Easy Blog Media Kit

In my never-ending quest to improve my blog, I have been googling information on Media Kits. My curiosity started when I was looking for advertising prices on various blogs. Every once in a while I would run into a link to a Media Kit. Most of what I found had obviously been done by a professional branding company or someone who was very good at Photoshop.

So…that’s when the googling started. I was determined to come up with something I could do on my own. Without Photoshop or fancy editing programs. But first…what the heck is a Media Kit? The best explanation I could find came from the blogger behind The Truth About Motherhood. She called it your online introduction. Amy Andrews, from Blogging with Amy, called it your blog’s business card. Both are great descriptions. I found various requirements for the perfect Media Kit. All the articles I read agreed that the following basic requirements are what you need to get started.

Now…how do we do this on our own? Here’s what I did…it’s simple and anyone can do it if you know how to use PicMonkey. Actually, I used Picasa for my text because I wanted a specific font that PicMonkey doesn’t have. It was a lot of going back and forth though. If you can use a font in PicMonkey things will go much faster.

Your Media Kit needs to be a link on your blog. You can place it on your sidebar or under your header and the easiest way to do this is to install a page. If you already have an “About” page you could just convert it to a Media Kit. The other way is to publish your Media Kit as a regular post. Design a graphic (or just use a photo,)  install it on your sidebar as a picture gadget/image widget and then link it to your Media Kit post.

What I did next was find some of my best pictures. Pictures that reflected me, my home and my family. I uploaded them to PicMonkey and added a border. I used the Geometric Overlays and added a white box to every photo. Here is an example:

You can make them simple or really let your creative juices flow and make them unique. Now to add the text. Decide how you want the information to appear and in what order. Think bullet points. Then write your text on the white boxes.

Honestly, this was the hardest part. Keeping things short and concise was a challenge. After your text is perfect, make sure and size your pictures to fit your post width. Save and close.

All that’s left to do is either load them in a page or post and hit that PUBLISH button.

I thought about making a collage but opted for this easier version. If you wanted to do a collage, just include the white spaces for your text. This is a link to a high resolution white page. You can crop or resize it and upload it to your collage like a photo.

This probably isn’t the best way to go about getting a Media Kit. I realize that…but I wanted one (right now!) and was not going to pay someone to do it. I have had every intention of learning Photoshop but that hasn’t happened yet and I don’t know when it will. So for most of us, as a first edition, something like this will work well.

As with anything associated with our blogs, we need to be real and honest. I read in some article that your Media Kit should not contain the word “I.” Well, I thought that was ridiculous. It’s my flippin’ blog and who else is in charge? So I used “I” just to be a rebel. Do what you want and say what you feel comfortable saying…and let me know if you design one because I’d love to see it!

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