I'm torn on this. I personally think begging for free stuff is dumb and stupid and ruining people's expectations of how society works. On the other hand companies give away free stuff all the time, even to people with zero social media presence or "influence," so asking politely doesn't feel like an outrageous overstep, especially if you graciously accept the many rejections. But on that first hand again I still think people should get rid of this idea that they're offering any value whatsoever. "We'll post it on social media!" And that's worth maybe a fiver of what they'd spend on advertising? Less, in most cases I'd wager. I managed wedding venues at one point in my life and I had people asking to get their venue for free in exchange for exposure. My response was always "We don't give away weddings. If you have over a million followers we can talk about a discount or sponsoring part of your event, but we're not giving it away for free." Invariably it would come out they had at most 5k followers, and they were asking for close to $10k in services. Talk about icky.