Creating Business Cards and Media Kit

This week’s #Print4BlogHer @TheUPSstore Blogger Ambassador program lesson is about making business cards and a media kit. Read last week’s lesson to catch up on how to make brand connections.

Week Five: Business Cards and Media Kit

Over the last month we have learned how to focus our brand, find brands to work with, connect with brands and other bloggers in our in niche and this week we prepare for what to bring with us to a conference. This week we are learning some of the things we need to bring with us to a conference, specifically business cards and copies of your media kit.

Creating Business Cards

When you attend a conference you will need lots of business cards. You will want to try to make them unique in some way to help you stand out among plethora of business cards brands will take home with them. Don’t go too crazy because many times business cards get tossed in the trash but do spend some time trying to make a business card that represents you and your brand, niche, or sites.

Personally, I like to keep the back of my business card unprinted and white so it can be used for note taking. Sometimes when you meet someone they might want to write something about you on the card and the back is a great place to put it.

What information should be on a business card:

• Your name (and business name if you have one)
• Your blog name
• Email address
• Blog URL
• Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Flickr, and/or You Tube user names or links (consider using bit.ly to make short links)
• You may or may not want to put your address and/or phone number on the business card for security purposes

You may want to consider making several versions of the business card to give out to various groups of people you meet. Maybe you want to put your address and/or phone number on the business card you give out to brands so they can contact you easier and automatically if you want them to send you samples to try out or products to review.

For friends and bloggers you meet you might want to make up a different business card that doesn’t have as much information on it. They probably don’t need to have your address, phone, or even You Tube or Linkedin information because your friends and fellow bloggers are most likely going to interact with you on Twitter, Facebook, and by email.

Creating a Media Kit

What is a Media Kit you ask? Well it is a document that gives someone a snapshot or your site. In a glance they can tell what your site is about, what brands you have worked with, your traffic, demographics, and also includes your contact information.

It could be one sheet of paper, a booklet bound together, or maybe a trifold flyer. How you create it is up to you. Online you could make it a private page on your blog and require interested parties to log in with a password you give them (you can password protect Word Press posts and pagse) or it could be a Word or PDF document you email them instead.

If you are going to bring copies of your media kit with you to a conference I think you should keep it short and sweet. It should be no more than one page and I suggest making a tri-fold flyer. You can use Microsoft Publisher or Word to make it and they include templates in their software to help you. Everyone goes home with a lot of paperwork from a conference and you don’t want your media kit to get thrown away because it is too much for someone to look over. You may consider putting it on CD or thumb drive too. Only give your media kit to brands you definitely want to work with and not everyone you meet.

Here’s a quick lesson on how to use Microsoft Word to create a trifold flyer.

Things to include in a media kit:

• Your name
• Your blog name(s)
• A short bio about you
• A short description about your site
• Email address
• Blog URL
• Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Flickr, and/or You Tube user names or links (consider using bit.ly to make short links)
• Section on the top brands you have worked with and some campaign information (like name of campaign and what the campaign was about, keep it short)
• Future goals or posts you are working on (such as holiday roundups or a top ten list you need input with)
• Stats such as how much traffic your site gets daily or monthly (unique visitors and pageviews), your site’s PR and Alexa ranking, your Twitter Klout score, how many readers you get via RSS or email, how many Facebook fans you have, how many Twitter followers you have, demographics (age group of your readers, income level, etc)
• Ad rates: this is optional of course but you could include the general ad rates you charge and sizes available

To get great stats for your site I suggest using a service called Get Clicky. It is free to use if you have 3,000 or less pageviews per day to your site.

Get Business Cards and Your Media Kit Printed at The UPS Store

The UPS Store can help you with all of your business card and media kit printing needs. Just visit their site at TheUPSStore.com/print and upload your existing file. Schedule a time to pick them up and they will print them for you and have them ready.

You can follow my weekly lessons on Sweeties Reviews or on the aggregate site www.lovinlogistics.com

Take a look at the other 4 bloggers who have been hand-picked to be a part of this amazing campaign:

• Amy Lowe – Dealusional – www.dealusional.com
• Sara Blake – Super Saving Sense – www.supersavingsense.com
• Shelby Barone – Glitterful Felt Stories – www.feltstories.com
• Melissa Lockcuff – MamaBzz – www.mamabzz.com

This project has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for #collectivebias. All opinions are my own.