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Casey Prentice

Six tips for developing a higher education crisis communication plan 

Creating a communications crisis plan is like writing your will. You know you should, but the thought of willingly putting yourself in a nightmarish situation that hasn’t even happened yet isn’t exactly the best motivator. And as much as I hate to break it to you, that’s the exact reason why you need to have a plan in place, because when that crisis strikes – and it is a when not an if – you aren’t going to have the time to strategize and think because…

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Pros and cons of boosting organic content vs. launching dark ads on social media 

Over the last several years, I’ve found myself in front of rooms of social media marketers and PR professionals vocalizing my disdain for the term “boosting” because it is often a signal to me that people are leveraging the Boost button instead of applying concrete strategy. When it comes to social media advertising, boosting can be a loose cannon – if used strategically, boosting could work wonders, but if you are boosting ad hoc, you might as well be throwing dollars out the window.  A quick…

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Check on your social media strategists, because it’s a whirlwind out there

What is equal parts vigorously exciting and incredibly annoying is the pace at which social media evolves. All it takes is one algorithm change or one business acquisition to throw off your entire strategy. Lucky for us (insert sarcastic face here), we’ve been hit with both in recent weeks. Because of the rapidly changing social media landscape, by the time we hit “publish” on this post, there is a good chance new information will be released, and this will be outdated. But just the same,…

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Public relations for industry associations – a gold mine of material

Content is all around us, you just have to know where to mine it. And when it comes to industry associations, they’re gold mines for PR and marketing folks looking to generate content and pitch the media. At Hodges, we love working with associations because it makes our jobs infinitely easier. Why? Because we’re not just working with one client; we’re considering every member of that association a client contact in some way – and when we and the association succeeds, so do the members….

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Sean & Josh on Media Relations

Teaming Up, Episode 10: Josh & Sean on Media Relations Myths

Media relations is one of the most essential functions of public relations, but there are many misconceptions about how it all works and what strategies will be the most effective in getting media coverage for your client. In this episode, Josh, co-founder of The Hodges Partnership, and Sean, vice president of media relations, take a look into some of the most commonly believed myths about national media relations and teach us some best practices to start using in our own work. Here are the five…

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Hodges is hiring a digital strategist; are you looking for a new career?

If you looked for “digital strategist” jobs on LinkedIn this morning, you probably saw listings more than 16,000 positions across the country. Well, we’ve added one new job listing to that total as we look to expand our social media marketing and content marketing within our agency. Here is the link to the job description with details on how to apply. That tells you everything you really need to know, but as the account director who is helping shape the digital direction at Hodges, here’s…

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Our content marketing lessons learned from The Gong Blog in 2021

Let’s start with a promise that this isn’t some braggadocious blog post showing off our top performing blog posts of the year. We wouldn’t do that to you. We do, however, want to share a few content marketing lessons learned from looking at our top blog posts in 2021. You may (or may not, if you’re familiar with SEO) be surprised that some of our greatest hits were written years ago but remain among the top traffic drivers to our blog. Playing the SEO Long…

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Teaming Up, Episode 6: Jon & Tony on Podcasts

“Whenever there’s a new tactic, it’s like there’s a new toy, and everybody’s gotta have one.” Podcasts have become super popular, especially due to Spotify and easy accessibility on smart devices. But many businesses who are interested in podcasts don’t consider what actually goes into making one and maintaining it. For Episode 6 of Teaming Up, Jon Newman and Tony Scida offer their perspective as to what companies should consider when they’re thinking about podcasting. Here are some quick takeaways from their conversation: Consider your…

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Advice for creating content from our in-house content creators

If you’re creating content for an editorial calendar in 15 minutes or less, you’re not doing it right. Full stop. The fact is, when you’re curating third-party stories, crafting posts to support your key messages and value propositions and finding ways to transform long-form content into smaller, digestible chunks – that takes time. We’re incredibly lucky to have a melting pot of talent at Hodges when it comes to content creation – whether it’s crafting craft quippy social media content or delving deeper on more…

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Screen grab of Umgas Article about Skarsgards being Swedish Kardashians

The ROI of a great content marketing strategy

Two years ago when I spent 30 minutes writing an article about the Skarsgård family being the Swedish Kardashians, I would have never dreamed it would still be getting website traffic. And not just single views, I’m talking multiple thousands of views with ZERO promotion. But that’s the long game – and payoff – of a solid content marketing strategy. Back in 2015, we helped our client at Swedish Match North America launch a storytelling platform to help share Swedish-American stories and news. For four…

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Screengrab of an Instagram post from The Hodges Partnership featuring five woman in masks from an in-person tour of the agency.

The difference between social media and social media marketing

On the surface, the difference between social media and social media marketing can be simplified with the qualifier of, “Is there paid dollars to support this?” You’re not wrong, but that synthesis is just scratching the surface. I recently attended a webinar with our social management platform partner Falcon.io that brought in the Toyota UK social media content team to talk about its strategy for social. Granted, they have the luxury of having a global brand with a massive number of potential customers, but I…

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Data changes that affect digital marketers

Chances are, digital marketers reading any industry news in the last couple of months, are aware that data privacy is getting tighter – here in Virginia and around the world. On the heels of a recent AMA Richmond conversation, we wanted to share a couple of data privacy and marketing-related items that have us shaking in our cleats. Virginia adds data privacy law Surely GDPR is something you’ve heard about, and you’re probably popping aspirin daily for the headache it causes if your organization has…

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