- Before reaching out to a brand’s PR team, build your platform: garner a following of at least 1000 by posting consistent, quality photos and videos.
- Check out the accounts of the brands you want to pursue and try to tailor your posts to match what they share. Post about the brands you love and tag them.
- Reach out to brands via DM or email their PR team directly if you can. Be professional: introduce yourself and tell them you’d love to be on their PR list.
Build your social media following.
To get a brand’s attention, you’ll need a hefty amount of influence already. Sounds like a paradox, right? In order to become an influencer, you’ll need to have influence? But Glossier is unlikely to set their sights on you if you’ve only got 52 followers and have only had your account for a week. Take the time to build your account by posting regularly and garnering a large following—ideally, try to amass more than 1000 followers before reaching out to a brand.
What to do: Delve into what you love! Amassing a large following might sound like a big ask, but it'll come naturally if you build your platform on your obsessions. Are you a makeup aficionado? A perfumista? A foodie? Center your brand around your hobby or passion. Become an expert in that subject. Learn about it and post about it—essentially, become a trusted social media voice in your field. Prioritize consistent, quality posting over frequent posting. While posting once a day is a great way to build a brand, consistent content is what will really attract followers, even if you’re posting only a couple times a week to begin with. Just make sure you’re posting something with substance, and not posting just to post. Engage with your followers (and potential followers). Create posts that generate audience engagement: ask questions, respond to user comments, or jump on the meme train to make your posts accessible to users who might not otherwise engage with them. Use tags to attract new followers. Tag each post with 10 or more relevant hashtags, like #crueltyfreemakeup or #nicheperfume. Change up your tags with each post—for instance, try #nichefragrance the next time around—to get attention from a different set of users.
What not to do: Don’t try to do too much on one account! You might be a makeup-lover, a perfumista, and a foodie, but dedicating your brand to all of these subjects may make your account seem muddled and unfocused, and you may lose out on followers (and brand attention). Resist the urge to approach a brand until you've got a hefty following. It can take a lot of time and energy to get just a few hundred followers, but if you approach a brand when you’ve got fewer than 1000 followers, they may turn you down. Don’t slow down posting once you’ve amassed your mammoth following: if you have 5000 followers but you haven’t posted in a month, it’ll look to any brands you approach as if you’re no longer invested in your platform.
Produce quality content.
Posting professional-looking content will attract followers—and brands. This means posting photos and videos with good lighting, and staging everything like a pro. Stay relevant by keeping up to date on current trends in your field and only posting the latest products from the brands you want to pursue. Make it easy for brand account managers to see what you have to offer as soon as they click on your page.
What to do: Hone your photography skills. Look up videos on YouTube on photographing and advertising products and experiment with different approaches. Be up front about who you are. Have a photo of yourself on your page somewhere—maybe in your profile picture, or in the occasional post. Brands may want to know not only who you are, but whether you’re a solo outfit or you work with partners. Advertise products. Talk them up. Let brand PR managers see you can sell their product to other people in your demographic.
What not to do: Avoid posting too many off-brand photos. Sure, the occasional adorable photo of your cat (beside your new eyeshadow palette) can humanize you and attract new followers. But keep your account primarily focused on building your platform. Avoid using filters on your photos and videos. When you post about how your new Fenty toner worked for you, it’s important that your photo is unedited so your followers see an accurate representation of how the product works.
Find appropriate brands to pursue.
You’ll have more luck getting on a PR list if you target specific brands. Not all brands are created equally, nor are their social media accounts, so do your research. What brands do you like? What brands match your vibe? Doing some detective work now will prevent you from wasting any time reaching out to brands who aren’t a good fit for your platform.
What to do: If you want a brand to promote your posts, seek out brands that post user-generated content. Brands that don’t post photos and videos created by their loyalists are unlikely to be worth your time. Observe the sort of user-generated posts those brands share: do they usually share videos? Photographs? Try to match your account to the content they like to share.
What not to do: Don’t set your sights too high too fast. If you want to go after Sephora, that’s your prerogative, but keep in mind that smaller, developing brands are more likely to take you on at the start. Don't rule out small brands just because they're small! Small brands, including local businesses, can become big brands over time (maybe even with your help).
Tag the brands in your posts.
