Hey, what's up!

Hey guys. It's me! I set a goal to write something before January 10th and here I am putting something together before then - phew! Goal achieved. Anyway it's 2020 already, so crazy. With the new year here, I felt like I had to share a life update that might be fair to know moving forward. It's not a big deal but definitely something I feel passionate about so here it goes!




I started this blog in 2013 when I was almost out of college and thought my life was all about shopping lol. As you can imagine, after college I became part of the "real world" and my expensive taste kind of became less and less important. Don't get me wrong, my sole purpose for climbing the corporate latter is still to build my designer shoe collection and that won't ever change lol I LOVE DESIGNER SHOES. Anyway, as my blog grew, so did my social and I reallyyyy tried to put myself out there. I stressed about photoshoots and making sure I was posting once every day because God forbid I missed a day and lost out on my most engaging hour lol. What was unique about the time I started blogging and building my social media was that it took place around the time bloggers and influencers were slowly becoming a thing. I had a few good years of back to back collaborations and taking home a ton of things to post about, and it was great! I had the best time partnering up with dream brands and even participating in a Neutrogena campaign that hit the Latin market - insane and I will never show you guys the video Neutrogena created with me in it lol.

My career is the perfect bridge between my side hobby (blogging) and the world of marketing where I happen to work within the social media and influencer space. Overtime, I saw the ugly side of influencer marketing more and more and it just really changed my mind about how I was "influencing". I never thought of myself as an influencer and primarily labeled myself as a blogger and communication professional. I started to see more people thrive for more followers to also become part of the influencer world and the pressure put on themselves to become an influencer just made me feel so gross. No shade to those that are full-time influencers because that's great, it's just not the life for me.  In the absolute most humble way, I didn't go to school to be an influencer and school is something I completely value. I went to school to learn how to build a brand and well, I guess I was my own test run! Not trying to sound ungrateful or anything but with all of this in mind and being mindful of what I do and say on here and on Instagram, I had to make a shift that maybe people started to notice.

I basically started to talk and post more about what is important to me NOW, seven years after I created this thing.  Maybe you noticed me posting more about food I love, places I like to go to or just pretty things that I spot along the way. What I'm trying to say is while I have personally grown, so has this blog and so has my personal Instagram. I built that primarily with fashion on my mind and showing you guys what I wore and how to wear a cardigan ten ways. My audience is probably confused and wonder where this food blogger came from lol but it's just me, all grown up with important things to talk about! Fashion is still important to me and you will definitely still see me post an outfit pic here there, duh.

So what's changing? Hmm probably less #sponsored posts and more of what I love. I think I only accepted sponsored product a handful of times where I felt like the brand wasn't on-brand to me so what I mean about less #sponsored posts is I'm allowing myself to only collaborate with brands that actually are part of my current lifestyle and think is fair to share with my audience. Whether it's organic clothing, DIY projects, my career, how to live a more sustainable life, to my favorite kitchen ingredients, to how I really like to minimize my closet and only choose to shop my true staples...that's the type of content that makes me happy to post and quite frankly I don't care if my posts only receive 10 likes lol. That's so nothing to care about. If you see a brick of hashtags under my posts, it's not for the likes either, it's to reach specific audiences. That's what it's all about to me. To spread knowledge and to connect with an audience about topics I'm passionate about.

Wow this definitely escalated but I'm SO happy I was able to share my feelings about where I am now as a life and style blogger. Maybe two years from now things will be completely different and I'll be writing another life update post haha. For now, this is how I feel and am excited to make sense out of the new feed and content vibe. Hope you stick around still? Chat with you guys soon and see you on the gram!

Xo,

Melissa Victoria