What Is a Media Kit?

When I first started review and giveaway blogging over a year ago, I started hearing the term media kit. When a PR rep asked me to send my media kit, I almost panicked. I barely knew what a media kit was, muchless how to put one together! Eventually I figured it out and emailed it over (admittedly rather delayed.) I thought I’d share with you what I’ve learned about media kits so hopefully you won’t go through the unknown like I did.

What Is It?

A media kit lists your blog statistics, policies, advertising rates, and a little something about you & your blog. It can be short and simple or it can be fancy and longer. The whole point is to “sum up” your blog in a couple of pages. It’s a professional way to introduce your blog in a simple package to PR reps.

Many PR reps request a blogger’s media kit. It’s especially good when you are pitching companies (you asking them to work with you.) Put your whole pitch with all your stats in an email and it may work, but email a brief statement about why they should work with you, a couple of stats, and “You can read the rest in my Media Kit, which I’ve attached to this email” and, suddenly, you might just be taken more seriously.

Also remember that media kits can be as different as bloggers. The information I’m sharing here is what I personally use. You may decide to change it and that’s perfectly fine. I just want to give you a place to start.

Part 1 – Your Blog Statistics:

Here’s a basic list of what PR Reps usually like to know:

• Google Page Rank – Go here to check your site’s page rank. It will be anywhere from 0-10, but most blogs are somewhere around 0-4. It’s hard to get higher than that.
• Unique Monthly Visitors– Best found with Google Analytics. Traffic numbers from Stat Counter, etc. are not the official stats reps want. If your blog isn’t linked with Analytics, do that now.
• Monthly Page Views – again found with Google Analytics. This is the number of times people have viewed individual pages. This number is typically higher than the unique visitors.
• Alexa Ranking – Alexa provides a ranking based on the traffic of your site. For Alexa, the lower the number, the better. Go to Alexa.com and enter your site address to find your blog’s ranking.
• Email Subscribers – Do you have an email subscription service or feedburner? Find out how many subscribers you have. If you have Google Feedburner (as many do, myself included), log into your account, click on the Publicize tab, then Email Subscriptions on the left side, and the number of subscribers should be at the bottom.
• Facebook Fans
• Twitter Followers
• Google+ Fans
• Pinterest – This is a newer one. If you don’t have a Pinterest account, that’s ok, but if you do, it’s a good thing to include. It shows the reps that you’re up for the latest and greatest.

Part 2 – Tell them about you & your blog. 

Make it personal. Give them some background on your blog. How did you get started? What’s your focus? Is your blog about couponing, savings, parenting, reviews/giveaways? If you’ve worked with some notable brands, mention that too.

Then tell them something about you. What makes you unique?

Resist the urge to ramble on (trust me, I had to write and re-write my “about me” part many times.) You don’t want to overwhelm the rep, you just want to give them an idea of who they’re working with and that you’re not just “one more” blogger. For example, I’m a homeschooling mom with 4 children. That makes me somewhat unique, not to mention that I have more children and ages with which to review products with. Definitely something I want to communicate.

Here’s my examples:

About Musings From a Stay At Home Mom:
Musings From a Stay At Home Mom began in 2007 when Erika wanted a place to share stories & pictures of her children with out-of-state family. In time, it grew as people were attracted to Erika’s down-to-earth stories of her daily life as a stay at home mom. Now, with a continuing focus on The Mom Life, food & recipes, and product reviews and giveaways, Musings From a Stay At Home Mom is steadily growing and reaching new readers each month. Musings has worked with companies such as Hasbro, Quaker Oatmeal, Fisher Price, K’NEX, Pediped, Hearthsong, CSN, and many more.

About the owner/author, Erika:
Erika is a twenty-something, stay at home, homeschooling mom to 4 children, ages 1, 2, 5, and 9 years. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and children and enjoys couponing, cooking, photography, writing, and blogging. As a homeschooler with four children, Erika is trusted by readers as someone with a unique and honest perspective. She is active in many social media outlets and blogging communities and enjoys sharing quality products in the form of reviews and giveaways for her blog followers.

Part 3 – Advertising & Sponsored Posts

Share your advertising rates. Do you offer sidebar ads? Text links? Sponsored post opportunities?

List the options and your rates.

Part 4 – Your Blog Policies.

When it comes to product reviews and giveaways, you have guidelines you follow & you should let the PR reps know this. This tells them that you mean business, what you expect from them, and also what they can expect from you.

The #1 policy you should include is “I disclose and follow FTC guidelines.” Any good PR rep will want to make sure you are following the law and this simple statement assures them of this.

You should also include your review and giveaway policies. For a list of the review and giveaway policies that I have, read my PR Friendly page. Feel free to copy them for your own policies if you’d like. You may want to add or take away from what I use; it’s up to you.

That’s the basics of what a media kit is all about! See, now that’s not so overwhelming, is it?

Next week, I’ll be sharing how to make your own media kit. Nope, you don’t have to hand over hard-earned money. And you don’t have to be a graphic designer either. You can do it yourself!

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