Meet Cwamne Howard | PR Specialist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cwamne Howard and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cwamne, what habits do you feel play an important role in your life?
1. I am very thorough: in PR you will encounter a lot of people who practice what we call “spray and pray.” To be frank it’s a very tacky way of running a media outreach campaign. You end up pitching a bunch of people who would not cover your client, if they fit they probably pitched them the wrong way and it makes media people hate you. My approach involves: research, storytelling, brainstorming and media relations. I find no detail too small.

2. I am driven by success: Regardless of what the project is, I always bring my best effort. I never phone anything in and give it my all. I would say this is why I have successful PR campaigns with clients who probably stood little chance of landing on media outlets like CBS New York, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, EuroNews, ABC Denver, Inc. etc.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
As a PR specialist I started out doing my own PR projects. My first big one was with a real estate author named Dan Rochon, who wanted to promote his book on podcasts only. I got him booked on over 10 top 10%podcasts, which led to his own podcast reaching the top 1.5%. From there I worked with Cecile’s Bath & Body and Ben Jacoby. My biggest PR hits for them weere with CBS New York, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, EuroNews, Gear Junkie and ABC Denver.

Then I started working with other PR and marketing agencies such as: Clout, Intellibright, Myzone, JMac PR and the Milo Agency. With Clout, in a short time span of four months, I landed media placements with outlets such as: Forbes, Inc., Business Insider, The Hustle, CyberNews and The Whiskey Wash. I also led a press kit mail campaign that generated placements with The Quintessential Gentleman and AM New York. I did incredible work there, especially with the challenges that each of those campaigns presented.

I would say what sets me apart from other PR pros is that I maximize my time by eliminating needless reports, meetings and I don’t spend much time planning, I put my PR projects into action and no time is wasted. I am also very strategic about approach: I personalize my pitches, I am very detailed with my media scanning, I conduct media research, I’m always brainstorming ideas and improving my pitches. I believe that when you vet clients well and put in the effort, you’ll always find success in PR. A lot of my big wins were not from clients you would think are capable of landing on top media outlets. I greatly enjoy helping the small clients and I am most proud of that.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I am still a bit new to the L.A. area so I don’t exactly have a spot yet.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I would like to shoutout some of my most favorite PR clients:

1. Emotional Intelligence Workplace Speaker, Sylvia Baffour: She was such a great client to work with. She was understanding of the PR process, she gave me commentary when I requested it, she showed up to every media placement I had lined up. As Sylvia says, emotional intelligence isn’t something she just lives on stage, but in her life as well. I can attest to that. I think we also worked well together because our birthdays are just a day apart. Sylvia is the second longest client I worked with (over a year).

2. Karen Drastal and Bill Drastal, animators of Chubby Beagle Productions: Bill and Karen are the longest client relationship I had (over two years). I did PR outreach for them and also social media management. Where they shined as clients was with podcasts. They loved doing them and podcasts loved them as guests. They are really great people to interact with rather in a podcast or a meeting. Like Sylvia, they really are very emotionally intelligent. Their goal as an animation studio is to create a very healthy work culture. The other part of their goal is to tell diverse stories. They recently wrapped up work on their first animation film under Chubby Beagle Productions, “Maxxie LaWow Drag Super-Shero.”

3. Thomas Tan and Phillip Kuoch, Lemon Podcast: I worked them at the very beginning of my PR career and the experience opened up a new side of myself. While doing PR for Lemon, I landed them an interview with a lifestyle and entertainment publication I worked with previously. They didn’t have anyone to interview them, so I offered to conduct the interview myself. Later, the editor asked if I could more such interviews and I occasionally host my own segment there and write articles. Without working with them, I may not have done this and I really enjoy it. Also, Phillip and Thomas really covered some great Asian culture topics and I became much more knowledgeable having worked with them. They even gave me insight with structuring interviews.

Website: https://cwamnepr.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cwamne-howard-242787a5/

Twitter: https://x.com/CwamPr