The Role of a Public Relations Firm

Do you or your brand work with any public relations firms?  It is a very interesting relationship for me a blogger.  I work with a lot of public relations firms for this very blog.   The PR firm is my connection to the brand.

For instance, if I wanted to work with a particular clothing brand I would find out who the public relations manger is and contact them via phone or email.  I usually use email.   I let the firm know who I am, my site url, my media kit, my social media outlets and how many followers I have on each, and why I want to work with them.  You have to let the PR firm know why you want to work with that particular brand.  

I recently did a huge gift guide for Christmas and I worked with a ton of PR firms, each representing a different brand and a few working with multiple brands. Some of the PR firms I contacted on my own and some contacted me. This is how I get products or get paid to write about products on this site. It seems like a simple task, but it can be daunting at times.  

Depending on your niche,you will pitch or get pitches from PR firms.  Most PR firms only work with certain niches.  I know that Berhman Communications represents the brand Kiehl's.  So, if I had a proposal for Kiehl's I would reach out to them and we would come to an agreement on how I could represent  Kiehl's  that would be beneficial to us both. They might want to send me products in exchange for putting in a gift guide, posting on social media, and/or a feature about the products. I might work with a manager at Berhman or I might work with Nancy Behrman herself, who owns the firm.  Each person at the firm has a unique job and are assigned different brands that the firm represents

Nancy Behrman

In your proposal with the PR, you work out the details of what you will do and how the brand fits in with your audience.  For instance, I worked with Shark for my Holiday Gift Guide in 2018.  I knew a Shark vacuum would make a great gift, so I reached out to their PR firm and via email and told them I wanted Shark to be a part of my gift guide and I would write an honest review of one of their vacuums in exchange for a vacuum.  You can read that article here.  One of the perks with working with the PR firm for Shark is that I got to do a giveaway of a Shark Vacuum!  My readers love this! 

Working with PR firms for my site has been an integral part of watching it grow,  For that, I am very thankful for all the PR firms I havehad the pleasure of working with,