SUCCESS did not come easy for David Guison, more commonly known as “DG” in the blogging industry.
Guison, 25, was introduced into blogging in 2009 when his General Psychology class required students to put up a personal Web blog. Naturally, he chose lifestyle and fashion as something he thought would be relevant and easy to sustain.
Since he was blogging about menswear and the latest style and being a student at the same time, Guison had to do two things: he would save up his allowance to buy clothes and he would visit thrift shops or even ukay-ukay stores to find unique items he can feature in his blog.
“It was hard. I would literally cut on the things a normal college student should be enjoying to sustain my blog,” he told the BusinessMirror. “I thought, ‘Hey! This is something I could probably do as a career,’ since few people back then considered blogging as a serious job.”
Fast forward to 2016 and the multimedia arts graduate Guison is now at the top of the blog-market food chain: he has a talent manager and a production team to professionalize the content he releases on his blog and social media. At present, he has more than 170,000 followers on Instagram and more than 100,000 followers on Facebook.
Guison also developed his marketing skills and publicity skills, so he came up with his own brand guidelines.
His success and busy schedule has limited his time to socialize, however. For example, he can’t really socialize with most of his friends, especially when out in the public. The good thing is, he said, this led him to a more active and healthy lifestyle.
Global brands
GUISON was recently chosen as one of the three male “influencers” who will compete in this year’s Axe’s “Black” campaign on October 7. Each of the influencer is required to come up with the best pop-up concept store based on his own theme.
For his concept store, Guison chose travel as the theme and named his store “Aviation Axe,” “which pretty much reflects who I really am.”
“Travel is something I always get excited about and I think a lot of people, especially my age, can relate to,” Guison said. “I travel a lot and one thing I’ve learned is that going to different places not only brings you closer to culture and humanity, but, at the same time, opens up your world. It allows you to live and experience more and when you come back home, you definitely have a fresh perspective in life.”
To make his vision for his concept store come to life, Guison formed a team composed of Marvin Cunanan, Seph Asong and Robby Carmona.
Cunanan is the founder of Purveyr Magazine, while Asong is the publicist behind leading lifestyle and performance footwear brands in the country. Carmona is one of the country’s leading fashion directors.
Brand-building
OVER the years of featuring fashion and trends on his blog and being exposed locally and internationally to different persona and style, Guison already has a clear picture of the kind of image he wants.
He said he’s more into “understated fashion,” which he describes as not too formal and not too casual. With this look, Guison successfully married both classic and modern taste, resulting in a very distinct style that few of today’s male bloggers can pull off so well.
But more than the popularity, Guison said he remains “humbled and genuine” when it comes to the content he creates and this is the kind of direction he wants for his brand. He doesn’t want to put out content for the sake of promoting a brand nor be dictated by “what-would-sell-more-and-get-more-engagements.”
Creating content that really inspires people’s creativity and challenges them to go out of their comfort zone is what “David Guison-as-a-brand stands for today,” he said.
Nine-to-five, not!
GUISON said he never thought of working in a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. work setup. He prefers blogging because it provides him different experiences.
“But at the same time, I want to prove to people that blogging is not a superficial job and it takes a lot of hard work to succeed,” he said. “Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.”
Guison recommends not to quit.
“I never quit on anything. If I’m down and be like, ‘Man, I just want to stop,’ I think about all the struggles and sacrifices I made when I was starting out, then just like a switch, it pulls me back to the right direction.”
1 comment
Loved this read! Understanding yourself and what you want to contribute through blogging is certainly an important part of growing an interactive following