This time last year, our office was buzzing with Virginia General Assembly chatter. History was happening with elected officials in both chambers. It was a long session, and several important bills, including Governor Northam’s budget, were on the table. I was knee deep in media relations as part of a campaign to support VAratifyERA (now VoteEqualityUS), an organization that advocated for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in Virginia. Meanwhile, my colleague Cameron was heads down doing media relations...
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Over the last couple of years, Aidan and I have given a presentation on social media advertising – the ins, the outs– it’s truly a 101 primer on the subject. The meat of our presentation is the same, but our color and delivery changes based on what’s currently happening in the social world. Looking into our crystal ball, social media advertising isn’t going away any time soon, but a lot is going to change in the coming months – from...
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When we first met Anderson Hayes during his interview to be a Hodges intern, we knew he was going to be a rockstar from day one. Come on, if he can lead a classroom of high school physics students for over three years, he can handle anything, right? And that wasn’t a typo. Anderson has his degree in physics, and he taught the subject in Chesterfield County Schools before he realized some of his greatest passions were met through his...
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I’m going to start this blog post off with a big claim – this is The Gong blog after all, named after the giant, gold shiny Gong we have in our office used to celebrate agency accomplishments. Our national media relations work in the past three months has been as successful as it’s ever has been since Hodges was founded in 2002. When we look at the number of outlets our clients have been featured in and the diversity of...
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An ardent Bruce Springsteen fan and dedicated foodie, Jon Newman hails from New Jersey and is a Rutgers University alum. He ended up in Richmond by way of Charlottesville, then Lynchburg, then Nashville, working in news for both radio and TV. While in Richmond, Jon worked as assistant news director at WTVR Channel 6, but after many nights being awoken by news of the latest fire or homicide, he made the switch to public relations. After 10 years working at...
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One meeting with me and you know I’m a process person who looks for efficiencies to keep myself organized. I have a notebook for my daily to-do checklist. I have a notepad for time tracking, with a hand drawn time sheet that I fill in to make my real time submission easier. I have my Outlook calendar color coded by client so I can quickly see what my week looks like. Joanna and Clea (for The Home Edit fans out...
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Josh Dare is always about five years ahead of the times. He is also the “kinder, gentler” of the two founders of this agency. Ok, some background. As an agency The Hodges Partnership has always had nonprofit clients on its roster. Working with nonprofits is part of our DNA not only as an agency but as volunteers and board members. Josh has always led that charge. It was about six years ago that THP expanded it capabilities into content marketing. One...
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I think I speak for most of the world when I say that COVID-19 kicked us into a realm of massive uncertainty, leaving control-freaks like me longing for the pre-pandemic halcyon days when things were, how do you say, normal. These days, owned content is one of the few places where you can still achieve complete and utter control. When it comes to developing original content, you’re in the driver’s seat. Chances are, if you have a content marketing strategy...
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When I first read the headlines that Tesla had disbanded its internal PR department, my mind returned to a story in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call back in the 1980s when I was a congressional press secretary. The gist of the piece was about the perceived growth of the communications function on the Hill – the trending surfeit of press secretaries, communications directors, press aides, speech writers and the like (obviously well before the arrival of bloggers and tweeters...
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Frankly, I didn’t think I had to write this blog. I didn’t think I needed to remind public relations professionals of the basic fundamentals of event planning. But of course, this is 2020, so… Implausibly, inexplicably, inconceivably, there it was. In broad daylight. A press conference of such colossal consequence that it held the potential to upend the unyielding march toward determining the next president of the United States. With so much on the line, and with a campaign’s credibility...
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