Can you tell our readers about yourself and your blog?
Ans: So yes, I am Gazal Garg, I’m 24 years old. And I have a travel YouTube channel where I make very off-the-beaten-path travel content. I travel solo as an Indian girl, which in itself is something that you don’t see quite often. But also, I do activities like diving with wild sharks in the open ocean, or camping alone on an island in the middle of the ocean on a sandbar. And basically empowering young people and encouraging them to travel alone is one of the themes that I tried to try to explore. And other than that, I have my Instagram page running strong. Recently, it’s picked up quite a lot of traction, because I have a fashion series called the Brown Girl wardrobe, which is basically about embracing ethnic fashion, and embracing our brown skin, as Indian girls as South Asian women and not try to chase fair skin.
So it’s Indian fashion with a bit of a modern twist for an everyday urban girl. And these two things are what I’m focusing on right now. But yes, there are definitely more niches in the pipeline.
Can you tell me some of your strengths that really helped you in blogging?
Ans: So I think my biggest strength that I consider right now is storytelling. I feel stories can make or break any piece of content. No matter if you’re filming from a camera that is just you know, your phone camera like an iPhone, and the footage is blurry or shaky. But you will see these videos like two-minute videos on YouTube with like poor quality videos, and they will be going viral because maybe there’s an emotional quotient to it that’s really hooking the viewers onto the video, or just some beautiful storyline, just a catchy candid moment. So I think at the end of the day, all of us are trying to write our own stories and tell our own stories. And if you can do that, well, from a single post to an Instagram story to a full-fledged, 10-minute video, as long as you have a beautiful story to tell that hooks the viewers in and as long as you’re honest about your story, and you’re not putting on a facade, because people can see through it. I think that can make for some pretty good content.
So yeah, I’ll definitely say my storytelling skills are my strength. Because if you see my videos, you’ll see the thought that’s called behind it. It’s not just you know, going to a pretty place and showing with a camera with a selfie camera that Oh, look, this is where I am, this is what I’m doing. It gets a lot deeper than that. It gets more vulnerable than that. And I try to leave the viewer with some kind of thought at the end of the video or some kind of a message that they can take home hopefully. So yeah, also another stream that I think is now something that I’ve developed over time is that of filmmaking and editing. These were things that I had no idea of, because like I said, I was a strategy consultant.
And I had done BSc economics, you know, in college. So yeah, I think filmmaking, knowing the storyboard, and the cinematography so that I can tell the people who I work with the kind of shots I want, and then sitting in the Edit to put that puzzle of yours together, you know, the different pieces of the puzzle. I think that also really helps.
How would you describe your blogging style?
Ans: So I think, different things that I would describe my blogging style as it’s ever-changing, I get bored of things very quickly. So I can’t stick to one style. First of all, it’s always evolving, it’s always changing.
Secondly, I think my blogging style is fun, it’s cheeky. Sometimes it’s sexy. Sometimes it’s just like, I’m laughing in my own self at something stupid that I did probably, it’s witty or funny sometimes. So yeah, I think I always try to keep it light. But at the same time, I try to dig into those deeper conversations and deeper thoughts and vulnerabilities that we all have. From time to time.
Also, I think, if there was honestly just one word to describe my blogging style, I’d say it was being honest. Because before I write any caption, put up any story, write any voiceover, think of a video concept. I just asked myself that, If I don’t know what to do, I asked myself, just be honest. What are you truly feeling? Is this something that you honestly feeling right now, if not, then what is it? I don’t know if that makes sense. But yeah, I think people can really see through a facade if you try to say things that are not you. So I try to be as honest as I can and as real as I can in my thoughts.
What type of networking do you think is better to enhance your traffic to the blog?
Ans: I don’t know. This is not something that I’ve honestly paid a lot of attention to. I think in general, if you just go anywhere and meet people, whether it’s in your industry, like when you meet people who you work with, like freelancers, videographers, graphic designers, people in marketing, just be nice and greet them nicely. Ask them about what’s happening in their lives.
Yeah, just generally, being a pleasant person can go a long way. Because you never know, they might refer you to someone else. In case you want to work with someone else that might help, in case they know and other influencers, who you can collaborate with because you know, it’s all ultimately the same circle.
So yeah, I guess there is no particular kind of networking that I think is better. Sometimes the best of contacts come up from people who you hardly expected they come from like that’s happened with me a lot of the times you know that it’s not necessarily the people from within your industry as well. So I think all kinds of networking are important.
There’s no one that is better than the other. But it’s important to just have a pleasant demeanor when you’re meeting anybody in general.
What do you think is the best service a blogger can provide to his readers?
