This is the kick off to our annual January Blog Challenge: 31 Days To Clean Up Your Blog. What better time than January to sit down and review your blog? Over the 31 days we'll be sharing 31 tips, ideas, and strategies for you to deal with all those pesky maintenance tasks, take steps to grow in the new year and make blogging easier. This is Day 10.
The first time we ran the 31 Day Blog Challenge, Day 10 was about updating your blog roll. That's how much blogging has changed since 2014 - blog rolls have gone by the wayside!
Today we're going to talk about media kits and why you should have one and why you need to update your media kit regularly - even if you have no interest in doing sponsored content.
What is a Media Kit?
A Media Kit is simply a short document - usually one page - that you can send out to brands, magazine editors, tourism boards, event organizers, book publishers or anyone who might need some statistical information about you and your site.
While your blog's about page is directed at your readers and is meant to help them navigate your site and learn more about you as a person, a media kit is like your website's CV. You want it to convince people you're a good bet to work with.
Why Should You Have a Media Kit?
If you want to do sponsored work, a media kit is a must. Brands will request it and if you send out pitches, your media kit should be part of your pitching process.
But what if you don't do sponsored content? A media kit is still a good idea. It's a snapshot of all the work you've done over the years and it can open a lot of doors for you. If you want to write a book, you're still going to need to show a publisher things like your traffic numbers, your social reach, your newsletter stats as part of your marketing plan.
If you want to take a culinary road trip and work with tourism boards, they will request your media kit. If you want to land an interview or write for a magazine, a media kit can give an editor an idea of your "circulation" numbers (traffic and reach in the blogging world). If you want to teach a class or speak at an event, media kits can help back up your credientials.
It's always a good idea to have this information on hand in a document so you can respond quickly to requests for it!
Pull All Your Information Together
If you already have a media kit, the start of a new year is a good time to update it with current numbers. If you went through a redesign recently, make sure your new media kit reflects your new site with consistent branding. We actually recommend updating your media kit once a quarter - make it a task in your calendar every 3 months.
If you don't have a kit, today's the day to pull all your pertinent information together. You'll want your social media follower numbers, your newsletter subscriber count, your newsletter open rates, and your monthly page views and visitors. You may also want to include a few brands you've worked with in the past.
Ideally, you'll want to put your information together in a one page, visually appealing and easy to read document. If this isn't your strong suit, you can hire a designer to help you. Many designers who work with bloggers will offer this as a service! But if you want to try your hand at it here's how to put your own Media Kit together along with some examples from other FBC Members.
More Reading
- Blogger Quick Tip: Media Kits and Pitching Your Blog
- Putting Together a Media Kit For Your Blog
- Media Kits 101
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This 31-day challenge is wonderful. Thanks for bringing up so many important but often neglected topics. As for blogrolls, I got rid of mine a while back when I revamped and streamlined my site. I now wonder if this was a mistake. I’d love to hear from other bloggers about why they keep or got rid of their blog rolls and what value they see in them.
I think it’s a nice way to give a shout out to friends who’s blog’s you really enjoy or blogs/sites you find very useful. If I really like a blog I do tend to check out their blog roll because I tend to think I’ll probably find the sites they like to be enjoyable.
This is great.my concern is that I take so many photos and I have a difficult time really blogging everyday and keeping it fresh and up to date. I do link it to pinterest. I was also wondering how do you get some advertising and how can I get my blog visible even more?
That’s a lot of topics in one question Teresa! Why not check out our resources section in the menu – we have lots of posts on all of those topics! But you don’t need to blog everyday – that’s a lot of work and dedication. Think quality posts over quantity!