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Your media kit is an effective way to showcase your content and audience engagement in a way that entices brands to work with you. But before you get started creating an awesome media kit, let’s take a closer look at what a media kit is and why it’s important for you to have one.
An influencer media kit is a digital document that tells a brand all about you, your work, and your personality as a social media influencer. It represents all the work you’ve done and where you’d like to grow in your influencer career. In short, it’s basically a resume, business card, and online portfolio all in one beautiful document.
If you want to be a serious social media content creator, you should have a media kit because it represents you and your brand and it makes you stand out from other influencers. Not to mention, most brands will request a media kit when you reach out about a collaboration, so not having one can lead to missed opportunities and income.
Fortunately, in 2022, you don’t need to have hundreds of thousands of followers to become a successful social media influencer. In fact, many brands are partnering with micro or nano influencers to spread the word about their products or services online. So, no matter how legit you may or may not think you are as an influencer, you’ll definitely want to have a professional media kit ready to go before reaching out to brands to form partnerships.
The thought of creating a media kit can be daunting, but when you break it down, it really just requires time and effort to get it done. Anyone can create a great-looking and effective influencer media kit. To help you get started, we’ll dive into how you should prepare your media kit.
Similar to your Instagram bio, the About section of your media kit is very important. Since it’s the very first thing a brand will see when they open your media kit, it should explain who you are and what you do in a nutshell. In addition to conveying your personal style and tone in your About section, you’ll also want to put your personality, interests, and special skills on display.
You should also include a headshot along with your bio and include contact details like your email, social handles, and phone number. That way, whoever is reading it can put a face to the name, check out your social media pages, and have several different ways to contact you.
Although it’s not all about having a huge following, brands want to see an honest report of your social stats, especially your engagement rate. This is a quantitative measure of how people interact with the content you publish on your social media accounts.
If you’re not sure how to calculate your engagement rate, divide the number of likes and comments you get by the number of followers you have and multiply the result by 100. This will give you a percentage. For other social platforms like Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, you can include your followers, group members, or subscribers.
In this section, you can list your suggested services, such as social media posts, stories, video campaigns, blog posts, or even podcasts. This is a great opportunity to showcase some of your unique skills and distinguish yourself from the competition. You can also include examples of what your posts or other services look like so they know what to expect.
If you have previous experience with professional partnerships, you should highlight that in your media kit. If you have the data, it’s best to include the results of your campaign, such as the number of products sold or the overall engagement rate. These details give brands more insight into your work ethic and professionalism.
If you’re not an established influencer yet, you may not have any previous campaigns to show off. That’s okay! Instead, you might consider emailing a brand you’ve worked with in the past (no matter the capacity) and ask if they’d be willing to provide a brief reference for you. Or you can just include testimonials from your followers.
You definitely want to include detailed information about your audience and demographics, because this is how brands will determine if your followers are the type of customers they want to reach with their products and services.
To help brands determine whether you’re a good fit for a paid partnership, include information such as your followers’ ages, where they live, gender, education, language, and approximate income.
Blog posts live a lot longer on the internet than Instagram posts, making them a valuable resource for brands that may want to partner with you on a project for your website. In addition to including a link to your blog or website, you should include important stats like your monthly traffic, audience demographics, and your top-performing posts.
It’s usually not recommended to share your rates when you initially send a brand your media kit. If you do, you basically eliminate any room for negotiation, which can result in lost opportunities. It’s best to hold off on discussing your rates until you know exactly what services the brand wants you to provide. Also, your rates will change depending on several factors, like the size of the brand, the type of project, and the custom services you offer.
Once you’ve determined what you’ll include in your media kit, the next step is to create it. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend the money to hire a graphic designer, because there are several great ways to design one on your own.
If you’re limited on time and you don’t want to design one yourself, you can purchase a template off Etsy and simply drop your photos and text into it for an easy and quick solution. You can also create a free Canva account to access a ton of great templates, design features, and easy, user-friendly drag and drop functions.
Or if you have some design skills, you can use Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to design your own media kit from scratch. If you have prior design experience and you already know how to use these graphic design tools, it will likely be a breeze. Otherwise, you’ll need to dedicate lots of time to learning how to use these programs before you actually start designing your media kit.
You can also build your media kit through Beacons. When you connect your social platforms to your Beacons account, Beacons will automatically generate a media kit with your cross-platform social statistics that you can customize and share with brands. You’ll no longer need to rely on piecing together screenshots or worry about constantly updating your media kit — Beacons will take care of all of it.
Now that you have your media kit, you’re one step closer to becoming an influencer! But before you reach out to brands, you’ll need to do your research first. To determine whether a brand would be a good fit for a collaboration, take a look at their target audience and ask yourself whether there’s any overlap between your audience and theirs. Also, think about whether the brand’s core values and mission align with yours. You might even want to contact brands you’re familiar with or that you already love and follow so your marketing campaigns will feel as natural and genuine as possible.
Once you’ve identified brands you’d like to contact, you’ll need to create personalized pitches for each one. These pitches should briefly explain who you are, what you do, and why the brand should collaborate with you on a project. You can also include specific ideas for marketing campaigns in each pitch, but keep it brief.
And finally, find an email address for the person who deals with brand partnerships. The best way to do this is by going to the brand’s website and scanning the Contact Us page for details. Sometimes, brands will list contact information for a public relations (PR) department on their Contact Us page. Otherwise, they might have a separate dedicated page for affiliate programs, ambassadors, or collaborations. If you don’t find anything on the website, you can send them a DM on Instagram. You can also use email finding tools - here's a great list from Hunter.
With Beacons, you can take your social media profiles to the next level by using our website builder and link in bio tools. These features make it easy to direct your followers to landing pages where they can learn more about you and your services or buy your time and products. If you want to show brands that you take your work seriously, Beacons is a great way to do it. Sign up for free with Beacons to join 1+ million high-performing content creators who are already using it.