Ans: So you know, I heard a YouTubers giving an interview, where she’s pretty famous and she was asked, how do you stay relevant? And how do you make sure that you can keep creating content in the long term? And she said, her name is Sorella More, she’s a travel YouTuber, content creator abroad. And she said that I think the only way to stay relevant is to constantly provide value to your viewers. And I think that is the best service that you can provide to your viewers. That value can come from information, it can come from entertainment, it can come from simply bringing a smile to their face and uplifting their spirits. With a video that you know that cheers them up.
It can come from, you know, people who are productivity YouTubers, and tell them of certain software that can enhance their productive lives. It can come from even something as simple as a book recommendation, that they have something to take back from a certain caption, for example, or a song recommendation, or just a beautiful quote that you have written. So I think constantly providing value to your viewers, in whatever form uplifting their spirits, maybe even sometimes, without knowing it, inspiring them to create an explorer through your content. I think those are the things that are the best service that the blogger can provide his or her viewers.
What would be your ideal working environment?
Ans: My ideal working environment would definitely be on a beach. A nice beach bed, my laptop, maybe even a book to take breaks from a cold drink on this side and just the sound of the waves. Because you see, I can live a digital nomad lifestyle. Fortunately, I’m blessed with the kind of job that I can work from anywhere. And I love beaches. So my ideal environment would definitely be me editing a video from a beach and at night or in the evening creating more content at the same beach or somewhere else. And yeah, just I think living that digital nomad lifestyle, which due to COVID is it’s not as easy to live now. But yes, that’s something that would be ideal.
How do you manage time to run your blog efficiently?
Ans: That’s actually a really good question. Because as somebody who’s now doing this full time, people, I think, really underestimate the amount of work that does go into this profession, especially if you know, for example, if I were to tell you the things that are to be managed right from conceptualizing the video or thinking of locations, talking to people, if you can film there, coming up with concepts, storylines, script, then finally shooting it if it’s a fashion video sourcing the outfits, talking to designers, getting in collaborations, styling those outfits, then filming it. Then you sit onto the Edit table, go through hours and hours of footage, make some sense out of that data, bring in a good video, do the graphic designing aspects of it. And it’s still not done because there is an entire aspect of releasing content. You have to put something out every single day if you’re on Instagram, for example. Doing that on the side still making it interesting writing those captions editing those pictures while you’re working on these main videos.
And then there’s a whole marketing aspect of it, which is a whole other ballgame. Imagine on top of this, if you add travel as a travel logo, you also have to manage the whole nitty-gritty that goes into travel That in itself can get so hectic and tiring, right. So yes, there’s definitely a lot of things that go into making content.
And the way to manage the time I think that’s something that I personally I am still not the best at because a lot of the times I compromise on my health, my sleep, and spending time with the people that I love in order to get the work done, but I think it’s a journey. I think as I do more of this, I get better at managing and juggling it with other aspects of my life. And, yeah, just the best solution is the age-old cliche. You know, having a to-do list and putting everything down on your calendar definitely helps you to plan out the days and weeks better. So I’m sorry, I don’t have an interesting answer for this. It’s as boring as this, but it works.
What do you think is the best strategy that worked well for you to get more traffic to your blog?
Ans: Okay, great question. So again, I heard this in an interview, and I tried to implement it as much as I can in my life. There’s someone who said that don’t aspire to be famous, aspire to do the kind of work that gets you noticed. So I think what works for me for my blog, is just, I know that I’m doing something that is unique that nobody else is doing like with the brown gold wardrobe. I know the production quality, the video quality, the Edit style, the styling in itself, all of it, I just don’t see contemporaries or not even contemporaries, but just people in this field doing if you watch any of my videos, for example, you will see the style is completely different from what is happening in the blogger world, and also in the brands, the designer brands, the kind of content that they make. It’s like an amalgamation of both. And it’s not just, you know, simply getting out of one outfit and getting into the other.
And, yeah, so I think doing the kind of work that resonates with you,
is something that worked well for me. And that’s why I’ve been able to grow so quickly. Within just I think two, three months, I’ve crossed 20,000 followers on Instagram, which is a rare thing to notice to see, especially in a niche, which is so broad, like fashion and travel, you don’t usually see that and especially for that to happen organically.
So yeah, I think having that USP, and also I think I put my soul into the content like my content is truly not about looking good in outfits. It’s so much deeper. And with all my captions and the thoughts behind the video, the concepts, I think somebody can really kind of see my soul, and where I’m coming from and what I’m trying to do, and what I’m trying to say.
I think it’s soulful content. And it’s content that nobody is making. It’s, very different from what you will see out there. So yeah, I think those are the things I mean, I sound extremely immodest right now. But from a business point of view, probably that’s what worked for me.
