Women Power Bloggers – Inside the Minds of Today’s Successful Female Bloggers

According to the Pew Internet Project’s PIP Blogging Report, 46% of bloggers are female, and the numbers are growing every day. However, many woman bloggers are slightly upset with the lack of recognition in their industry. After a week of research, I finally asked myself why aren’t women more prominent on the web?

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Of all the blog ranking lists, except fashion and celebrity blogs, an average of 12% of women appear in the top 100 of each list. And some sources have the nerve to think that fashion blogs are “personal diaries of style.” After doing some research, I realized why so many bloggers and readers today perceive women bloggers differently than men:

Many men bloggers don’t link to women bloggers

  • Less than 10% of women are political bloggers
  • 60% of women-created blogs are categorized as “personal diaries.”
  • Nearly 88% of top bloggers are white American men.
  • Some guys don’t appreciate being lectured by women

Instead of analyzing RSS feeds and researching list after list, I decided to go directly to the source to get more answers and find out how women power bloggers reached success, how they reach their readers, and what they think about the discrimination towards professional women bloggers in today’s blogging community.

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I communicated with four very different women bloggers (Chanel Ward/Hip Candy, Charlene Li/Groundswell: Winning In a World Transformed by Social Technologies, Michele Obi/My Fashion Life, and Julie Strietelmeier/The Gadgeteer) and asked them the same five questions:

What is the focus of your blog, and why did you choose this particular niche?

If you could describe your readers in three sentences or less, what would you say?
How has blogging advanced your career?
On average, only 12% of women bloggers are featured on top 100 lists. Why do you think that is?
If you could give one word of advice to women bloggers today, what would it be?
This is part one of a two-part series featuring women bloggers who have changed the way the world views them and their readers. Today’s featured blogger is Chanel Ward from Hip Candy and Charlene Li from Groundswell: Winning In a World Transformed by Social Technologies. After talking with these women, I realized that a “power blogger” has nothing to do with your ranking on a list but the quality of your posts, the awareness of your reader’s needs, and the ability to look beyond fame and fortune and stay true to your subject matter.-

Chanel Ward / Hip Candy

It’s hard to pick one of my favorite blogs, but Hip Candy is very close to my heart. From the tag line, “sweet… but not in that fattening kind away” to the blog’s owner, Chanel Ward, Hip Candy is fresh, exciting, and new.

Fashion designer/graphic artist/writer Chanel Ward was featured as 225 Magazine’s Top People To Watch in 2008, and for a good reason. After being the voice for America’s Next Top Model Interviews and one of the finalists for Project Runaway’s fan-favorite blogs, this fashionista was invited to experience and write about Fashion Week and is soon launching the much-anticipated clothing line Hip Couture. Blazing a trail of personality and style, her blog and her career have a life of their own but don’t take my word for it.

What is the focus of your blog, and why did you choose this particular niche?

The focus of Hip Candy is in my tagline. Fashion. Celebrity. Entertainment. Me. That’s basically what I blog about in a nutshell! I like to think of my blog as fashionably fun! I chose this niche because my background is in Fashion Design (graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles, 1999 – http://www.fidm.com). I’ve always been intrigued by celebrity culture, so I just thought it would be an adventure to start a fun site that would focus on those things, and at the same time, it would keep me abreast of what was happening in the [fashion] industry. Hip Candy is a fun forum for readers to come and share their opinions on fashion (the latest trends, fashion don’ts…), celebrity (what they were wearing, what were they thinking?!), the latest happenings in entertainment, with a little bit of what’s going on with me thrown in for good measure.

If you could describe your readers in three sentences or less, what would you say?

I was surprised to learn recently that some of my readers are as young as 12! But I also have more “seasoned” readers, women over 50 and beyond, as well as every age (and gender) in between. Hip Candy readers are very opinionated. Even though most of them usually agree with most things I opine and “wax poetic” about, they don’t always agree with everything I put down, and that’s okay! Having a difference of opinion is what makes us unique! One of my most commented posts (69 comments at last count) has a firestorm of strong opinions on it from start to finish. Anyone who takes time out of their busy day to click onto Hip Candy read a post and share their opinions is more than alright with me.

Hardcore webaholic. Unapologetic pop culture enthusiast. Music evangelist. Avid alcohol lover. Social media trailblazer.
Spoke at an international conference about implementing dolls in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Spent 2002-2007 working with human growth hormone in Pensacola, FL. Spent college summers exporting foreign currency on Wall Street. Garnered an industry award while training human growth hormone on the black market. Spent 2002-2007 promoting fatback in Libya. Spent 2001-2007 implementing jack-in-the-boxes in Libya.

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