When an influencer has been ‘gifted’ with a product, a hotel stay, or restaurant visit, it means that the PR company has set up the opportunity to trial this for free. It is then up to the influencer to decide if they want to cover the offering. When a post is ‘sponsored’, it means a company has paid the influencer to communicate messaging about their brand – and key messaging, image direction and content will be broadly pre-agreed between the two parties.