How to make a media kit brands actually read

A media kit is basically your resume as a creator. It tells a brand who you are, who watches you, and what you can do for them, all in a format they can forward to their boss.

Here’s the reality: the person reading it is probably skimming dozens of these. They’re not going to study yours. They want to find a few specific things fast and decide if you’re worth a reply.

So the goal isn’t to make something gorgeous and long. It’s to make something clear, honest and easy to scan. Here’s how.

What a media kit is for

Brands use your media kit to answer three questions:

1. Does this creator’s audience match the people we’re trying to reach?
2. Are those people actually paying attention?
3. Is this person easy and professional to work with?

Everything you put in your kit should help answer one of those. If it doesn’t, cut it.

What to include

1. A short bio

Two to four sentences. Who you are, what you make content about, and why people follow you. Write it in plain language, the way you’d introduce yourself to a new coworker.

Example: “I’m Maya, and I help college students and new grads figure out money without the jargon. I post budgeting breakdowns, paycheck plans and honest spending diaries on TikTok and Instagram.”

Add a good photo of you and your handles for each platform.

2. Audience demographics (from your native analytics)

This is the section brands care about most. Pull the numbers straight from each platform’s built-in analytics, not a third-party guess:

• Instagram: Insights, available on professional (creator or business) accounts. The Instagram Help Center covers what Insights shows.
• YouTube: the Audience tab in YouTube Analytics. YouTube’s help page explains what’s there, including age, gender and top geographies. It also notes some data may be limited, so don’t worry if a few fields are blank on a smaller channel.
• TikTok: the analytics section of your creator or business account.

Include:

• Follower or subscriber count per platform
• Top age ranges
• Gender split
• Top countries (and top cities, if your platform shows them)

If your audience is mostly US-based, say so clearly. For many US brands, that’s a big deal.

Pro tip: screenshots of your analytics dashboards make a great backup. Some brands will ask for them anyway, so keep recent ones in a folder.

3. Engagement

Follower count gets attention. Engagement closes deals. Include a few of these:

• Average views per post or video (last 30 or 90 days)
• Average reach per post
• Average story views, if you post stories
• Engagement rate

There’s no single official way to calculate engagement rate. A common approach is total interactions (likes, comments, shares, saves) on a post divided by reach, or by follower count, times 100. Whichever version you use, say which one and use it consistently. Brands respect that more than a suspiciously high number with no explanation.

4. Past collaborations

List brands you’ve worked with, even small ones. If you have results, add them in one line each, for example: “Story series for a skincare brand: 4 frames, 18,000 total views, 240 link clicks.”

Only include numbers you can back up with a screenshot. And never list a brand you didn’t actually work with. Tagging a product you bought yourself is not a collaboration.

No past collabs yet? That’s fine. Show two or three examples of content you’d make for a brand, or content where you naturally featured products you already use.

5. Packages or “rates on request”

You have two options here.

List packages. Something like “1 Reel + 3 Stories” or “1 dedicated YouTube video.” This saves time and signals you know your value. You can list starting prices or leave prices off and just describe what’s included.

Say “rates on request.” This gives you room to price each deal based on the brand, the usage rights and the timeline. Many creators prefer this, especially when their numbers are moving fast.

Either way works. If you’re not sure what to charge, read our guide on pricing brand deals as a small creator before your first call.

6. Contact info

Your business email, and nothing else they need to hunt for. Use a professional-looking address, not the one you made in eighth grade. If you have a website or a link-in-bio page, add it here too.

One page or a full deck?

One page is best for most creators starting out. It’s quick to read, easy to attach to an email, and forces you to keep only what matters.

A short deck (4 to 8 slides) makes sense when you have multiple platforms with real audiences, several past campaigns with results, or you’re pitching bigger deals where the brand will pass your kit around internally.

Whatever you pick:

• Save it as a PDF. It looks the same on every device.
• Keep the file small. Compress images so it’s easy to email.
• Name the file clearly. “YourName_MediaKit_Sept2026.pdf” beats “Final_final_v3.pdf.”
• Make it readable on a phone. Big text, lots of white space, no tiny charts.

Keep your numbers current

A media kit with numbers from a year ago is worse than no media kit. Brands can check your profile in two seconds, and if your kit says 50,000 average views and your last ten posts got 6,000, you’ve lost trust instantly.

Set a simple routine:

• Update monthly, or at least before you send any pitch.
• Add a date somewhere on the kit, like “Stats as of September 2026.”
• Use the same time window every time, like the last 30 or 90 days.
• Keep an editable master version in whatever design tool you use, and export a fresh PDF each time.

Common mistakes that get kits ignored

• Rounding up or inflating numbers. Brands will check. Some will ask for screenshots.
• Listing only follower count. Without engagement and audience info, it doesn’t tell them much.
• Burying the contact info or forgetting it entirely.
• Making it too long. Nobody needs 20 slides about your journey.
• Hard-to-read design. Fancy fonts and light gray text on white look nice and read terribly.
• Generic kits for every brand. You don’t need a new kit every time, but it helps to swap in the most relevant past collab or content example.
• Old or broken links to your profiles or site.
• No mention of disclosure. Brands want to know you’ll follow the rules. A line like “All sponsored content is clearly disclosed” helps. The FTC’s Disclosures 101 for social media influencers explains what that means.

Your media kit checklist

• Short bio, photo and all your handles
• Audience age, gender and location from native analytics
• Average views or reach, plus engagement rate with your formula
• Past collabs with real results (or sample content if you’re new)
• Packages, or “rates on request”
• Business email and website
• Date on the stats
• Saved as a small, clearly named PDF
• Updated at least monthly

Once your kit is ready, you need somewhere to send it. Our guide on how to pitch brands, with email templates picks up right where this one leaves off.