Guidelines
Application Guidelines
To be accepted into Beauty Blogs' Backstage, you must meet these requirements:
- Blogs must be active (updating at least twice a week), and at least six months old (blog archives and activity must be easily verifiable - monthly archives are the best solution. Don't make me hunt around to find your oldest post and verify the site's age, I'll just assume that the blog isn't old enough.)
- You must blog about beauty at least 50% of the time (makeup, skincare, nails/polish, et cetera.)
- Your blog must be publicly available (no password protection or membership required to read the posts.)
- Your blog must be in English, or have an English translation of all posts.
Please also be aware that this program works differently from many other blog-linking programs. Each month, only one email is sent out to all participants, notifying people when the partner assignments are posted. One additional tweet is sent a week before the end of the month, reminding people about the deadline. Other than that, though, each participant is responsible for contacting their assigned partner, posting their interview, and commenting on that months' partner assignment post if they can't get a response from their partner that month (or if they themselves need to take a month off.)
If you register but are not approved, you can contact us at any point asking to be resubmitted. When you do contact us, please be sure to include the email address, username, and URL you used when you originally signed up.
The Timeline (or, Same Thing Happens Every Month)
Each month's partner assignments list will include the drop-dead dates for that month; but here's the general monthly schedule:
- 1st: interview partner assignments posted to the site
- 10th: (recommended) last day email their interviews to that month's partner
- 20nd: (recommended) last day respond to your partner's interview of you
- 28th: last day for interviews to be posted on each participant's blog, and for URLs of those interviews to be left in the comments for that month's partner-assignment post
I will be sending an email to everyone the last week of each month, asking who needs to opt out for the following month. Folks who don't opt out (by leaving a comment) will be assumed to be participating.
Rules
Anyone can request to go on hiatus at any time - and then be reactivated when they choose. (So if you're hit by grad school application period, or a Sudden Family Situation, you can just go on hiatus for a few months and don't have to re-apply.) To stay active in Beauty Blogs' Backstage, you must:
- Write different interview questions for each blogger you interview. There will probably be similarities in a few; but don't use the same seven questions month. Tailor your questions to your interviewee.
- Post the interview you gave to your partner (with their answers) on your site by the 28th of each month (earlier is better).
- Leave the URL to your interview in the comments of each month's partner-assignment post.
- On each interview, link both to your partner's site and to this hub site (http://www.beautyblogsbackstage.com).
- Your interviews must stay up for the life of your blog, for the life of this program, or as long as you participate in B3 (whichever comes first.)
- Blogs that repeatedly do not follow the above guidelines may be removed from B3.
- Blogs that drastically change their focus away from beauty blogging, or become inactive for over a month (no new posts), may be removed from B3.
If you are accepted into B3 but later leave, or are removed, you can contact us at any point asking to be resubmitted. Please be sure to include the email address, username, and URL you used when you originally signed up, and the reason for resubmission (blog was inactive for a while, you asked to be removed to take some time off, your blog had changed focus but is now beauty-related again...whatever happened.)
Some tips
You can post your interview questions on your blog as soon as you get them written. Then later in the month, when your partner answers the questions, you can update the post with an actual link to their site, a link to this hub, and their answers. Then you can either change the date, or post a short note stating that you've updated that month's interview. This shows your partner (and potential future partners) know that you're an active participant. It also helps avoid lost emails - because sometimes, the servers just keep the packets. (Also: even if your partner for that month has to drop out, you don't get dinged for nonparticipation.)
Got more questions? Check out the FAQ.