How To Create A Media Kit For Your Blog Or Instagram That Lands You Brand Collaborations

Whether you’re a blogger or a social media influencer, there’s one thing you should have if you want to work with brands. You’re here because you want to learn how to create a media kit for influencers and blogs.

You’re in the right place.

I’ve seen many media kits during my time as a public relations professional. Some were extremely impressive.

Others lacked key information that would persuade me to add the blogger or influencer to my “send them a sample” or “collaboration opportunity” lists.

This post will answer some key questions you may have about creating a media kit including:

• What should you add to a media kit?
• How do you make a great first impression with your media kit?
• When do you send a media kit?
• The easiest way to create a media kit

You’ll be ready to confidently pitch brands and PR representatives, and get your name on sample and collaboration lists.

Let’s look at how you can create a media kit for your blog or your social media.

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What Is A Media Kit?

There are three things a media kit can be. I know… a bit confusing!

We’re focused on the last one in this post.

Media kits can be:

• What brands prepare about their product news that they send to reporters and media writers. Also called a press kit.

• Documents media outlets such as magazines, newspapers or broadcasters use to share with potential advertisers. They are sometimes called advertising media kits.

• What bloggers and influencers use to pitch brands and PR reps for brand collaborations.

We’re focusing on the last point.

Brand collaborations are a great way to monetize your blog, especially as you grow your site.

OK, now that we’ve got that confusion out of the way, let’s look at things more closely.

A Media Kit For Bloggers

A media kit for bloggers is a promotional tool that provides an overview of:

• the niche and key topics
• key audience
• potential collaboration opportunities
• examples of past work
• social media/blog statistics

Unlike media kits used by media outlets, those used by bloggers are less about ad insertions and more about collaboration opportunities.

Although advertising is something that bloggers can do (and I am increasingly doing more of this).

We’ll explore these a bit more in a moment.

What Are Media Kits For Instagram Influencers?

Similar to media kits for bloggers, those for influencers using Instagram and TikTok have a few key differences.

A media kit for influencers should include:

• Examples and links to successful branded social media campaigns
• Results from these campaigns, including not only engagement stats but also any sales commissions from the campaign (if an affiliate link was promoted).

Brands want to work with influencers that can help them sell products. If you can, make sure this is indicated in your media kit.

Every influencer – even one that’s just starting – should have a media kit for Instagram and TikTok opportunities.

PRO TIP: A media kit for Instagram should include your engagement rate. To learn how to find this, add up all likes, comments, and saves and divide them by your reach. Then multiply by 100, to give you a percentage.

Why Do You Need A Media Kit For Your Blog Or Social Media?

Influencers and bloggers need media kits when they pitch brands for sponsored posts and collaborations.

A media kit is also useful when a brand approaches you to partner with you! Having one ready to send to them when they approach you gives you a chance to recommend collaboration opportunities that may go beyond their initial ask.

How can a brand or PR representative easily get to know more about you to ascertain if you’re the right fit for a paid collaboration?

Make it easy for brands and PR reps to get to know you!

A media kit is like a summary of all that’s wonderful about your blog or you as an influencer.

It’s also a conversation starter for potential negotiations for collaborations.

Let’s look at what media kits include.

How To Create A Media Kit

My first tip is this: pull together all of your content first.

Look at your best posts where you’ve done a product review or a sponsored post.

Check out your stats when it comes to pageviews, engagement rates (for social media), and your followers.

Draft all of these down in a notepad, because it will be easier to pull it all together when you start to design your media kit.

PRO TIP: Learn what your Instagram engagement rate is by using this handy engagement rate calculator.

What Should A Media Kit Include?

You’re now wondering what should be included in a media kit, because it’s time to start building yours!

Here’s what a compact media kit should include:

• Your name (you’d be surprised how many forget this!)

• Your site URL if you’re a blogger or social media account URL

• A photo of you

• Your logo (either at the header or footer)

• A one-paragraph bio and overview of your site and who you serve

• Your audience demographics, particularly a breakdown of where they live

• Topics you cover

• Collaboration opportunities

• Examples of past brand collaborations/reviews

• Metrics and analytics (pageviews/engagement rate, number of followers, number of sales if affiliate link used in campaign)

• Your email address (the ideal spot is in the footer)

If you’re an established blogger or influencer with existing partnerships and you’re pitching big, Fortune 500 brands, I recommend you also add the following to your media kit:

• A breakdown of your audience’s demographics, psychographics, site/social media account audience breakdown

• Testimonials from other brand partners

• A list of past and existing partnerships

PRO TIP: You may not want to pitch a brand if you’re in the middle of a campaign with their competitor. Give yourself some time before pitching them. They may see it as a conflict of interest or that you’re not sincere about your interest in working with the brand.

How Do You Make A Great First Impression With Your Media Kit?

So now that you know the essentials of how to create a media kit for your blog or social media account, let’s look at things a bit deeper.

You have one chance to make a great first impression with your media kit.

I know this from personal experience. There were many that I had emailed to me that failed to impress visually.

Unfortunately having all the great experience in the world doesn’t mean anything when the PDF media kit I receive looks like… crap.

Your media kit needs to be well-designed to attract initial interest.

Here are some key things to consider when designing and formatting your media kit:

• Choose visuals that are consistent in style and “on-brand”
• Use your brand colours
• Use a consistent, easy-to-read font (serif fonts work great)
• White space makes it easy to scan through sections
• Avoid making it look cluttered
• Keep text concise
• Bullet lists make it easy to scan
• Avoid spelling and grammar mistakes

Try to infuse your media kit with your own brand voice to show your personal style.

| RELATED: Why Bloggers Need To Focus On Personal Branding

Easiest Way To Create A Blog Media Kit

The easiest way to create a clog media kit is to use a Canva template.

Let’s face it – we’re not all graphic designers.

Since it’s important to make a good first impression, leverage somebody’s design expertise and use a media kit template in Canva.

Luckily, I’ve created one that includes everything you need to pitch a potential brand collaboration.

Check out the Neutral Media Kit Template for Canva – 2 pages for a beautifully designed kit that grabs one’s attention:

Now you know the easiest way to create a media kit!

When Should You Send A Media Kit?

This is a tricky question.

Knowing that many PR reps and brand managers can be extremely busy with cluttered inboxes, I recommend sending your media kit with your email pitch.

There are two ways to do this:

• Use a link to your media kit that’s stored on Dropbox or your Google Drive (better option)
• Send your media kit as a small PDF file as an attachment

If you’ve chosen to send it as an attachment, make sure the file is small in size.

Use Canva to create your media kit, and save your PDF as “Standard”. This makes the size file smaller than the Print PDF version.

Why should you send small files? Nobody wants a 20 MB+ sized file sent to their inbox.

| RELATED: How To Create A Kickass Rate Card That Will Get You Collaborations

One Last Tip Before You Send Your Media Kit

Now that you know how to create a media kit for influencers and blogs, I need to share one last tip for you.

Make sure your blog or your social media accounts look professional.

This means no errors in grammar and spelling.

If you have a blog, read my post on how to make your blog look professional.

For social media influencers, make sure your posts look consistently “on brand” and you’re getting engagement.

You don’t need a huge audience, but you need a truly engaged audience with quality comments.

Before you go, if you need help pitching brands, check out my email pitch template!

QUESTION: What is your greatest struggle in creating a media kit?

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