So, media kits. Media kits are a convenient, handy file used to showcase the sponsorship options, site stats and services you can offer businesses and bloggers if they choose to collaborate with you. You generally send these out to companies you want to work with, potential sponsors, PR people, fellow bloggers and generally anyone who wants to give you money. Or things. Or just a cool opportunity, whatever, I know we’re not all Parker feel-a-likes here. Or living below the poverty line.
Anyway! We also don’t all have design skills or the cash to shell out for someone else to use their skills, time, knowledge and software/equipment to design stuff for us, so in the interest of being a sweetheart and also surreptitiously promoting my work*, I thought I’d give anyone wanting to get a media kit — or have one made; I can’t pick your interests and sponsorship options for you! — a place to start with a handy infographic (and the text version of it for accessibility purposes and also SEO. I care more about accessibility).
HOW TO MAKE A MEDIA KIT: CONTENT
INFORMATION
(include as many or as few as you’re comfortable with)
1. Who are you? What’s your name? How old are you? Where do you live, generally? What’s important to you? What are you passionate about? This can be a line, a paragraph, a list, a word soup, whatever. Just tell the your potential money-giver collaborator a little bit about you and what makes you tick.
2. What do you do? Are you a writer? Photographer? Designer? Coach? Doctor? Activist? Politician? Professional athlete? Stay-at-home mom? What do you enjoy doing? What are you good at? What do you specialize in?
3. What do you blog about? If you have a niche, by all means showcase it. If you don’t — and you don’t have to — let your potential collaborator know what you usually talk about on your blog. Be honest and as brief or not as you’d like. You can mention any series you do, your blogging schedule, anything that’s drawn a lot of readers to your blog, or any time you took an interesting angle to talk about something.
If your blog is particularly conservative or scandalous, or you’ve got very strong feelings about something, this is a good time to mention that, too. That way it won’t come off as too much of a shock if someone asks you if you’ll post content about Valentine’s Day that relies heavily on gender stereotypes and you tell them, “I’m sorry, but that goes against my entire worldview.” Hell, maybe they’ll even notice before they ask.
4. Where do you dwell online? Link your blog, your homepage, your portfolio, your social media presence. You’ve probably done this before for a network or for sidebar, so it shouldn’t be too hard! And if it’s relevant — e.g., if you’re seeking to collaborate with people in person, or your location plays a role in your blog, or you just feel like mentioning it — include where you live (country, city, probably not your snail mail address) and what your travel availability is. If you’ve been on TV or had articles featured on big websites or magazines, you can throw that in, too. And —
IMPORTANT: Include your e-mail address!
5. Who reads you? Yep, that’s the stats part. Some people keep it vaguer than others; some people include reader demographics (age, gender, location). You can toss in any or all of: your monthly pageviews, monthly unique visitors, average daily views, followers on various platforms, followers across all platforms, newsletter subscribers, average like count on Instagram selfies, whatever you think is cool.
6. How do you work with brands? Sponsorship options! What do you offer brands? Do you do sponsored posts, product reviews, giveaways, sidebar ads, social media shoutouts? Say so.
7. How much do you charge for it? “It” is your sponsorship options, and the rest is self-explanatory.
8. Who have you worked with before? Make a list, talk about it, sprinkle their logos across the page. Experience begets experience.
9. What have you done for them? “Them” being the brands or people you’ve worked with before. If you doubled someone’s sales, say so! If you did a super awesome shoot with a professional photographer (cough), toss in a picture. If you created a whole recipe to showcase somebody’s oven mitt, link it! Give potential collaborators an idea of what you do for the people who work with you.
10. What do they have to say about it? And this is where testimonials come in. Apparently a good closing argument! I wouldn’t know, but I listen to people who do.
PICTURES AND GRAPHICS
(sprinkle freely around your information)
Media kits, just like blogs, usually make liberal use of visuals, plus text is generally easier to swallow when there’s pretty around it, so don’t be shy about including images along with your information — from piecharts to headshots, it’s all cool. Here’s a brief list of things you can include:
- Your logo — or failing that, your header
- A look at your blog, e.g. a screenshot
- Pictures of you and anyone and anything adjacent to you that makes appearances on your blog, be that your pet, your human baby, your apartment, your food, your outfits or your workspace
- Examples of your work and behind-the-scenes photos of you doing that work
- Logos of past collaborators
DON’T FORGET:
to include your blog URL/link, your name, and a valid e-mail address! Otherwise it’ll be hard for people to get in touch with you.
I think you’ve got plenty to go on now, so get working!
* DISCLAIMER/SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: I design media kits. It’s something I decided to offer on a whim and I fell in love with it. It turns out print design is my favorite, and I didn’t even know until January. Figures.
I mention this for two reasons:
1. Everything I know about media kits I learned from designing them.
2. Design work is my main source of income, so by hiring me you’d not only have some extra time to pamper yourself and pester your cat choice of baby, you’d also be contributing to my livelihood and that of my cat.
Thank you for reading this disclaimer!
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I don’t get paid to write these posts. Please consider supporting my work on Gittip.