Articles Written By:

Caroline L. Platt

Video and B2B Marketing

You’ve likely heard the buzz: video is increasingly important for B2B marketers. Check out these findings from Forbes: More than 80% of senior executives said they are watching more online video today than they were a year ago. Three-quarters (75%) of executives surveyed said they watch work-related videos on business-related websites at least weekly; more than half (52%) watch work-related videos on YouTube at least weekly. Work-related video can drive senior executives to take action. Overall, 65% have visited a vendor’s website after watching a…

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Behind the Hit: FCEDA in The Atlantic

Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA), a long-time THP client, promotes Fairfax County, Virginia, as a business location. The FCEDA has been so successful in its efforts that TIME magazine declared Fairfax “one of the greatest economic success stories of our time.” THP is tasked with trying to top that kind of national media coverage each year through media outreach to outlets like Fortune, WSJ, USAToday, HBR, CNBC, FoxBusiness, CNN and others. We pitched the results of the FCEDA’s “Creativity Gap” survey to Bourree Lam at…

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Wikinomics and the importance of sharing

One of the most influential books I’ve read in my career is Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott. You know those books where you can still remember just where you were, what you were doing and what you were feeling as you read them? Well, this one ranked up there for me and I think about it to this day. Wikinomics is about breaking down barriers. It describes a new kind of economy where sharing knowledge and expertise and trusting that others…

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Using LinkedIn company pages like a pro

I recently taught a class on LinkedIn at the University of Richmond. The two-hour class was offered through the University of Richmond’s Institute on Philanthropy (IOP). Kathy Laing manages this program and we’d met through a local Gettysburg College booster (Kathy is a Gettysburg alum). I wanted to write about the class for two reasons: IOP is a great program and Kathy is awesome. If you’re a non-profit seeking continuing education in communications, marketing or fundraising, I highly recommend you seek out this unique program…

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From the Top Down to Bottoms Up: A Conversation with Greg Gilligan

Last Monday afternoon we were thrilled to host Greg Gilligan of The Richmond Times-Dispatch for lunch. If you don’t know the long-time business reporter, creator of the Biz Buzz column and now business editor at the T-D, then you’re really missing out.  Here are four insights Greg shared with us over Bottoms Up pizza: Research reporters before you pitch them. A perennial plea from journalists of all kinds, Greg emphasized this PR 101 tip because it’s so very, very important. If you’ve ever heard Greg talk…

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PR and the selfie seen ‘round the world

​I love watching the Academy Awards, from the red carpet to Best Picture. And I think we’ve all come to the consensus that the 86th annual Academy Awards, Ellen’s performance in particular, were particularly well-done and entertaining. Ellen did a terrific job of engaging her audience in the auditorium and, in doing so, offering the viewing audience a sense that we were all in on a great joke. Most notably, the “selfie” seen ‘round the world was, I believe, a moment of live-television genius; a…

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When you change your clocks, change your smoke alarm batteries

Remember: Daylight savings is also the time to check your smoke detectors Last year, around this time, my husband and I had a house fire. It was pretty big, pretty serious. I was seven months pregnant and made it out (along with my husband and two dogs, safely) just as black smoke started pouring into our bedroom and just before the roof leapt into flames. What undoubtedly saved our lives was a smoke alarm. And so I read Wired’s article on the new Nest smoke alarm…

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PR at Warp 10

As Jon Newman has pointed out, some of us are rather fond of Star Trek references here at The Hodges Partnership. Personally, I’ve been known to watch a little Star Trek Voyager. In one of the worst episodes of that series, titled “Threshold,” Tom Paris successfully breaks the Warp 10 barrier and soon thereafter realizes he’s transforming into a pink salamander. I thought of this episode as I considered the speed at which organizations must make communications decisions when faced with fast-escalating scandals. Things can…

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