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Blogging 101: How To Create a Media Kit

June 27, 2011 By 17 Comments

If this is your first time here, please make sure to read our first post Review Blogging 101 Series – How to start a review blog.

I get asked all of the time–”should I have a media kit even though my blog is not “big” yet?” I say yes. Yes, because I believe having a media kit shows the person you are contacting that you are professional. That alone can make a huge difference and will set you apart from others. Plus, it makes it easier when you contact a company that you want to work with or a company contacts you and asks for your stats. All you do is write a short email and attach your media kit. Creating a media kit shouldn’t be difficult or time consuming. I’m a big believer in simple and to the point. What you will need is some kind of word processing or publishing software. I use Microsoft Word, but there are many programs that you can use–some are even free like Google Docs.

 

What you should include in your media kit:
Start with an introduction of your blog and of yourself. For example, my media kit starts with “Jolly Mom is a savvy blog that brings moms helpful parenting information…” Then, I also offer information about myself. It says, “About Piera: I’m a first time mom of a 3-year old boy, named Lucas. I am a business owner…” I’m only offering snippets of my media kit because it is much better for you to use your own words, but you get the idea. This is a spot for you to talk about what your blog is about and help the person reading it get to know you a little bit. If you feel like your stats are not great, but you have a large following on Twitter or you have a small but loyal following, then this would be the spot to explain that.

Associations/Afilliations: Include information about any groups you belong to {i.e. Mom Central, The Motherhood, Latina Bloggers Connect, etc}. If you are a contributing blogger or writer on another blog or publication, this is the place to list that.

After the introduction, then list out your blog’s readership and traffic statistics. You will need to gather the following information:

  • Google Page Rank
  • Alexa Rank
  • Klout Score
  • Number of RSS Feed Subscribers
  • Number of Blogger or Google Connect Followers {optional}
  • Number of Facebook Fans
  • Number of Twitter Followers
  • Number of Unique Daily Visitors {average}
  • Number of Daily Page Views {average}
  • Monthly Unique Visitors

Not everything above is required–they are just meant to serve as a guide. Things I would definitely include are your unique visitors, Twitter and Facebook followers, subscribers, and Google page rank. If you can do all of them–great! If not, don’t stress! You can make a fancy graph for your statistics or just list them in a way that is organized and easy to read {how I do it}.

Next, you will want to include the services that you provide, such as:

  • Product Reviews: Explain to the company your review policy. Do you take pictures and video with all of your reviews? Who will be testing the products? How long from the time that you receive the product until you post the review? Will you send samples back or are they non-returnable {in most cases, most review bloggers don’t return samples}?
  • Giveaways: How long will you list the giveaway? Do you charge if the company is only doing a giveaway without providing a product for review? Will you ship prizes or do you prefer the company to ship {I ask all companies to ship to the winner directly}? How will a giveaway benefit the company?
  • Advertorials {or Sponsored Posts}: Do you offer advertorials? What are your rates? Policy?
  • Advertising: Your media kit is also a place to let companies know about your advertising options {if you offer it}. Do you offer banner or button ads? What sizes do you offer and what are your rates? Consider offering a discount for companies purchasing multiple months and let companies know what forms of payment you accept. I suggest Paypal.

Make sure that you include your contact information. I always include my full name, url, email address, Twitter handle, and telephone number.

I also suggest that you add a graphic or image to the header or somewhere on your media kit. Use the image from your header, blog banner or button, or at the very least a graphic that contains the same colors from your blog. It just makes your media kit look more professional and—well—pretty. Remember, it’s all in the details.

Finally, I convert my media kit to a pdf because everyone has Adobe Acrobat Reader while not everyone has Microsoft Word. To convert from Word to a pdf, I use Primo PDF. It’s FREE and easy to use. They have an online version as well, but the one that you download is much better.

Tune in next week for more advice! If you have any questions about media kits, leave them in the comments section and I will make sure to answer your questions during the week.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Featured Tagged With: , ,

Review Blogging 101: Increase Your Blog Traffic

June 20, 2011 By 7 Comments

If this is your first time here, please make sure to read our first post Review Blogging 101 Series – How to start a review blog.

After you start your blog, you will want people to actually come and read it, right? Right. The first thing you will want to do is think about what you want to get out of your blog and then with that in mind, begin to write. In the beginning, I wrote a lot of posts upfront and scheduled them to post. That way, I would know that content was going up every day. People want to know that when they come to your blog; there is something there for them. Something new.

There are a lot of ways to get traffic. The hope is that you get people to come to your blog from several different places and they will love your blog and come back for more. I’m not going to lie–getting traffic is work. You will have to spend a lot of time building your readership. Let’s get to it.

  1. Message boards. Most message boards allow you to add a signature with a link so that every time you post on the board, you can promote your blog.
  2. Participate in Memes. Profitable Mommy has a huge list of memes so that you can choose which ones fit your blog or you want to participate in. Another option is to start your own meme.
  3. Read other blogs and comment, comment, comment! This one is huge. Visiting blogs and commenting gets you seen by not just the blog owner, but by their readers. What you DON’T want to do is spam the blog by adding your blog url in the comments section. You want to leave relevant comments. Also, don’t just visit the bigger blogs–branch out and comment on the smaller blogs as well.
  4. Spread the link love. Link out to blogs that you love to read, articles that interest you, etc. The love will eventually come back to you!
  5. Sign up for Twitter and let your followers know every time you have a new post. You can actually have your new posts automatically fed to Twitter with a program called HootSuite. It’s free and easy to use. I use it and highly suggest that you do too–or at least an application like it.
  6. Start reading about SEO Optimization. You don’t need to know everything about it–only the basics. Eventually, it will help Google guide readers to you from searches. Here’s a great list of tips.
  7. Read everything that Darren at ProBlogger writes. Seriously. I spent months on his site. He knows what he is talking about. Learn from him.
  8. Be a guest blogger on other blogs. This gets your name out there helps your blog gain exposure.
  9. Host a giveaway of your own to gain exposure. You can give away a small gift card, gas card, handmade item–whatever you can afford.
  10. Get involved in blog carnivals. These are fun and very specific to niches, hobbies, etc. Here’s a huge list of blog carnivals.
  11. Create a button or banner for your blog and post a way for readers to grab it on your sidebar. Here’s a tutorial.
  12. Keep your readers in mind. By this I mean, always, ALWAYS think about your readers. Do not accept an ad, a product, or do anything that you can’t stand behind. If your readers can’t trust you, then they will not come back to your blog. It’s as simple as that.
  13. Sign up and/or list your blog at different social networking sites, blogging message boards, etc. Here’s a list of some sites that allow you to promote your blog in some way:

14. To see your traffic statistics, you will need some sort of tracker. I use Site Meter, but I know a lot of bloggers also like Stat Counter. Some even use both. Get a traffic counter asap!

15.  If you join Latina Mom Bloggers, please  share your blog posts with other Latina Mom Bloggers by adding #latinamoms to your tweets.  A team member from Latina Mom Bloggers will be in touch to work with you to obtain your media kit.  If you don’t have a media kit, stay tuned to next week’s Blogging 101 series.

Let’s talk about it:

Do you have additional tips for increasing your Blog Traffic?

Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With: , ,