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06/26/12 | Uncategorized

How I Started POSHGLAM In College (New York State Of Mind)

The city is bustling with intelligence and fast-paced individuals who are great at thinking outside of the box.

By Kimberly E. Stone (Founder, POSHGLAM)

As an entrepreneur driven by business and innovation, I thoroughly enjoy the process of taking on new projects and nurturing them to completion. An avid fashion magazine junkie, I made my own clothes throughout high school and college and took courses with a local designer which helped me to refine my design aesthetic and served as a great compliment to my coursework in marketing.

While working for a startup at the beginning of my career, I began to realize the propensity for marketing growth on the web and the importance of building trust and using traditional marketing as well as social media as a form of brand-building.

My Inspiration

I started my first venture, POSHGLAM while in college. I was inspired by the many talented emerging designers in New York City. I knew from the start I wanted to do something online but I wasn’t quite sure how the platform would emerge.

New York has a high concentration of thought leaders who push for disruptive change in the marketplace with innovation and new ideas. The city is bustling with intelligence and fast-paced individuals who are great at thinking outside of the box. Networking proved to be my best tool for bringing POSHGLAM into fruition.

In early 2005, many of my peers were working with traditional publications and didn’t have the foresight to recognize the burgeoning channel of the web possessed as a true competitor to the glossies. As the media world began to accept the digital realm and determine the best methods of ethical monetization, POSHGLAM the luxe blog emerged.

My Start

When I bought the POSHGLAM.com domain, I knew the cache appeal of the brand would attract people to the site and found it only suiting to align high caliber emerging brands with the name in order to build both simultaneously. As time went on, we also began to attract more established luxe brands to the site and interlaced them when it made sense for the brand.

Before long, I began to receive pitches from all over the world from frustrated publicists who represented amazing clients but were being snubbed by pretentious editors from traditional or long lead press. Our value to both our readers and the brands became timely editorial content that is easily digestible and shared.

Fast forward to present day and the web is now overflowing with style bloggers from every niche imaginable. What distinguishes POSGHLAM as an editorial blog is our adoption of most Associated Press Style Guidelines for our editorial copy.

Believe it or not, I still think of POSHGLAM as a new venture. Although we’ve been around for 7+ years, I still learn something new every day and I’m still working to evolve the site into a more user-friendly platform for communication around fashionable brands.

Getting Social

I’m a huge fan of social media, the constant rapid fire communication is unmatched and always exciting. With that said, I don’t believe it’s a viable way to market a business long term. In my opinion, traditional methods of marketing are more reliable and trustworthy – social media is the “icing on the cake”.

Social media is a great way to create healthy conversations, debunk myths and extend the already existent messages delivered by traditional marketing avenues. However, I don’t find it to be a strong marketing channel for “true” differentiation.

Although social media plays a huge role in our online popularity, the most important aspect of the company is the situational analysis and where POSHGLAM “the brand” fits into the mix.

Looking Ahead

Converging messages and brand equity play a huge role in a business’ longstanding success, I see us adopting other methods of marketing down the road and utilizing more avenues for promotion.

The next step for the company is expanding our customer offerings and allowing brands more opportunities to interact directly with their target market. I believe the next progressive move for us is a communal buildout interface that heavily interacts with some of the more generic, prominent social media communities.

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

About the guest blogger: Kimberly E. Stone is Founder of POSHGLAM. She is an Internet entrepreneur with a knack for recognizing creative talent and pinpointing successful lines. POSHGLAM started out as a side venture in college and is now Kimberly’s full-time business endeavor. From an early age, she indulged herself into the fashion world. An avid fashion magazine reader, she made her own clothes in high school, winning “best dressed”. Follow her on Twitter at @kimberlyestone.

Anne-Gail Moreland

Anne-Gail Moreland

Anne-Gail Moreland, an intern with Women 2.0, was on the StartupBus. She studies neuroscience at Mount Holyoke College, where she is trying to merge a passion for tech and the brain into a new wave of cognition-based technology

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