How has Instagram changed the way PR pros pitch?

As the journalists and fashion bloggers arrived to see the pop-up store launching at the hotel that day, their rooms weren’t just ready—they were Instagram-ready.

Rather than a standard room, for example, the media and other influencers found themselves welcomed into a spacious suite, with champagne and strawberries waiting for them. There were plush robes, slippers and other details that could wind up in photos, videos or a mashup of content that could be featured in their Instagram Story later that day.

“One of the bloggers even asked for an outfit to wear to the event to take pictures and post pictures (of herself),” recalls Erika Montgomery, CEO of Three Girls Media in Yelm, Washington. While she doesn’t get into the specifics of the client she was working with, she uses it as an example of how social media is changing PR. “There’s a lot of opportunity to shape that story,” she says and by “story” she means not only the articles and blog posts that might get written, but the highly personal juxtaposition of multimedia content that’s now easy to create from a smartphone.

What are Instagram stories?