An influencer’s media kit is one of the most impactful impressions that creators can make when pitching brands or expressing interest in social media collaborations. Influencer marketers want to connect with creators who are not only skilled storytellers and community builders, but can also demonstrate sharp professionalism and keen business acumen. One way to separate yourself from the pack?
Create a solid media kit that:
- Includes updated and relevant information about you
- Provides a glimpse into the type of content you create
- Shares valuable insights explaining why it would be beneficial for brands to partner with you.
Below, I’ll give you some tips on how to execute these elements well in your influencer media kit. Or, if you’re short on time here is a handy influencer media kit template to get you started.
6 Tips for a Good Influencer Media Kit
Influencer Media Kit Tip #1: Name Your Content Pillars
Content pillars are key themes that regularly appear in your content, and they serve as a quick way of expressing your interests to potential brand partners. Including content pillars in your influencer media kit is one of the best ways to communicate alignment to brands at a high-level! Influencer marketers and social media teams are often short on time, so any time shortcuts you can provide them for figuring out brand alignment or determining your strengths and interests is a win-win. Most creators also list content pillars and interests in their bio — this, by the way, is great because many marketers use tools like Traackr to search for potential partners based on bio keywords.
Examples of generic content pillars:
- Health & fitness
- Travel
- Skincare
- Makeup/Cosmetics
- Fashion
While generic content pillars are great, you can emphasize your speciality or niche even more by putting qualifying keywords or getting a little creative.
Examples of content pillars that can communicate potential alignment:
- Vegan fitness & lifestyle
- Things to do in [insert location]
- Cruelty-free skincare
- Inclusive MUA
- Body positive fashion
In your media kit, not only should you clearly name these content pillars, but you should also briefly explain why these themes are important to you as a creator. You can also share your motivations for creating content in these spaces while showcasing previous social media content that aligns with those pillars and has performed well.
Influencer Media Kit Tip #2: Show Your Stuff
In addition to telling brands what you are specialized/interested in, it’s also important to use your influencer media kit to show them what you can do. Include high quality social media assets, links to live posts, and even mock-ups of content you’d like to create for their brand. Think of this part of your influencer media kit as your “creator portfolio”. This section is all about highlighting your best and relevant work on various social channels and provides a look at what brands can expect from you.
Pro Tip: Divide your content into two groups: best performing organic content (per channel), and your past sponsored posts. This showcases content produced in partnership with other brands and your personal content creation style.
Use engagement, video views, and comment sentiment from your social community to demonstrate why your content has worked and the value it brings to those who engage with it. Bonus points if you have any performance metrics to include that go beyond the top of the funnel (e.g. Did your content drive website visits? If so, how many? Did your content include discount codes? If so, how many redemptions did you see?).
Influencer Media Kit Tip #3: Be Open About the Types of Collaborations You're Looking For
Transparency is key for creator-brand partnerships, and it goes both ways.
On one hand, brands should be open and honest with creators about what type of partnerships they can offer. Are they paid? Gifted? One-off or ongoing? All these details matter in the decision making process you, as a creator, goes through when determining whether you want to sign a brand deal.
Similarly, it’s important to be open and honest about the types of partnerships that you want with brands. It all starts with knowing what your goals are, and what you are willing vs not willing to compromise on. Don’t worry – this answer varies amongst creators, and often depends on several factors like:
- How established are you as a creator?
- How aligned are you with the brand you’re pitching? (e.g. do you love the brand so much that you are excited to work with them in any capacity? Or is this brand seen as a more transactional partner?)
- What are your goals as a creator? (e.g. are you thinking about short-term financial gains, or are you thinking of working towards long-term partnerships?)
- What are your circumstances? (e.g. do you have multiple content streams already? And/or do you have a team to support you?)
Sponsored content and gifted collaborations are commonplace, and as you create better content and learn to leverage your value as a collaborator, other types of brand collaborations may better align with your goals. As you sharpen your style and voice as a creator, your media kit allows you to clearly communicate those goals and the types of partnerships you’d like to be considered for, as well as position you as a stand-out creator in the influencer landscape.
While being hyper transparent about this aspect might get you some “rejections”, it’s important to remember that your time and work are valuable and worthy of standing up for. Besides, sometimes you can even turn a “rejection” into a conversation.
“If a brand comes back with an offer that is lower than expected, it’s not a bad thing! It means a conversation is opening up to discuss and find a middle ground. Remember, it’s a partnership which means there are two people involved.” - Katie Beth Miedaner (@cappybears), Influencer and Special Needs Pet Advocate
If you want to dive deeper into specific strategies for navigating brand deals, check out this article “ 5 Rules for Influencer Negotiations”, which is full of helpful tips for both brands and creators.
Influencer Media Kit Tip #4: Include General Performance Metrics and Audience Demographics
As you build your influencer media kit, maintaining up-to-date performance metrics for your content on each channel is key. It keeps you aware of how your content performs and helps communicate to brands how your value and contribution translates in the digital space. Show your strategic side by choosing metrics that are both standard in practice and those that have the highest impact for each content format.
Some performance metrics that are good to share:
- For static posts: average reach and/or impressions, and engagement rate are good. Also, average comment rate, and comment sentiment.
- For videos: longest watch time (this signals audience retention) and average video view rate. Average comment rate and comment sentiment is also good to share here.
- Audience demographic data like location, age, interest, gender, and more.
Pro Tip: Including audience demographic data showcases the potential market that brands can activate and reach through your content. Remember: these metrics are part of the presentation that influences brands to establish new or refreshed collaborations with you. Keeping these metrics up to date empowers you to communicate your value proposition with confidence.
Influencer Media Kit Tip #5: Highlight Past Partners
Creators understand the power of referrals and social proof better than anyone. That’s a big part of what “influence” is, after all.
Just like any other kind of job, references matter in the creator world. Brands are keen to know who you’ve worked with, and how it went. Of course, unlike other job types, you may have some restrictions about what you can share (e.g. you probably won’t be able to share how much you made for a specific brand deal), but try to share as much as you can!
Some potential things to include in your influencer media kit that provides some social proof/referral power:
- Names of past brand partners
- Testimonials or quotes from your brand point-of-contacts, detailing how great it was to work with you
- Samples of past brand campaigns that you produced or were apart of
If you’re finding that you’re a little too limited on what you can share, due to NDAs or rules of propriety, you can get a little creative and instead share:
- Types of brands you’ve worked with in the past (then the marketing team you’re pitching can go piece it together)
- Brands you have affinity towards (to give them a sense of what your audiences are used to seeing/engaging with)
Pro Tip: Consider highlighting past partnerships with brands that are outside your defined industry. Many brands are looking to work with creators who have feeds that aren’t as saturated with competitor content. To do this they often look for creators that are outside their industry. For example, beauty brands partnering with athletes or fashion creators; skincare brands partnering with comedians; beverage brands partnering with street interviewers or dancers; and so on.
Influencer Media Kit Tip #6: Have More Than One Media Kit
Similar to how job seekers leverage customized resumes, creators benefit from having multiple influencer media kits. You may consider creating an influencer media kit for each industry that you are interested in (beauty, fashion, food and bev, etc.), and for different brand sizes (small/indie brand vs global enterprise).
Maintaining a library of these kits allows for consistent updates and targeted tailoring to specific brand collaborations. This proactive approach ensures you're always prepared, whether pursuing new partnerships or refreshing existing ones. Bells, whistles and non-essential design choices aside, using a flexible, yet standard influencer media kit template that allows you to make updates as necessary helps you streamline this process.