Last weekend, I was doing some major decluttering of my makeup collection. Expired mascaras, wonky lipsticks, old eyeliners went to the bin without even a bat of an eyelash. Soon, it was time to check my eyeshadow palettes. What’s to be given away, what’s to be chucked, I wonder?

Then I stumbled upon this.

It’s an old Dior quint eyeshadow palette that I haven’t used in a very long time. This was actually the very first high-end makeup that I purchased.

Read More »

May I have a show of hands, who are fans of the very popular Lucas Papaw Ointment? I bet some of you are. It was one of the first beauty products I purchased when I moved to Australia 6 years ago and is a chapped lips saver.

But you see, as much as I like the Lucas Papaw ointment, it has its drawbacks. Firstly, it’s difficult to use in winter because when it’s cold (when I say cold, I mean a room less than 20C), the ointment hardens up and it’s a pain in the arse to dispense. Secondly, it contains petrolatum, which a lot of people aren’t keen on. I’ve since moved on to other brands of paw paw ointment that do not contain petrolatum and are much easier to dispense. Hey, if a similar papaw ointment can do a great job without the nasties and is easier to use, why not?

Read More »

© bloomua

I wasn’t a fan of scheduling social media updates for a long time. I used to connect my blog updates to a tweet scheduling tool years ago when I wasn’t at all active on Twitter. I completely forgot that I’ve done it until I started using Twitter again and realised that most tweets that came from me back then were simply tweets about blog updates. There weren’t any personal updates, chats with fellow tweeple or any other form of engagement. In short, my tweets back then were boring as arse.

Things changed when I started using social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc) a lot more frequently. I’ve stopped automatically sending blog updates to Twitter and Facebook only because I’m particular about the times different blog posts are to be tweeted about on certain days. I’m pedantic that way.

Today, I’m not going to only talk about how to post and schedule blog updates on social media platforms. I’m also going to talk about how to find content to share with your followers and schedule them effectively for maximum engagement.

I find that if I’m only talking about my blog posts on Twitter or Facebook, it’s boring. Who would want to follow people who only talks about themselves and have nothing else to share? In a world that’s all about ME, ME and ME, sharing other people’s work that is relevant to your followers not only helps the content creator spread the word about their work, it also proves that you’re someone to go to for good content. Whether it’s yours or not.

Something interesting I’ve also noticed with sharing content on Twitter or Facebook is how much it drives engagement to my social media platforms. It’s not just about me talking about how my day is, ranting about Myki, showing off my dog and so on. It’s also about providing valuable information to my followers. When engagement on my social media platforms increases, my blog’s readership increases too.

Here are a few websites I stumbled upon a few months ago and after using them consistently for over a month, I’ve seen how much they’ve driven engagement for me, especially on Twitter. It’s not a significant jump in numbers, mind you, but I’ve seen a vast improvement when I compare my stats to previous months.

Read More »