives me the chance to just get in touch with my emotions, especially as I’m at university away from home and it can all get a bit stressful sometimes.

How do you measure the success of your website? I don’t really. I guess when people come to me and talk to me about a post I’ve written or challenge me on it I feel great. I love debating issues happening in the world and politics but like I said my blog is more for me and if people read it, that’s a bonus this is why I’m not that concerned with statistics.

What has been your blogging highlight? Feedback from people has been great. I love hearing people say that my post has touched them or positively impacted them. Through my blog I’ve met wonderful people in the PR industry as well. I feel like every day I’m learning something new. As my blog grows I grow too.

How do you use social media to promote and share content? What are the challenges? After I publish a post I share it onto my Facebook page alongside my Twitter. I also created a Facebook page for PaidaChingz and I like to share everything there too. When I write PR-related blog posts I publish them on my LinkedIn and also direct readers to my blog.  They are no real challenges although I would like to provoke more discussions and encourage contributions in the future, especially for ideas of what content I should publish on my blog. As of now I haven’t really faced challenges in terms of social media.

What are your thoughts on sponsorship disclosure? There should be transparency between your readers and products you are reviewing. I don’t understand why some bloggers don’t just disclose that they received something for free but will still give their view on it. It comes across as if you’re misleading the readers. I think it’s important to be honest but it depends on the individuals ethics. What I think is ethical someone else may not.

List three best practices PRs need to follow for better blogger outreach? Keeping everything simple is very important as people like ‘list like blog posts’ because they are easy to read and straight to the point.  Alongside that I think the appearance of the blog should also be simple. You should let your content do the talking and bring your posts to life through images.

It is also important to know who your readers are. When you have published a post and are sharing it on your social media you have to think about when is the best time to share it and what hashtags to use.

You have to love what you do, because if you are blogging for the wrong reasons it will show; your readers are not stupid. Be passionate about what you are writing about because it will touch your readers and help to build rapport.

What will be big in your blogosphere in the coming months? I will be enjoying my freedom while I still can before I start third year and everything gets super serious. I’ve found a lot of work experience in PR and have gained insight into industry matters that I didn’t even know existed. I’m looking forward to mentoring young people during NCS and hopefully travelling to Africa later on this summer, which should impact my blogging.