Become a brand loyalist by posting photos and videos of their products. When you take a selfie wearing that new Burt’s Bees lip gloss you just bought, tag Burt’s Bees in your photo. Add a caption saying what you love about the lip gloss and how everyone should try it. Regularly post about brands you love and tag them. Even if the brand manager doesn’t notice you (if they’re a small company, they might!), it’s good to have a few posts proving your love for the brand in your influencer portfolio before you approach their PR team.
What to do: This probably goes without saying, but if you want a brand’s endorsement, tag them in exclusively positive reviews—meaning that perfume that smelled amazing but faded basically instantly? Probably best to stop your review at “smelled amazing.”
What not to do: If you post a selfie to Instagram wearing E.L.F. blush and Etat Libre d’Orange perfume and NYX waterproof eyeliner (good luck getting that stuff off) and 50 other products from 50 distinct brands, don’t tag them all. Tag only a couple—say, your 5 faves. Otherwise, your post gets really clogged, and nobody can even tell which tag belongs to which product.
Approach a brand’s PR team.
Reach out to a brand via DM or email, but keep it professional. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that when you’re sliding into a brand’s DMs, it’s OK to keep it casual—like you would with any other social media account. But it’s important to think of reaching out to a brand’s PR team like a job application, because, well, it is. That doesn’t mean sending them a cover letter and resume, but offer a polite greeting, introduce yourself, and ask to be added to their PR list. And be sure to say what you love about their product, too.
What to do: Start by telling them about your account and what you do. “I’m Courtney, and I run a perfume account.” Sure, they can skim your page to learn more about you, but if they’re getting dozens, maybe hundreds, of DMs a day, they’re unlikely to do that. Tell them why you’re reaching out to them specifically. Be specific and concise (again, hundreds of DMs a day—keep it brief): “I’ve been a huge fan of 837 North’s perfume for years (my all-time favorite scent is “Cardamom & Sandalwood”), and I’d love to be added to your PR list to be kept up to date on all your new product launches.” If you’ve never tried the brand before but think you’d like their products, tell them so. “I keep hearing such amazing things about your products, and I’d love to be added to your PR list to stay up to date on your brand.” Let them know what you can offer them in exchange for being added to their PR list. For instance, send them links to 2 or 3 of your most popular posts you’ve made advertising or testing out their products. If you don’t want to slide into the brand’s DMs directly (or have tried to no avail) and you know another influencer working with that brand, the influencer may be able to give you the PR team’s email address, but keep in mind they’ve almost certainly got no power over the PR team.
What not to do: Don’t, under any circumstances, reach out with the infamous “Collab?” Hustle culture and the internet, especially social media, have trained our brains to dedicate only an iota of attention to any one thing at a time, but you’ve got to show this brand that you’re really invested in working together. At least produce a full sentence. We know you're excited about the potential for free merch (remember us when you're an influencer), but resist the urge to ask for freebies outright. Remember, the goal for now is just to get added to the PR list. Down the road, as you grow your relationship with the brand, you may get the opportunity to ask for free products to test out and promote. Don’t assume the person running the brand’s social media account is also running their PR team, or even has anything to do with their PR. Just let them know you’re interested in being added to their PR list, and let them take it from there. They may give you an email address to contact, or they may pass along your message themselves. If you don’t get a reply via DM, don’t track down the PR manager’s personal account or email and reach out to them directly, as this could be seen as overstepping. (You can, however, follow their public account if they have one….)
Have fun!
Remember why you love what you’re doing. After you reach out to your favorite brands, there’s really nothing left to do but wait…and keep growing your brand. Getting on a PR list, like the building of Rome, isn’t something that can be done in a day. It’ll take time and patience, but when you’re doing something you love, it won’t feel that long.
What to do: Go with the flow and enjoy the ride! You’re building something here. In the end, getting on a PR list would be amazing, but it doesn’t determine the value of your brand.
What not to do: Don’t let getting on a PR list be your end-all-be-all. Why? Because it’ll take a lot of time and work to cultivate a unique platform with a decent following, and if you’re not passionate about it, it’s not going to be very enjoyable. Building a brand takes energy and hard work, and when it’s fun, it’s fun. When it’s not, it’s really not. Don’t feel discouraged if you get turned down by a brand, or even straight up ignored. It’s not a reflection of your worth or the value of your platform. The brand’s account manager might be too busy to reply, or you might just not be a good fit. Knock on some other doors. Don’t give up.
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