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Have you ever opened up an email and started with YEAH!! Woo hoo! Go Terri! (I'm sure you didn't say Terri) but I bet you had those arms going around in the dance we all love to do... then ended it with wha... WELL. I. DID. And as I was reading this wonderful email a nagging feeling was lurking behind me like Abby does when she thinks it's going to be funny to throw a wet washcloth on me when I'm tip tap typing away. Before I finished the email I went from :D to :/ to :( .. I'll tell you why. In two simple words. Media kit.
It's been a long time since those two words ever crossed my mind. M E D I A * K I T I left out one important tool in having a PR friendly blog.
I needed one. Right then. I couldn't use a previous one because I'm changing. My blog is changing. My baby is being transformed into something new. So I did what we sometimes do, I faked it. Yep. I did. I didn't panic (yeah right) I calmly set out to see what exactly has changed in the past year or so (or so is more like it) and I whipped one up.
Of course when that happens things aren't always translated right. We tend to leave things out or miss something we wouldn't have otherwise. I realized after I hit click that the stats I sent on my site were only based on Monday - Wednesday's visitors and I used them to calculate a week and a month. I undersold myself. What it all boils down to was --- I wasn't prepared and I did not PROOFREAD.
Don't make my mistake, be prepared. If it's time to update your media kit, do it. If you haven't yet made a media kit yet, make one. Have a well thought out media kit available so when a company contacts you and would like to compensate you for services they request, you are READY.
If you are wondering how to make a media kit I'm going to show you how I made mine. Don't pull a Terri and make yours in 5 minutes. Put some thought behind it. Believe me I'll be prepared next time. I will have a media kit that is up to date and professional that I can proudly send.
Go make some coffee, we are fixing to get busy. Then save your site banner to your desktop.
Time to open up word. (don't you just love my desktop background-can you tell I'm ready for fall?)
Page 1 We're going to add that banner you saved to your desktop by clicking on insert then picture then from file.
Ta-da... of course we want it in the middle so we are going to click on the banner then go click on................. yep you guessed it! Center.
Now we need to use our mouse and click on the banner and go to insert and then hyperlink.
This box will pop up and we are going to type our URL in the address line like so and select ok. Now our website is linked to our banner. One less thing. Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back just yet, we still need to make tables...
The next thing we are going to do is type in a little information about our site and ourselves so we need to click enter a few times then up in the top right corner select to align left.
So lets get to typing. We need to tell a company a little about ourselves (not too much but sum it up)... Such as My name is Terri and I'm the author and owner of Terri's Little Haven. I like to blog about this and this and this and so on.....
I reside in the state of Georgia and I'm active in social media networking and community's yadda yadda yadda yadda.... Offline I'm active in our church... so on. Short paragraph, these companies are busy. They don't have time to read our wonderful life histories. Can't you just imagine how I could go on and on about my ADORABLE grand kids?
Then we need to tell a company a little about our site including things like where are readers come from, what age range, where are they coming from the most...
Lets see.... I could say right here something like; My readers vary from young moms to senior citizens. I get readers worldwide (if you do, I do mainly from google search and we'll talk about that in another post sometime). My largest reader state is California yadda yadda yadda...
Lets end this with an important signature, meaning, add your phone number. Let companies know you don't mind talking to them. Show them you are serious and responsible.
Terri Beavers
xxx-xxx-xxxx
terrishaven @ gmail.com
I made two errors on my main page. I'm going to be kicking myself in the shins for a long time to come. I did not proofread. A no no. A BIG no no. No, it's a H U G E no no. I'm a college graduate. I know better.
Proofread.
Then ask someone to go behind you and proofread if you're still not sure. Ask me if you have to.
Page 2 Now we need to do the same thing we did in the very beginning to add our banner.
After we have our banners added we need to make a table.
Hit enter a couple of times and up in the right hand corner click on left alignment again.
Now select tables, then click on the table in the far left, and a box will pop up for you to select how many columns and rows you want. I put 8 and 2 in the box and clicked ok. This was too many so I deleted the extra by right clicking in the box and selecting to delete the entire column.
Now we need to determine what it is we are willing to sell on our sites as far as banner and text links go and what our terms are concerning these and if we are willing to write posts for companies for a fee. Our sites are our babies. We won't post just anything, right?
Make sure you fill out your prices and your terms such as no refund... yadda yadda.
In my rush to complete a media kit, I made an important boo boo. I used # instead of $ in one of my boxes. Shame on me. It all boils down to proofreading.
Page 3
Now that we have that finished we move on the next page to make another table.
Add your banner select left alignment again.
We repeat the table making steps above except we only want 2 columns this time and around 8 rows, if we have to add more we can do that by hitting enter when we type in the last column of the table.
We need to type in things like our name, our website URL, our twitter handle, facebook page, yadda yadda yadda.... we also need to tell them how many twitter followers we have, how many likes on our facebook pages, etc....... Site stats are important here. The companies want to know how many unique visitors you have, how many first time visitors, etc. It's a good policy to take a screen shot of your stats and include it. Don't exaggerate your stats, they selected you for a reason. Be true to you and your site.
Now let me tell you my mistake on this page. I used stats for three days and sold myself short for the other four by rushing and not paying attention.
I probably lost a potential company by not being prepared.
Be prepared, don't make my mistakes.
Take this time now while it's fresh in your mind to make a media kit or update yours.
Make sure you add a PR Friendly page to your site. It's how companies search to find my site in Google.
If this post has helped you at all then please click on my Google + and Facebook like button.
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Thanks so much for that Terri!
Terri's Little Haven
Questions or comments? Tell me! Tell her! At least hop over and say hi :)
XOXO
Paula
