Good morning, kittens – Happy Monday! In fact, Happy 1st June and Happy-Start-Of-Official-Summer (not quite so catchy). There are a lot of fresh starts happening this morning, so let’s get the summer off to a good start by spreading a little positivity. Something which I’ve been keen to do for a while now…
In all honesty, the fashion blogging/vlogging world can sometimes seem quite vapid. There’s a lot of clothes, a lot of make-up and sometimes, not a lot else. I’ve been making a change in myself over the past year or so to be more ‘lifestyle’ and part of that has been reflected in my YouTube videos this year and more ‘advice’ topics I’ve been covering on my blog.

I’m rediscovering a part of myself that somewhere got hidden for a little while when trying to handle a full time job, thrice weekly blog content and a new YouTube video every week – oh and a social life!

It can be so easy to full into a blogging rut and with so many new bloggers just in it for the ‘freebies’ (FYI – I would never consider press samples or gifted items ‘freebies’ as I work damn hard for them) it seems sometimes that’s kinda how blogger’s are perceived. In it for the ‘stuff’. Well things are just things and over the past year I’ve been clearing out a lot of my stuff. Now, whenever something comes into Lily Kitten HQ that isn’t ‘me’, it does it’s thing on the blog and makes it’s way out again, whether that be to friends, family or in a job lot to a charity shop.

In my latest YouTube Video I just have a little chat about some things I’ve been doing recently to ‘give back’. We bloggers have a very privileged position if we get it right and work hard – people list to us. Did you know 1 in 4 people are likely to buy a product after seeing it in a YouTube video? That 80% of people would purchase something based on seeing it on a blog or social media? Yeah, it can make people buy products, but what about give?

I don’t see a lot of bloggers doing meaningful things with their position. There are some bloggers that are literal celebrities now, with YouTubers getting more views than all the magazines in the UK put together. Yeah, I love a good ‘drugstore make-up challenge’ and I’m all about a ‘Primark haul’ – but what else? There are a lot of people actively listening, so are we really telling people things that are right? I may not have a readership of millions, or even hundreds of thousands, but I do have a decent following for someone who does this as a hobby, and it makes sense to spread a little positivity where I can. Even if it’s just through a Giving Back YouTube Video.

Today I’m starting my summer positively, and I would urge you to do so too. Making someone smile doesn’t need a huge charity donation, and it doesn’t even mean to need actual ‘giving’. Does your work colleague make you a cup of tea everyday? How about you brew up first this morning. It’s only little, but it might mean a lot.

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