One day, I noticed a small account sharing our product on Instagram stories. A lifestyle creator, friendly looking, small following. My first thought was genuinely warm. Someone bought our product and liked it enough to post. That kind of organic moment feels special when you're building something from scratch.
So I messaged her to say thank you.
That's when things got strange.
The message that didn't add up
She replied: "I've been using the product and it's honestly become part of my daily routine. If you ever have anything new coming out or samples to test, I'd be happy to share it with my audience."
I read it twice. I had never sent her anything. I didn't recognise her name, her account, nothing. So how did she have our product?
I replied: "Out of curiosity, how did you hear about us?"
"Oh, a friend gifted it to me."
There it was.
"We sent the product for a collab. It ended up as someone's birthday present."
What actually happened
We looked into it, and it became clear. The influencer we had sent the product to, the one with over 100k followers, the one who had agreed to post and then gone silent, had simply given it away. No post, no message, no heads-up. Just quietly passed our product on to a friend as if it were hers to give.
The friend then enjoyed it enough to reach out to us, asking for more. Which is how we found out.
We sent it as part of an agreement she initiated. Not a random gift. A collab she came to us for and said yes to. That's the part that's hard to understand.
She reached out to us first. She said she wanted to post. We didn't chase her or pressure anyone into anything. She came to us, agreed, received the product, and then quietly gave it to a friend without a word.
The part that's hard to understand
There's something worth saying about how PR gifting actually works. Receiving a PR product doesn't guarantee a post, and most brands understand that. Not every product fits every creator and that's fine. But accepting it comes with an implicit understanding: this was sent in the hope of a collaboration. It wasn't sent so you could give it to someone else. If it doesn't fit, say so. If you changed your mind, say so. What you don't do is quietly pass it on to a friend as if the brand never existed.
She came to us, agreed to the collab, received the product, and said nothing. If something came up and she couldn't post anymore, a message would have been enough. "Hey, things changed, I can't do this." That's all. No drama, no problem. What she chose instead was silence and a quiet handoff. That's not a collaboration. That's just taking a gift.
Imagine a celebrity receiving a gifted piece from a major fashion house and quietly passing it to a friend, who then posts about it. The brand agreed to that celebrity's reach, their audience, their credibility. None of that happened. That's exactly what this was, just at a smaller scale.
"If it no longer fits what you're doing, just say so. That's all it takes."
