Graphic design has never been one of my strongest points. In fact, up until this year, everything I’ve tried to design for my blog has been pretty dire. That includes my media kit. When I realised that I needed one, I attempted to make my own. You know what program I used? Paint. Let that sink in. But having a media kit for your blog is important and even if you’re NOT particularly artistic – like me – I’ll be showing you how to create a media kit for your blog in this post!
The Paint job? It was awful. At the time I thought it was banging but looking back it was well and truly awful and it’s no surprise I never got any response from brands when I sent this monster to them! I then had a media kit made for me by a great designer but as my blog grew and my stats constantly started changing, I figured I couldn’t keep asking them to update it for me every week. I couldn’t do it myself because I didn’t have the program they had used to create this particular media kit.
So earlier this year, I decided to try my hand at making my own. I downloaded The Bloggers Blueprint from Dana Nicole Designs, a fantastic free resource that any blogger looking to work with brands NEEDS to take advantage of. Within this blueprint, she provides you with a free template of what an effective media kit could look like. I took that template and proceeded with trying to create my own.
Related reads:
- Getting Your First Collab As a Blogger – 8 Things You Should Do
- 6 Things You Can Do To Enhance Your Blogging Career
- How To Start a Blog and Make Money For Beginners
So let’s look at how to create a media kit and what you should include in it:
First, what is a media kit?
A media kit is basically a CV for your blog. It contains all the vital information that brands and PR’s need in order for them to know if they want to work with you and if you’re suitable for their brand. A media kit it a great place to showcase your talents and skills and sell yourself to brands as well as conveniently having all the information in the same place.
What program did I use?
Canva. You need to make use of Canva because it’s an amazing website where you can create really pretty and effective graphics and the best thing? It’s free! You can upgrade your Canva account to the pro version, which is amazing if you’re a bit more experienced and want more options.
Step 1: Type ‘media kit’ into the search bar
Step 2: Pick your template (note that some of the templates you do have to pay for however they are mostly less than $1 so even if you do find one you like which you have to pay for, it’s super affordable)
Step 3: Create!
Okay that might sound a bit vague but really with Canva, it’s all about playing around and learning as you go. You can delete elements, add elements, change size, fonts and colors with complete ease. As well as moving things around to exactly where you want them.
Down the left hand side of the page you’ll see you have tabs such as ‘templates’, ‘upload’, ‘text’ and ‘elements’ and these are basically the only things you’ll need in order to create a free and effective media kit on Canva.
What do I include in my media kit?
A little bit about yourself
A brand will be looking at your blog mostly but it’s also handy to include a little bit of information about you as a person. Who you are, where you’re from, your hobbies and interests and things like that! Make it personable. Brands don’t want to work with robots.
A little bit about your blog
This is obviously more important than the above point so this section can be a little longer. You need to talk about your blog, a bit of history, the topics you blog about, what makes your blog unique and special and anything that will make brands sit up and pay attention.
A photo of yourself / your blog logo / your blog banner
A photo of you is always better because like I said, it’s much more personable and brands can see they’re dealing with a real person. You can always add your blog logo or blog banner if it fits in with your template and suits the theme of your media kit.
Your blog and social links
This is obviously an important one as brands will want to take a look at your blog and perhaps your social accounts before they work with you. Make these clear under a heading.
Your blog and social stats
Another very important element to include. You can always include your social links and stats under the same heading, like I have. Or have them separately. As long as they’re there, that’s the important thing. Include your blog views and followers, DA score as well as all your social stats.
What you offer
What services do you offer to brands? Include a list of everything you offer so a brand knows whether you offer what they’re after. No point going through the whole rigmarole of back and forth emails only for them to ask you to do the one thing you don’t offer. It’s much more convenient to have it all there upfront.
Brands you’ve worked with previously
This is always a handy section to have because it can certainly be a place to show off (no harm in showing off a little) but also a great way for brands a gauge whether you’re suitable, depending on the types of brands you’ve worked withe in the past. For example, if the only brands you’ve worked with are beauty brands but you’ve been contacted by a car tires supplier, it might not be a correct fit.
A personal touch
And make it personal. Make it you. Don’t make it look like everyone else. You can of course base your media kit off of a template that someone else has created but that doesn’t mean you can’t add your own colors, fonts, designs and personal touches to it!
