Here are five things PRs wish bloggers knew:

1. They want an easy way to contact you

PRs often find great bloggers they want to work with, but at times struggle to get in contact with these bloggers. Often, they fill in the contact form and then wait anywhere from 24 hours+ to hear back from you.

In a perfect world, that’s a realistic timeline, but in the world of PR, that’s a lifetime away. They also resort to stalking you on social media in the hopes of finding your contact details. Please make your email address easily available.

2. They don't enjoy having to search for you

Make your location easily available on your blog and social media channels. PRs need to know if you are Johanesburg or Cape Town-based, or where you’re from so that they can invite you to appropriate events.

If you’re Johannesburg-based and get invited to events in Cape Town, only for the brand to tell you that they don’t have the budget to fly you up, know that your location most likely was not easily available.

If an invite is time sensitive, the PR may make an educated guess based on the images in your feed as to where you’re from. They don’t always get it right, but they try.

3. They prefer it when you make your availability clear

When proactively sending out your profile, please include your availability/ if you have a fill time job and cannot attend events during the day, please let us know upfront so we don’t spam you with invites for events we already know you cannot attend. Let us rather invite you to the ‘after 5pm’ or weekend events that you’re more likely to attend.

4. Your name needs to be easy to find

If your name is different to your blog's name, make your name easy to find. PRs cannot put your blog name on your name tag, unfortunately. Help make their jobs easier. PR's campaigns move fast, and if they can get all your particulars quickly, they are more likely to use you.

It’s super embarrassing when the client says what is (insert blog's name) real name and then PR’s have to say, 'I don’t know' or 'I've emailed and am still awaiting a reply. The client's next reaction is to tell the PR to remove them and only include people they know.

5. They want to be valued

A PR’s role is to garner exposure for their clients. They regularly get asked to add bloggers to their PR lists. When reaching out to a brand to collaborate, please have integrity for your craft, and respect for the PR’s craft, too.

Many PRs have hosted events where they invite ‘up and coming bloggers’ who attended the event, ate the food, enjoyed the spoils worth x amount, took a goodie bag worth x amount and then the PR never heard from them again.

Not a thank you (or any sort of client feedback to share in their report), not a social post and not a blog post. When you attend the event and then offer no value in return, the PR is put in a difficult position where they must now justify why they invited five up-and-coming bloggers at x amount per head and received nothing out of the deal.

When this happens, the PR will never use you again as the impression you’ve created is that you’re there for the freebie, and not to expose your audience to a new product.

For more information, visit www.itsasherthing.co.za. You can also follow It's a Sher Thing on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.