The Style Blogger Starter
GLAMOUR is searching for the next big blogging talent, which is why we – in association with Orange– called on our readers to send us links to their blogs to stand a chance of winning big.
Now, we’ve selected the super-talented five finalists, and here they are! Their blogs show off their personal style, writing skill, and passion for fashion – but now we want to see them taking all that to the next level. To show that they’ve got what it takes to blog with the best of them, the fashionable five will compete in four weekly tasks.
The challenge
Our five finalists were each sent a tech product to try out. Their task was to write a review of the product in a way that was informative, and appealing to their blog’s audience.
The reviews
Jess van Wyk of The Avant-Garde Guide reviewed the Cookoo Bluetooth analogue watch, Makhosazane’s Phumi Msomi reviewed a Samsung Galaxy GC100, Pretty Mint’s Leigh Harding tried out Parrot Zik headphones, Zaahirah Bhamjee from Complete Disbelief reviewed a Sony Smartwatch and Sabu Mdee of Life, Tiems and Haberdashery reviewed the Kindle Fire HD.
What we thought
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Jess did a great job of combining technology and style, and while she used a whole lot of photos, this made sense in the context of her product’s purpose and the way she chose to review it. The text of her review was well-written, and a good length.
We loved that Leigh created a clearly fashion-orientated take on the product, tailoring her review to her audience, while also providing a solid tech review that gave all of the information that it needed to. She did a good job of researching the product, but the review was a little long.
Phume wrote an interesting, readable post that supplied her audience with lots of information about the product. We liked that she gave a clear demonstration of what the camera was capable of, with particular relevance to her audience – but given that she was reviewing a product used for taking photos, we’d have liked to see a few more of them.
Sabu‘s chatty, engaging style really worked well for this task, and we thought that the pictures she took added a lot to the post. Her technical review skills were good, too, but we’d suggest one more read-through for spelling and punctuation perfection.
Zaahirah‘s post had a personal perspective that we enjoyed, and that effectively gave the review a context. The review was unbiased, and a good length to deliver its main points without elaborating on them too much.
And the winner is…
The Orange experts who helped the GLAMOUR team to judge this task were extremely impressed by Jess’s review skills, and we loved her styling and writing – so she wins this one. Who do you think did the best job of task 3? Cast your vote below – you might help your favourite finalist to win a Style Blogger Starter hamper from Orange, and you could win, too…
