Do you want to sell ads on your blog? Are you looking for a sponsor for CyberMummy? Why don't you create a media kit for your blog? Rebecca from Two Become Four gives us some hands-on tips.
A media kit, or media pack, is a little like a curriculum vitae for your blog. It's a chance for you to sell your blog and yourself, and to offer your details and stats to the various agencies and companies who may contact you, or for you to send out.
I've received some very positive feedback from my media kit and I thought I would share some of my suggestions and findings. I'm using mine as an example, because, if you're anything like me, it helps to see one "in the flesh".
The steps to creating your media kit
First up you need to prepare your document in a text editing programme such as Word, and then when you are completely happy with it, save it as a PDF file so that it cannot be accidentally changed. There are websites that you can use to convert documents to PDF or if you have Word 2007 or later it is one of the "save as" options.
You can make your document as simple as you like... or, you can faff around with it and try to make it stand out a bit like I did. I decided to keep it reasonably simple, but made it look similar to my blog so that it was easily recognisable. It's entirely up to you. It's your blog and your media pack.
What should you include in a media pack?
1. Firstly you need to introduce yourself and your blog. Give a little bit of history: how long have you been blogging, what you blog about, who reads your blog. If you have an "about me" page on your blog you could use the information from there, or use this as an opportunity to create an "about me" page.
2. Then come the statistics, which are a bit like your qualifications on your CV. There are so many blogging directories and rankings now you could go on forever, but here are the main ones you should include:
- Number of pageviews per month (use Google Analytics or a similar stats analyser)
- Number of unique visitors per month (again, Google Analytics)
- Number of RSS subscribers (from Feedburner or Google Reader etc.)
- Number of followers to your blog
- Any rankings on lists such as Cision, Wikio, Tots 100 etc.
- Technorati score, if listed
- Number of Twitter followers
- Klout score, if you use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
- Number of Facebook 'fans' if you have a Facebook page
Then the rest is pretty much up to you.
3. Do you want to attract advertisers and sponsors? Then write a little about what you are prepared to advertise. Perhaps include ad sizes and rates. Again, this could be information that you have already included on your blog on your 'advertise' page or similar.
4. Don't forget to mention on your blog that you have a media pack, so companies and agencies reading will know that you are interested in being contacted.
5. I also decided to ask a few of the agencies that I have worked with for a 'reference' in the form of a testimonial. It isn't necessary, but I thought it was a nice touch.
6. And lastly, don't forget to include all of your contact details.
So... what are you waiting for? Go put together a media pack and see if you can get that sponsor you've been looking for!
-- Rebecca McLuckie, Two Become Four
