Fashionistas the new queens of Swedish blogging
Blogs were the new black a couple of years ago. Anybody with a keyboard and an opinion took it upon themselves to edify the internet and occupy bandwidth. But the phenomenon has proved to be much more than a passing fad. And fashionistas all over the country are reaping the rewards.
Potential sponsors can gauge an individual blog's popularity on ratings sites such as bloggtoppen.se, which shows that blogs with a focus on fashion are all the rage. According to Bloggtoppen, five of the ten most widely read blogs in Sweden are fashion blogs.
At number 2 in the chart is Engla's Showroom, which pulled in over 50,000 unique visitors last week. The site has been up and running for a year and a half and is maintained by Engla Harjunpää, a 24-year-old woman from a small village outside the university town of Uppsala.
"I started the site in June last year," Harjunpää told The Local. "Back then I updated once or twice a day, now I usually put up four to six posts."
When she's not updating her site Harjunpää, 24, works as an assistent buyer for Nelly, a successful online underwear business. She also writes for the company's blog. But when does she find time for her own site?
"Well, I work in front of the computer a lot. And they don't mind if I write on my own site when I'm at work."
Which is maybe not so surprising when one considers her visitor volume and the fact that she regularly points readers in the direction of her employer.
"We get an awful lot of traffic from blogs and it is increasing all the time. We often see that something is selling particularly well and then find out that somebody has written about it," Nelly's managing director Jarno Vanhatapio told N24.
Advertisers in Sweden have begun to take blogging very seriously. As a result some of the sites with the heaviest traffic now offer a viable source of income from their owners.
Harjunpääs site is doing so well that she does not need to hunt down advertisers; they come to her.
"I get e-mails from clothing companies wanting to advertise on the site. If they seem genuine I will use them.
"And companies sometimes send me product samples. They will only get a mention if they're good enough," said Harjunpää.
She intends to keep working on the site until it is no longer interesting.
"If it stops being fun then I'll quit," she said.
But given her success could Harjunpää not just quit the day job and blog full time?
"Yes, it's at the point now where I could, but I want to keep working too," said Harjunpää.
Find out more on about the success of fashion blogs over at The Local's own blog, up and running as of Friday.
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Potential sponsors can gauge an individual blog's popularity on ratings sites such as bloggtoppen.se, which shows that blogs with a focus on fashion are all the rage. According to Bloggtoppen, five of the ten most widely read blogs in Sweden are fashion blogs.
At number 2 in the chart is Engla's Showroom, which pulled in over 50,000 unique visitors last week. The site has been up and running for a year and a half and is maintained by Engla Harjunpää, a 24-year-old woman from a small village outside the university town of Uppsala.
"I started the site in June last year," Harjunpää told The Local. "Back then I updated once or twice a day, now I usually put up four to six posts."
When she's not updating her site Harjunpää, 24, works as an assistent buyer for Nelly, a successful online underwear business. She also writes for the company's blog. But when does she find time for her own site?
"Well, I work in front of the computer a lot. And they don't mind if I write on my own site when I'm at work."
Which is maybe not so surprising when one considers her visitor volume and the fact that she regularly points readers in the direction of her employer.
"We get an awful lot of traffic from blogs and it is increasing all the time. We often see that something is selling particularly well and then find out that somebody has written about it," Nelly's managing director Jarno Vanhatapio told N24.
Advertisers in Sweden have begun to take blogging very seriously. As a result some of the sites with the heaviest traffic now offer a viable source of income from their owners.
Harjunpääs site is doing so well that she does not need to hunt down advertisers; they come to her.
"I get e-mails from clothing companies wanting to advertise on the site. If they seem genuine I will use them.
"And companies sometimes send me product samples. They will only get a mention if they're good enough," said Harjunpää.
She intends to keep working on the site until it is no longer interesting.
"If it stops being fun then I'll quit," she said.
But given her success could Harjunpää not just quit the day job and blog full time?
"Yes, it's at the point now where I could, but I want to keep working too," said Harjunpää.
Find out more on about the success of fashion blogs over at The Local's own blog, up and running as of Friday.
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