Pitch Decks, Media Kits, and Vanity Metrics vs Impact
Metrics help you measure many things, including all the measurements meant to represent action and engagement. Whether you’re an influencer or working with a social enterprise, having data to reflect action and engagement allows you to better understand the position of your work. Unlike a social media influencer, a social entrepreneur doesn’t have an exact set of metrics that apply across the entire industry, but they both value the results from their impact on others.
A social media influencer is someone who cultivates an audience and refers brands to followers that know, like, and trust the influencer. In theory, we’re all influencers. The difference in being a professional comes to the amount of effort and knowledge put towards growing an audience, connecting with brands, and establishing a value proposition.
Simplified, many successful influencers know two things extremely well:
- They know their numbers.
- They know how to pitch themselves.
You’ll find this reflected in their pitch decks, media kits, and metrics. Influencers measure their impact so well that social entrepreneurs can learn a few tips from them.
Pitch Deck Lesson: Micro Influencers are still Influencers
You may be familiar with pitch decks. Social enterprises, like many businesses, have pitch decks when they want buy-in from investors or partnerships.
Similarly, influencers often use pitch decks to secure brand partnerships. It’s their value proposition. Using this is crucial since pitch decks help influencers frame the influence they have on an audience.
A “frame” helps influencers guide the focus of their value proposition. What they’ve realized is that you don’t have to have big numbers to have value. That’s where they’re a bit different.
Have you heard of micro-influencers and nano-influencers? These are influencers that have smaller followings compared to the average in the industry (even as low as a few thousand followers on some media channels). Social media influencers, no matter the audience size, know that they can pitch themselves to brands before hitting their “ideal” follower count or subscriber count. They find other ways of highlighting their value to achieve a great “frame.”
In pitch decks, influencers have their stats and emphasize that their audience takes action. In another approach, an influencer may emphasize their niche where they have specific knowledge or a demographic they can access that the brand hasn’t yet.
The lesson of recognizing value even before a traditional “milestone” is something social entrepreneurs can learn from.
Tip: Influencers understand how to pitch themselves or how to outsource their pitching to an agency. If you ever need help pitching your social enterprise or telling your story, you can partner with a marketing agency that amplifies social enterprises and social good.
Media Kit Lesson: The ingredients for data storytelling
A media kit and pitch deck are closely related, but can serve separate purposes. Both act as a way for brands (whether business or personal) to showcase their value. As technology evolved, their roles moved apart from each other.
Media kits are more like a poster of stats to show an influencer’s audience engagement and past project stats. Influencers may include highlight content or media assets along with their media kits. This is separate from pitch decks where there is a specific frame presented for partnerships.
Social media influencers use media kits to show the solid numbers they have. It’s less about the frame and more about showing the numbers “as is.” Examples of the types of data include amount of followers per platform, engagement rate, likes & comments, and demographics.
However, some influencers know how to bring empathy into their kits using a bio and testimonials. Media kits can even include short blurbs with stats about their impact in previous brand partnerships. Having a media kit makes it easy for someone like a company, journalist, or podcaster to get familiar with the influencer’s personal brand and their reach.
Instead of comparing an influencer’s media kit to one of a social enterprise (as some initiatives do have one), it can be a good reflection of an impact report. Many social enterprises complete an annual report or publish a report after a project to showcase their recent outcomes. Each report usually wants to blend solid numbers and empathy for the storytelling.
What happens is that social entrepreneurs can sometimes have reports that come off rigid, that feel like info-dumping, or that overplay the empathy of their impact. Reports should share the story of the initiative and provide real data in a way that flows from point to point. Social media influencers craft media kits as an experience, and they know how to do it in a concise way.
The lesson of presenting data with an informative and empathetic blend is something social entrepreneurs can learn from.
Reminder: Many social enterprises and advocates of social good create content that is informative and empathetic, but the content tends to lean heavily on one side or the other. Influencer media kits can inspire a format where the two complement each other better.
Metrics Lesson: Knowing the difference of Vanity Metrics vs Impact
Both a pitch deck and media kit involve metrics, which make them such a huge part of being a social media influencer. The numbers paint a picture of the influencer’s personal brand and allow them to communicate the results of their impact. It only makes sense that influencers would know their numbers.
What’s more impressive is that successful influencers know which numbers are most important. For example, they don’t only know their follower count and demographics. They also know things like the conversion rate per their audience’s favorite content formats based on what they’ve created previously. Having knowledge about these metrics are proof of an influencer who knows how to increase the chance of their audience taking a desired action.
Remember, influencers know their numbers and how to pitch themselves. That’s the reason they also know how to frame their value proposition and communicate their impact. Authentic influencers analyze the data they have so they understand what truly shows impact, and they stay away from highlighting vanity metrics.
Vanity metrics refers to stats that look good at a glance, but aren’t always connected to real results. Usually this has to do with quantitative data, but it can also relate to qualitative data.
Social entrepreneurs are still figuring out how to measure what matters most. The industry continues to experiment with what to track, how to showcase data, and how to explain what results come from which data.
The lesson of matching metrics to actual impact is something social entrepreneurs can learn from.
Lessons Social Entrepreneurs can Learn from Social Media Influencers
Despite being in different fields, social media influencers and social entrepreneurs both make the most out of the impact they inspire in others. Social media influencers commonly share their impact and insights, which is something social entrepreneurs can improve on as a whole. Keep these three lessons in mind the next time you feel unsure about how to acknowledge your initiative’s social impact:
- The lesson of recognizing value even before a traditional “milestone”
- The lesson of presenting data with an informative and empathetic blend
- The lesson of matching metrics to actual impact
