One day, when Nika Diwa  (of http://www.diwadollhouse.com) was eating at Chili’s, an agent spotted her and wanted to recruit her as a Disney Princess for the Disney World parade to portray either Jasmine, Mulan, or Pocahontas.  (But her mom didn’t allow her because she was just a teenager then).

This day when Nika came in her pink ruffle-tier maxi dress, I could totally see what the agent saw and imagine her singing “Colors of the Wind” with verve! She could even be Moana! (BTW, she looks even more beautiful in person; these photos don’t do her justice.)

We had just completed the first of two Fashion Talks at the shop (More on that on a future post). This day, I asked Nika for 3 Tips for Bloggers. Here they are:

1. Stay authentic to who you are.  When I first started blogging, I would always try to emulate what was popular or who had the highest numbers. For example, they always had black, white and grey on their Instagram and I said, “Okay, I guess I’ll do that.” But as you can see, my style is very colorful. I like to have lots of color… in addition to black and grey.  Be authentic to yourself and actually, my Instagram and my blog ha(ve) never done better than now— when I stopped doing what other people are doing and focused on what I love because this is how I am.
2. Never do it to earn lots of money. If you want to be a blogger, even though of course, that is one of your goals in mind, make sure that you are doing it because you love connecting with people and that you love sharing stories because if you’re doing it to earn a lot of money, that doesn’t come immediately. It will happen over a long period of committed time to your followers.
3. Stay engaged with your followers.  A lot of people just think “Oh, I’m going to just become really popular overnight and I’m going to have hundreds of thousands of followers overnight. That’s not true. It takes talking to people. Message them. Comment back, have real conversations. And that’s the most organic way to grow your following.
   And that’s Three Tips for Bloggers!! 🙂