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Blog Spotlight with Niran Vinod, founding editor of Yin & Yang

Yin &Yang was launched in late 2009 as a platform for two second year Creative Advertising students  Niran Vinod (Yin) and Ernest Opoku (Yang) – to document their lives and voice their opinions on everything they categorised as ‘cool’. Humble beginnings indeed.
 
"Just over three years later we have grown exponentially, with over ten regular contributors (or, as we term ourselves, family members), and an increasing international readership who share our passion for music, fashion, art, all things creative and all things London.
 
Somewhere along our three-year road, the vision changed. Growing from ‘two fresh kids’ to a whole family of contributors, we found innovative ways to impart our passion for music, fashion, art, culture and creativity on our readers.
 
Not satisfied with merely documenting content dictated by the blogsphere, we decided to create. We turned interviews with some of world’s most talented musicians into conversations, we made stories experiences and created visual journeys worth a thousand words."
 
Tell us about Yin & Yang, how did you get started?
 
We were bored university students with a whole lot of free time and needed a platform to share our opinions on what we thought was cool. We didn’t really choose a subject when we started. If you look back to the posts from late 2009, you’ll see how broad all our content was. We wrote about everything and anything that we liked but over the years, I’d like to think we’ve narrowed things down a fair bit. 
 
How do you source content for your blog?
 
We’ve actually just re-done the whole site, slightly changing direction from a mixture of created and curated content to one that focuses solely on creating our own content. We have a separate blog section, which takes the back seat as we prefer showcasing what we’ve made ourselves. So if you want us to create unique content for your client/service, hit us up. 
 
The blog is where we share whatever inspires us plus personal stories and behind-the-scenes content.
 
Do you publish reviews?
 
Yep, we do a variety of product and service reviews. Have a gander onsite.
 
How did you build a following for your blog?
 
We haven’t done any paid advertising, it’s all been pretty organic through Facebook and Twitter. Creating content that’s worthy of good conversation = building a following.
 
Are you a PR friendly blog? Do you accept contributions and content for your blog?
 
I’d say we’re a PR friendly website. We don’t accept guest posts or press releases; we prefer writing our own content with a personal twist. Opinion is absolutely necessary or else we’d just be regurgitating press releases and that can be done through clicking reblog on tumblr.
 
We love working with PRs to create features and advertorials. 
 
How best do you like to be approached by PRs?
 
By email but preferably with 'hello, how are you' and a bit of an explanation of what they’re looking for. I never pay attention to mass emailed press releases with introduction, that’s just spam.
 
What’s the best thing about being a blogger in your field? 
 
The creative freedom.
 
You can find Yin & Yang tweeting @yinnyangtweets.
 

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  • Yin & Yang (Closed June 2016)

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