Emma Spencer: Relaunching The Emasphere

Emma Spencer is ‘the poser’ at The Emasphere, the luxury travel and lifestyle blog. Recently relaunched by Emma and her partner Tim, The Emasphere tracks Emma around the world, and showcases the restaurants she eats at, the outfits she wears and the beauty products she uses.

The Emasphere was one of 11 blogs we said you needed to follow in 2017 – and now we can reveal why we were right!

Why have you relaunched The Emasphere?
My partner and I kept saying we needed to change it up and do something different in the blogging sphere. We finally had our photography style down, and we were getting recognised for our quality content and crazy poses. But there was something missing. We didn’t have a proper strategy, and to be honest with you, we couldn’t properly describe what The Emasphere was all about, apart from being a blog where I shared my favourite things. So, we knew something had to change.

We wanted to create a good strategy, so we had a clearer direction of where we were going and what kind of content we wanted to produce. We also wanted to stop creating content just for the sake of it, and focus more on quality and adding value to our readers. We wanted to build a website, which not only looked good, but was easy to navigate, showcased our imagery well, and moved away from that ‘blog’ look and feel to become more of a professional online lifestyle destination.

In regards to content, we still have a mix of travel, fashion, lifestyle and beauty, but are now introducing more food, wine and dining articles; having regular interviews with unique brands and go-getting entrepreneurs; highlighting cool and individual brands I love (this includes lots of Australian brands); and providing both luxe and attainable travel advice, from hotel and restaurant reviews, to 48 hour travel guides. As I’ve always wanted to be a TV presenter/actor, so we’re also focusing more on YouTube this year!

What makes your blog successful?
Our quality content is definitely something that stands out. We put a lot of time and effort into creating editorial-worthy imagery and valuable content. By heading to theemasphere.com or our Instagram feed, our readers and followers know they’ll come away with advice or inspiration, whether it’s in travel, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, food and drink.

We profiled you at the beginning of 2017, what have you been up to since?
Travelling a lot! My partner and I aim to go to a new destination each month, so we’ve been here there and everywhere – from eating pasta and drinking wine in Rome, to skiing in the French Alps. I also spent a couple of months back home in Australia last year, while my partner sorted out his visa. We realised although we love Australia and love spending time with our family and friends, we really enjoy living in the UK. There are so many opportunities here, both professionally and personally. We also love the fact we can easily jump on a plane and spend the weekend in another country! Apart from travelling, I’ve been working on building The Emasphere and moulding it into a lifestyle destination!

Who/what is your favourite fashion designer/brand?
That’s a hard one! I’d have to say I love Australian brands so much. Every time I wear something from an Aussie label, everyone falls head over heels! Some of my favourite Australian brands include Talulah, C/MEO Collective, Finders Keepers, ASILIO, Thurley and Dion Lee.

What’s the best place in the world to visit for a weekend?
Anywhere with good food and wine, ha! Rome is without a doubt one of my favourite cities in the world. The food and wine are to die for, the culture and ambiance are both romantic and dreamy, and the Roman style is so unique and sophisticated.

Is there anywhere you haven’t been that you would still like to visit?
There are so many places I’d love to go to! I’m dying to go to the Amalfi Coast, New York, Greece, the Maldives, Provence, Bahrain, Oman, Dubai, South Africa… there are still so many areas of the world left to explore!

How important is social media to your blog?
Social media is super important to help you build your online presence and promote your blog and brand. Our largest social platform is Instagram, where we’ve been able to present The Emasphere’s aesthetic and our quality imagery to a large audience, giving them a snippet of what the brand is all about. Instagram is also a great way for our followers and readers to find out more about me as a person, by seeing daily personal insights, from where we’re travelling to and what restaurants we’re eating at, to what I’m wearing and the beauty products I’m using.

What should PRs know about you?
I’m a full-time blogger, originally from Australia, but I’ve been based in Liverpool in the UK for nearly three years. Although I’m based up north, I do come to London regularly for meetings and events. I have a mixed audience, predominately from the UK, Australia and the US, so I have the ability to introduce Brits to Aussie brands and vice versa.

We pride ourselves on creating quality content, with editorial-worthy imagery and in-depth, well-written articles. Videos are a new thing for us, but they’re something we’re focusing a lot more on this year. I love working with a mix of brands from travel and fashion, to food and wine, to beauty and lifestyle, and discovering new and unique brands and destinations.

I love creating stories with our content. Our audience knows whenever we travel somewhere, they’re going to be taken on a journey, which will not only inspire them to go to the destination, but they’ll have all the information they need to have a great trip, including what to wear, the best places to eat and drink, what stylish hotel they should stay in, and how to get there. I’ve been told quite a lot recently that our travel content has spurred on our audience to book more trips this year, which is super exciting!

What are your favourite campaign collaborations?
Recently, Havaianas Europe (who are represented by Alter Agency) had an opportunity to take one person from the press in the UK to Lisbon to interview Naia Cheschin, a Brazilian illustrator and graphic designer they recently collaborated with to create beautiful bespoke prints for the brand. I was chosen to go on the trip, which was a huge compliment to me; I was absolutely thrilled. While I was in Lisbon, I interviewed Naia, and as I really want to get into presenting, this was a dream come true.

On top of that, while we were in Lisbon, I was also able to create and style content for Havaianas, to show how you can style their latest range of sandals with any kind of outfit, from casual to dressy.

Having the ability to work with a brand you’ve loved for years and come up with and create fun content for them, is what I enjoy most about my job.

Collaborating with rentalcars.com at the beginning of the year, was another amazing campaign I worked on. We spent a week skiing in the French Alps, while sharing our journey of renting a car and driving around and exploring the Alps.

It was our first time in this area of France and our first-time skiing, so it was an incredible experience. The content we created for the trip has been our best yet and we had such incredible feedback from rentalcars.com and our audience. With the outfits I wore and the wonderful car we rented, we were able to successfully show how to take on the slopes stylishly.

What do you call yourself (blogger/influencer/content creator)?
I call myself a blogger, but as I create videos and imagery, and work a lot with social media, content creation is the core of what I do. So, I guess I can call myself a content creator too!

What other blogs do you read?
I read a variety of blogs, some of my favourites include Margo & Me and Harper & Harley for fashion and beauty, and Wood & Luxe for travel and wellness.

Emma and The Emasphere are listed on the Vuelio Database, along with every other Vuelio Blog Awards winner and thousands of other fantastic bloggers, journalists and editors.