Vancouver Blogger Profile: Terri Potratz

Being a blogger who has branched out in terms of writing nationally about Vancouver, I’m pretty stoked to introduce Terri Potratz who is currently in the running to be *the* Vancouver blogger for FASHION Magazine.

Who are you? My friends call me the “Jill of all trades,” because I love diversity and having 10 things on the go at once. I thrive on having multiple projects, learning new things, and meeting inspiring people, of which there are a lot of in Vancouver. I got my degree from UVic for Psychology and Film Studies, but ever since I was a kid I dreamed of being a writer. After returning to Vancouver I started writing for Beyond Robson, which led to a staff writer and photographer position with Infamous Magazine, and now I’m out there on my own trying to make it happen! I’m also launching a knitwear accessories line called “larry.” this Fall, which uses all BC derived products and materials – from the alpaca yarn to wooden buttons hand turned on Pender Island.

Where do you blog (which sites)? The Conveyor Belt. I initially created this site simply so I could post my published writing work into an online portfolio for potential employers to view. Months later when I checked the stats, I was surprised to find that people were stopping in daily, even though I was only updating once a month. I figured, let’s run with this! The traffic has been steadily increasing every week since.

Are you originally from Vancouver? Yes – Richmond actually. I moved to Victoria for 5 years to complete my degree, and have been back in Van living downtown for nearly 3 years.

Why do you blog? (or perhaps why do you blog about fashion)? A few years ago, I felt that fashion was a largely ignored topic in Vancouver. There wasn’t much coverage in the local magazines – I found myself ravenously flipping to the fashion page in the Straight each week and being continually disappointed, there just wasn’t enough to satiate my interest in the local scene. I began blogging about fashion for Beyond Robson, and these posts were consistently among the top rated each week. That was a clear signal that fashion content was severely lacking within local media – people were just eating it up as fast as I could write it.

What is the BEST part of blogging… or if you prefer, the worst? After writing for a print publication for about a year, one of my frustrations was not having access to feedback – were people reading my articles, did they have comments, what could I have improved on? Online, I can clearly see how many people are viewing each post, and people can interact with the content. I have real measures as to what works, what people are linking to, and how they’re responding to what I’m putting out there, and that’s what I love about writing online. Plus, I can write daily – Infamous Magazine was a monthly magazine, so that really limited the type of articles I could write. With the last BC Fashion Week, for example, we partnered up with the organizers and were uploading photos and coverage daily – that kind of in-depth coverage simply wouldn’t have been possible had I still been working for print media, and it was very gratifying.

Do you write for yourself, your readers, for Google, for a living? Myself and my readers. I don’t make any income from my blogging, we do it because we love it!

PC, Mac or Speak n’ Spell? Currently MacBook, although I’m newly converted from PC. Still learning those shortcuts!

Blogs you read or would recommend I think that the streetstyle blogs have their place and they’re fun to look at, but I’m all about what’s practical and relevant to me and where I live. Fashion shouldn’t be intimidating or about promoting gross consumerism, it should be about creativity and self expression.

I love reading Gloss Magazine, and Partly Sunny is another newly launched local site that’s done really well. As for personal blogs, I’ve been a supporter of Stylefinds since I worked with Shallom as a fashion writer for Beyond Robson, and BOOOOOOOM.com is a great new project that encourages people to submit and interact around art projects, plus Jeff posts his own musings on a variety of topics. I really appreciate sites that don’t limit themselves in terms of content – it’s important to have a niche, but I love having the freedom to write about random tidbits on my site in addition to the fashion content. It’s so much more to me than a “fashion blog.”

Why FASHION Magazine online? This is the first time FASHION has had a competition like this, and it’s such a fantastic opportunity. There could be a lot of potential to continue working for the magazine in a different capacity after this year-long blogging contract, so the possibilities appear endless. Also, because FASHION is the top fashion magazine in Canada (in my opinion), I have the chance to really champion local fashion, designers and stores. I’ve been doing just this for over 2 years now, and it would be great to continue doing so within such a respected and widely read venue. Vancouver deserves this national recognition!

Voting With regards to FASHION Magazine’s blogger search, you can vote once a day, every day until August 11. Terri says, “One-time votes are appreciated, but repeated daily support is what will really make a difference!”