Working with PR agencies - Olivia Collins from Food PR Floralesque

At this recent ITWBN event Olivia Collins from the PR Agency Food PR gave some fantastic tips on how to work with a PR agency – and for those who were not there I thought that you might find these interesting and hopefully useful.

To start, why do PR agencies want to work with bloggers?

Well according to Olivia with bloggers they can get instant traction and promotion. If you think about it – a magazine may need to be planned weeks in advance, a blogger can update their site straight away – a Press Release sent today can be online tomorrow! This has a massive advantage over traditional media and it makes sense to have a two way relationship with bloggers and digital influencers! Online promotions can also keep momentum up for longer with hashtags being used and tagging the brands in images etc.

How to work with a PR agency

  • Treat yourself as a brand and take it seriously.
  • Your blog needs to be kept alive by your passion – if you do not have passion you will find it harder to put in the long hours and keep the momentum going forward.
  • Get in touch with PR Agencies – email them and sell what you can do. Do not ask for free products. If they don’t reply then email them again. It is important to understand how busy everyone is these days and you may need to contact them again and maybe go in from a different angle. It is important to suggest how they can use your blog for their product – put that idea into their heads!!
  • Be an expert… or at least position yourself as the expert. If you can position yourself as the expert in your niche/field then you are half way there.
  • Marketing – how do you want to market yourself? Plan this out and this links back to thinking of your blog as a brand.
  • Understand how a PR agency works and then you are already ahead of the game.

Other tips

  • If you want to work with a specific brand – use their product and tell them. Show what you can do and they may then want to work with you – this can sometimes work better than cold emailing.
  • I asked the question if the number of followers are key to an agency working with a blogger….. and Olivia said no that is not the main thing. They will look at the quality of the content of the blog in question and how the blogs are written.
  • Find a way to talk to PR agencies, for example the PRII are holding their Awards in June – why not congratulate the nominees and winners?

The same theme on the day ran through everyone’s talks – be yourself and work hard. You can check out their website, and they are also on Facebook and Twitter-Website.

These are tips that she shared – other PR agencies may work in different ways.

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