When a blog becomes a business

Ramona Bonbizin has managed to turn her blog into a successful lifestyle magazine. Image: Module+Ramona Bonbizin became an independent entrepreneur early on and founded the textile company Fashionbiz with her partner Chris Kradolfer in 2006. She has high-quality silk accessories such as scarves, foulards and ties sewn and rolled in Switzerland for banks, insurance companies and other SMEs. Although this company is doing very well, 80 percent of her business comes from her own online magazine fashionpaper.ch Two years after Ramona Bonbizin founded the textile company Fashionbiz, she set up her own blog - for practical reasons, as the entrepreneur recalls: "I had to keep my customers regularly informed about fashion and color trends and I wrote down this knowledge in my blog." As a result, more and more companies became aware of this fashion blog, especially the beauty industry. The resulting collaborations intensified over the years. "At the very beginning, as a blogger at Pressedays, I was still a creature from another planet among the many journalists and photographers," says Ramona Bonbizin. This was associated with intensive development work and explanations, but this has changed dramatically in the last three years. A popular lifestyle magazine Over the past seven years or so, the "fashionpaper" blog has developed into a popular lifestyle magazine for Switzerland, Germany and Austria. Ramona Bonbizin also had to realize in her internet business that there are no national borders on the web - only small language borders. The issue of national borders usually becomes difficult when competitions involve products that are not allowed to be exported to Germany or Austria. One example was tea varieties that had already been imported once and could no longer be exported for this reason - the difficulty here was that followers from the surrounding countries also understood this.fashionpaper reports on everything to do with modern lifestyle - from fashion to beauty, from sport to travel. Over the seven years, initiator Ramona Bonbizin has always pursued the same goals: to always offer readers exciting content and thus promote brands in an authentic way. Personal and entertaining video contributionsThe big difference to some online magazines is the personal and entertaining video contributions, which can be traced back to its original origins as a blog. Ramona Bonbizin gives viewers the opportunity to get to know the latest beauty, fashion or electronics products interactively or to visually explore cities and hotels in Europe on her shoulders. Despite native advertorials, the contributions remain critical and show the truth. "There have already been cases where a hotel manager wanted to have the video deleted afterwards because I showed the truth. However, I refused to have the video deleted," recalls Ramona Bonbizin. However, she also notes that some hotel managers, especially the Swiss, are sometimes a little apprehensive about the fact that honest and authentic reports are made. "Through our video contributions, we usually get to know people from the hotel management to the chambermaids. My experience has shown that just as the management itself is, it runs through the entire hotel right down to the chambermaid. A hotel that lives hospitality for the benefit of its guests can only gain from such an authentic video report and for them, social media is a great opportunity to stand out from the competition," explains the entrepreneur, adding that Ramona's bonbizin work in front of the camera is not just Redcarpet events and beautiful trips. For this video series, Ramona Bonbizin regularly completes tough Crossfit workouts over the course of a year and provides viewers with interesting information in every segment.Brand ambassador for a luxury manufacturerHer successes to date - she is already working as a brand ambassador for an Austrian luxury fashion brand and was recently on a jury of experts for a young designer award in Lucerne, and many other interesting projects are already in the pipeline - show the Swiss designer that she is on the right track with her concept and active community. She rewards her readers and viewers for their active participation in the community with interesting competitions, whether directly on fashionpaper.ch or on social media channels.Although it's an online business, a lot of things don't just take place in the virtual world: "I'm regularly asked about my outfits at events - which has no limits when it comes to age. For example, an older, well-heeled lady recently asked about my special stockings or I get photos sent to me afterwards via social media channels with the questions. However, this behavior is not just limited to fashion and the advertising partners also know this. Sometimes my viewers notice the smallest details in the videos that I wasn't even aware of at first," says Ramona Bonbizin. She is also amazed at how well her product placements are received by viewers. For this reason, Ramona Bonbizin has already turned down advertising offers when she personally cannot represent a product. Brands are increasingly relying on content - i.e. good content - being consumed, liked, commented on and perhaps shared. This is also their recipe for success, an active exchange with their community. However, Ramona Bonbizin is also aware that a blog will not replace a print product; she sees it as a useful addition.