With over a quarter-million followers and with 18M likes, Robyn DelMonte, more famously known as @GirlBossTown, has reached fame on TikTok by giving out PR moves for influencers, brands, and celebrities. Coining the phrase, “PR moves I would make for…”, DelMonte started out making videos explaining her ideas of PR moves for celebrities unsolicited and just for fun and to share her creativity. As these videos began to gain traction on her page, influencers, brands and celebrities began to reach out to her in the comments or in her DM’s to ask her to share the PR moves she would suggest for them. Throughout this series on her page, she has made videos for big brands and people such as Chips Ahoy!, The Today Show’s, Hoda and Jenna, The Rockettes, and even Burger King.
While this pop-culture guru may have seemed to be destined for success and acclaim, she too had to work her way up the ladder to pave her own path into the industry. After graduating from the University of New Hampshire with a major in marketing, DelMonte moved out to LA and landed a few jobs in the PR industry. While she enjoyed it, she worked long hours and as time progressed, she started to develop negative feelings toward the environment and lifestyle she was in. This ultimately pushed her away from feeling passionate about PR and marketing because she felt as though she couldn't truly be creative.
After a family situation arose, she moved back home to Boston where she has been job hopping for the past four years in different marketing positions. She stated in a TikTok that these jobs were not in the media space that she was passionate about and felt almost like a failure as she watched her friends go to their jobs which they loved, while she was just not content going to work every day doing something she was not passionate about. After quitting her last job, she decided to venture off into a new career realm and enrolled in esthetician school due to her love of beauty, makeup, and skincare. While waiting for esthetician school to begin, she was waitressing and making TikToks. In this meantime, she began to grow a following and she stated it changed the course of her life as she is now networking, getting meetings and receiving job opportunities with well-known agencies and brands.
A popular question she gets on her page is, “Why do you do this for free?" She stated in a TikTok that doing these PR moves for free puts her in contact with major brands and influencers that she has always dreamed of working with. While doing this, she’s creating her own digital media kit and online resume that employers can look at and see her creativity in action rather than just a highlight of her skills on a piece of paper. DelMonte expressed that she is innately doing PR for herself by doing PR for other brands to show off her creativity and how she has her finger on the pulse of what's relevant.
DelMonte stated that her rise to notability began when she began to be authentically herself and started to put her creativity out there. It’s something she never thought she’d achieve because she kept getting pushed down but she says it just goes to show that if you're creative, there is an outlet for you. She urges that if you don’t fit into a 9-5 job environment, don't give up your creativity and what you want to do because there is always going to be an outlet for you. And if there is not one, you can make one and pave the way. @GirlBossTown has facilitated a modern new way to navigate into the PR world and it is definitely something aspiring PR practitioners can look up to.