News PR and Influence: Why Combining Both Changes Everything for Your Campaigns
For a long time, public relations and influencer marketing operated in silos. The PR agency handled journalists. The influence agency activated creators. Two budgets, two teams, two calendars, and often two parallel narratives that never spoke to each other.
In 2026, this separation no longer makes sense. The boundaries between media, creators and audiences have blurred. A journalist draws inspiration from content seen on Instagram. An influencer picks up a story from the press. The public consumes both without distinction. Brands that have understood this and run their PR and influence campaigns in an integrated way mechanically achieve better results: more reach, more credibility, more message consistency.
At Matriochka Influences, we are a PR and influence agency in Paris that has practised this integrated approach since our founding in 2014. What follows are the concrete reasons why the combination works, illustrated by campaigns we have managed.
Two levers that reinforce each other
The strength of PR is credibility. An article in Les Echos, a segment on BFM or a feature in Vogue carries editorial weight that no sponsored post can replicate. The journalist acts as a trust filter: what they choose to cover has been deemed newsworthy.
The strength of influence is proximity and engagement. A creator speaks to their community in a language it understands, in a format it consumes naturally. Engagement rates are incomparably higher than those of a press article.
When both are activated together, around the same brand narrative, they create a resonance effect. PR establishes legitimacy, influence amplifies the message and generates conversation. The audience sees the brand both in their reference media and in the feed of their favourite creators. Repetition across different contexts reinforces recall and trust.
One coherent narrative, multiplied across every channel
The classic trap when PR and influence are managed separately is message fragmentation. The press kit tells one story, the influencer brief tells another. Journalists receive a corporate angle, creators a lifestyle angle. In the end, the brand projects two different images and nobody retains a clear message.
The integrated approach starts from the opposite principle: one narrative, adapted to each channel. The substance remains identical, only the form changes. The journalist receives a structured editorial angle with data and spokespeople. The creator receives a creative brief with freedom of tone. But both carry the same message.
This is exactly what we implemented for Panzani during the Tour de France. The narrative was the same everywhere: the journey of 100% French wheat, from field to plate, via the Tour. On the influence side, food creator @salade_toto_oignon (219,000 followers) told this story across 11 pieces of content, from Parisian street marketing to the finish on the Champs-Élysées, including an immersion with a farmer. On the PR side, VIP press days brought journalists into the Tour de France experience. The result: 8 million impressions and a coherent storytelling that transformed a sports sponsorship into a genuine brand narrative.
Events as the convergence point
Brand events are the ideal ground for merging PR and influence, because they create a shared moment between journalists and creators, in the same place, at the same time.
For Instagram's Halloween Party, we designed a two-phase activation. On the day, 7 leading digital media outlets were brought into a red carpet setup designed to generate high-value editorial content. Creators present were interviewed about their inspirations, highlighting Meta AI's role in designing their costumes. In parallel, 5 high-engagement micro-creators had been activated in advance with GRWM (Get Ready With Me) content to engage their communities before the event. The result: 35 million impressions, 265 pieces of content produced, and a unified narrative around one idea — AI in the service of creativity — carried simultaneously by press and creators.
The same principle was taken to an even larger scale with the Spotify Podcast Awards, an event we conceived and produced from scratch. 800 guests at Le Grand Rex, Pablo Mira as host, Camélia Jordana performing live, 20 presenters on stage. But beyond the show, the activation was designed as an integrated PR and influence machine: in advance, an in-app voting mechanic mobilised 750,000 votes and engaged communities. On the day, journalists and creators experienced and covered the event together. The result: 150 million impressions. Proof that a brand event, when designed from the outset as an integrated PR and influence activation, generates impact incomparably greater than a siloed approach.
Always-on: PR and influence as a permanent channel
The PR and influence combination is not limited to one-off moments. The most powerful results come from always-on programmes, where brand communications are structured across the year, with a regular cadence aligned to business and societal milestones.
This is the model we have been running since 2021 for Leroy Merlin. The brand has entrusted us with an annual PR and influence mandate covering 4 markets and over 10 product categories. The cadence is intensive: press releases, press events, thematic features, TV product placements and regular influence activations. The objective is to make Leroy Merlin visible far beyond specialist home improvement media — in lifestyle, society, business and mainstream outlets — to reach audiences beyond traditional DIY: young professionals, non-DIYers, people outside store catchment areas. The result: over 4 billion impressions per year. A volume only achievable with an integrated programme where every press clipping feeds the influence strategy and vice versa.
What this means for brands
f you are still managing your PR and influence separately, you are leaving value on the table. The numbers from our campaigns show it: the integrated approach does not simply add the results of both channels together — it multiplies them.
But for this to work, the agency must master both disciplines in-house. Assigning PR to one agency and influence to another recreates the very silos you are trying to eliminate. This is precisely what sets us apart at Matriochka: since 2014, we have brought influence, PR and social media under one roof, with teams that work together on every campaign.
The 2026 influencer marketing trends confirm this convergence: clipping, live shopping, B2B influence on LinkedIn — all of these developments reinforce the need for unified management of editorial and creator content. And the 2026 Influence Law adds a layer of legal compliance that makes it all the more relevant to centralise everything with a partner capable of securing the entire programme end to end.
Want to run your PR and influence campaigns in an integrated way?
Get in touch with Matriochka Influences for an initial conversation.
elodie.monchicourt@mtrchk.com / charlie.trouillebout@mtrchk.com
mtrchk.com
