Cameron McPherson is the embodiment of Richmond PR (but he’d be too humbled to make that claim). Cam is a born and bred Richmonder. A proud Ram, he has worked throughout the community in his role at The Hodges Partnership and through numerous service opportunities. He is the most recent past president in PRSA Richmond, he’s on the board of Side by Side and he lends PR support to Family Lifeline and Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. He is the go-to guy when it comes to higher education and nonprofit media relations. The fruits of his labor can be seen in …
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All too often we are approached by clients who struggle to initiate and maintain an ongoing content marketing program. Typically, it’s not that they don’t recognize the value of such a program, it’s more a gnawing fear of how they will find the time to implement what is likely a time-consuming strategy. After all, it’s usually our friends in the marketing and communications departments who often shoulder the entire brunt of the effort, without a lot of help from the rest of their organization. What most don’t realize though is that in order to be successful, they are going to need a …
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We all know the benefits of a well-placed story in the media. Part of the earned-owned-paid trilogy of public relations, earned media can be wildly successful at raising your awareness and enhancing your credibility. And by effectively merchandising media hits on digital platforms, you can amplify that success even more. Timely placements also can help boost SEO, complement your content marketing plan and serve as an important leg of your overall marketing program. It also gives employees (and your employer) a sense of pride in your organization – after all, who wouldn’t want to see their company featured in local …
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We know where our strengths lie. We also know when and where we can bring in one of our expert partners who can help bring one of our strategies to life. When it comes to on-site video production, we often turn to Dave Park Productions Services to get the job done. He’s helped us with everything from seated interviews with senior executives to rural location shoots, capturing the sparks – literally – of employees working at a Virginia welding shop. Join us as we catch up with Dave away from the lens about his work and the video industry. Who …
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If you’re trying to reach one of us on the last Wednesday of the month, especially at lunch time, you may be out of luck. When it comes to attending the monthly PRSA Richmond luncheon, we’re all in. After all, three Hodgers are on the board of directors and another three are active (and former board) members themselves. What can we say, we love a good professional development opportunity. Kicking off this year’s programming calendar, which is organized by Lindsay O’Bar, first vice president of professional development, was a popular topic: employee engagement, featuring Natalie Smith, APR and Julie McCracken …
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More than a few years back, we had a client that had an aversion to social media. A small government agency, it was intrigued by the idea of being able to post its news directly to its constituencies on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. After all, such tools were changing – and have changed – the face of public relations and put several target-seeking arrows into the PR quiver. But when the agency realized that citizens would be able to comment on its otherwise oh-so-positive news, it put on the brakes, recoiling over the prospect of John Q. Public not …
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With apologies to Weiden + Kennedy, whose Nike spot featuring Colin Kaepernick was no doubt the most talked-about spot in 2018, my choice for marketer of the year reflects a strategy that is older than marketing itself and yet has now reached such a critical mass and level of sophistication that it’s difficult to point to anything else that is as effective. I’m talking about influencers. Influencers, of course, have been around for a long time. Asking your friends and neighbors for a recommendation on a plumber or cat food or a financial planner, that’s leaning on them as an …
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Social media influencer marketing has become an increasingly popular tactic, with influencer campaigns on Instagram increasing nearly 200 percent last year. If your organization is new to the world of influencer marketing, you might be wondering what kind of results you can expect, especially if you work for a B2C company. Influencer marketing is a vague term that can mean different things to different people, but for the purpose of this blog post, influencer marketing is the practice of sharing your product with influential individuals on social media (sometimes they have blogs as well) with the intent of having those …
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If you’re not including video in your content marketing and social media strategy in 2019, do yourself a favor and stop reading this and start planning. Video content is becoming critically important in today’s social media landscape, and we’re not just saying this as marketers. There is data to prove it: Animoto found that 64 percent of consumers made a purchase after watching a branded video on Facebook. Aberdeen discovered that brands who utilize video see their revenue increase 49 percent faster than companies that don’t. Cisco predicts that video will account for 82 percent of global internet traffic. While …
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We’re rolling out a new series on the Gong Blog, and we couldn’t think of a better way to kick off the series than with an introduction to our newest Hodger, Evans Mandes. He joined the team at the end of 2018 and has hit the ground running. Chances are you haven’t met Evans yet, so to give you a head start, here’s a chance to get to know a little more about him. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I was born and raised in Northern Virginia, and I grew up playing baseball and golf. Still to this …
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