Monday 8 August 2016

How To Make A Media Kit For Your Blog

How To Make A Media Kit For Your Blog help guide easy quick step by step

Some of you may have clicked on this post with not a clue what the hell a media kit is and some of you may have heard the term before but have no idea where to start and are looking for some inspiration. Whatever the reason you clicked on this post, I've got ya covered!  

The best way to describe a media kit is it is basically a CV for your blog. Your blog's media kit should be an extension of your blog, so it needs to look professional and outline your best bits. Like a CV is a quick way for an employer to see if you are suitable for the job, a media kit works in the same way. If you have a media kit, brands and companies can have a look at it before working or collaborating with you.

There are so many benefits of having a media kit for your blog; not only does it make you look super professional and like you've got your shit together, it's a perfect way to answer questions that brands may have about you and your blog, before working with you without having to exchange countless emails. In some cases, brands may ask to see your media kit before working with you, so it's always handy to have an up to date version at hand. You don't have to be a full-time blogger, to make a media kit either. Anyone can make a media kit for their blog!

In this post, I am going to cover everything about making a blog media kit from what software to use, what to include, things to bear in mind and how to upload it to your blog in PDF format so it is accessible to everyone who may want to work with you. I hope you find this post really useful!


Okay, so now that I have covered what a media kit is I am going to share with you how to make one. The great thing about a media kit is you can make it as creative or as simple as you like. However, because you are in a creative industry it will look a lot more impressive if you spend some time and care on your media kit. Your media kit may be the first opportunity a brand gets to know more about you, so it's important it makes an impression.

There is lot's of different software you could use to create a media kit. For example; you can use Word, Publisher, Photoshop or Canva. Personally, I used Canva to create my media kit, as the software is free and allows you to have lots of freedom over the way your media kit looks. For this blog post, I will be referring to how I used Canva, as I think that is the easier and most accessible piece of software for you guys to use to create your media kit.

If you are going to use Canva, you need to open an A4 document page. If you are using any other piece of software I would make the size of your page A4. This way you can fit lots of information in and it looks sleek. You can choose to make your media kit landscape or portrait it's completely up to you. I went with portrait just because I think it looks better, but there is no right or wrong. 

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Once you have got your basic template, you may be slightly confused or worried about what on earth you are going to include. Well, the great thing about media kits is it's completely up to you. The world's your oyster as they say. There is no set layout or design you HAVE to follow for your media kit but if you are stuck for ideas, I am going to go through how I set mine out, to hopefully, give you some ideas.

I think the best way to start a media kit is with a title page. And no this isn't some piece of Geography coursework you had to do at school, although it sounds that way, I promise it's a lot more fun! On my title page, I made sure there was a nice, big picture of me looking happy. It's important to include a picture of what you look like, so brands know who they are working with. I also included a title, with the name of my blog. In order to ensure consistency and ooze professionalism, I used the same font as my blog header throughout the media kit. At the bottom of each page, I included my blog URL, so brands and companies actually know where to find my work.
How To Make A Media Kit For Your Blog thriftyvintagefashion media kit

There are no golden rules for how long your media kit should be, but I definitely wouldn't go over five pages. I think I am pushing it a bit at four but I just couldn't fit it all in. In your media kit, there should be an 'about me' section. This should be brief and straight to the point. Talk about how long you have been blogging, your name, age, where your located and maybe why you started blogging. This shouldn't be more than a paragraph long as if they want to find out more about you- you should have a more in-depth 'about me' page on your blog.

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I also think it's a good idea to include an outline of what you like to talk about on your blog. You don't have to go into every post you have ever done, a brief selection of some of your favourite topics you write about will do. You could even include a section about some of your favourite blog posts you have ever written. This way, brands, and companies will be able to make a quick decision about whether your blog is the sort of blog, they would want to work with or not.

How To Make A Media Kit For Your Blog Thriftyvintagefashion blogger UK lifestyle

The main purpose of a media kit, I think, is so brands and possible future collaborators get to know you and your blog better. In order for them to benefit from working with you, they want to know your follower counts across all your social media platforms and your blog statistics. I simply went through all my social media accounts and found out my follower count. I also included my handle on each platform, so if they wanted to know how I displayed myself on that platform, they could.

It's also advisable to give them a good idea of how many people visit your blog in a month, week and per post. If you have a good Twitter following, I would also include how many impressions you get through Twitter. Social media presence is very important to brands, so it's important to include it in your media kit. Trust me, it makes their life's easier. No one wants to go searching through every platform, they want you to make their life easy, so do that! 

You may have also noticed that I have included lots of photos that feature on my blog throughout my media kit. I think it's important to give brands a taste of your style, from your writing to your photographs. Try to include some of your best work and refrain from using pictures from Google as it won't make it look professional or personal to you and your blog.

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Somewhere in your media kit, it's important to mention what services you offer. There's no point in making a media kit if you are not going to tell them what you are able to offer them. It's important to make it clear what you do offer but also what you don't offer if you don't want lots of annoying emails from brands that you are never going to be willing to collaborate with. If you do have a fixed pricing list for PR work, you can include that within your media kit. However, for most blogger rates are dependable upon lot's of different things etc. so if that's the case for you- it's important that you state that.

It's also very handy to include your demographic. There is no point a brand contacting you that is more suited to an older generation if your readers are a lot younger. This helps brands make sure they are only contacting the people they know are going to be beneficial to them, which also means you are hopefully going to receive emails which are suited to you and your blog. Although let's face it, your still get those emails that say you have been given a million pounds, because you're a good egg and someone's dying on the other side of the world or some shit like that.

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Lastly, I think it's beneficial to include any of your notable work or any brands that you have worked with in the past. If you write for any other blogs, magazines or have started any projects on your blog, make sure you include them, they help make your blog stand out and are really appealing to brands. It is also SO important that you include your email address on your media kit. I can't stress that enough! If you want anyone ever to get in contact with you, you need to make sure your email address is nice and clear, so they notice it.

I think media kits are a fantastic way to show your blog off to future brands and companies, who may want to work with you. Your media kit is an extension of your blog, so you want to make it as creative as possible. I kept with the same house style throughout my media kit, as I did on my blog. I used black and white, kept the same font and made sure where possible the font size was kept the same. The possibilities for your media kit are endless. Be creative! No one's got time for plain word documents, Arial, size 12 fonts!

Once you have created your media kit, you need to download it as a PDF, not a JPEG. On Canva that's really simple to do. Once you have done that, you need to sign into Google Drive, which is basically a cloud storage. You need to upload your downloaded PDF file to your drive. Once you have done that, go to the little link icon at the top, hover over it and it should say 'Get a shareable link' click on that and press CTRL and V to copy it. Go back to your blog, head on over to your contact page or wherever you want to put it. Then simply copy the link across and it's all done!

I hope you guys found this helpful! If you have any more questions at all, please don't be afraid to ask either down below in the comments or over on Twitter (Thriftyvintage_) and I will be happy to answer them for you!

Do you have a media kit for your blog? If not, are you thinking of creating one now after reading this post?

Thank you for reading, as always x 

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