Is it possible for a month to go by fast and slow all at the same time? April had that vibe for sure, but we were still able to collect some stellar Plays of the Month across the agency. We’re still hard at work on COVID-19 and other crisis-related work, but a few other initiatives help round out this month’s list. Content Marketing We’re long-time partners of Virginia’s Community Colleges, and as higher education has pivoted towards serving students in...
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Do you remember the good ole days when you’d sit in your car during your morning commute, listening to the podcast or two that downloaded to your queue overnight? Maybe you were more of a terrestrial radio listener, clamoring to hear Second Date on 103.7 PLAY as you navigated through downtown Richmond. Times have changed and so have our media consumption habits. Media research groups are all over how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our listening and viewing habits. We’ve...
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We do something every week here at The Hodges Partnership called Plays of the Week (POTW), which is a fun way for us to celebrate successes internally. Every Friday afternoon, an email goes out to our office highlighting some wins from the week. Sometimes it’s a big media hit, other times it’s recognizing someone who is working hard to bring a strategy to life. In the spirit of all things positive, we’re going to start sharing some of our top...
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The Hodges ranks have expanded once again, and we think out of our entire roster, Hannah Robinson has the most interesting “first week at Hodges” stories to date. Hannah’s first day in the office also happened to be her last. You see, she started the day before our office went to full-time teleworking thanks to COVID-19. But even in just a few short weeks, Hannah has become an all star on the team – diving into her account work and...
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Journalists and public relations professionals write under the guiding light of the Associated Press. Every year, the AP publishes its style guide, and practitioners and future PR pros and journalism students are drilled with rules and editing exercises. There are many rules in the guide that don’t sit well with writers and editors alike, but if I had to guess what the most polarizing rule is in the entire book (all 656 pages in this year’s edition) is the use...
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Facebook and Google remain powerhouses in online advertising, but Twitter is gaining ground in the social media space. Twitter reported $702 million in advertising revenue for Q3 2019 and reported 17% growth year-over-year for its Monetizable Daily Active Usage. Aside from being a place where more marketers are spending their ad dollars, Twitter offers advertisers the opportunity to target audiences in different ways than Facebook. Options like follower lookalike and keyword targeting can often provide a better way to reach...
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Y’all. A lot is happening this year. And because it’s going to be a busy year, that means it will likely be an expensive one, especially in the digital marketing space. Why is that? It’s because digital marketers are basically competing with one another when it comes to digital advertising, and with a ton of big events on the horizon – from Virginia and beyond – there’s a lot that can impact your comms strategies, and that impact will likely...
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One of my favorite questions to ask in intern interviews is, “Where do you get your news?” First, it’s always nice to hear the variety of responses, from local outlets to major national organizations, but one answer we hear a lot is just broadly, “Twitter.” Currently, Twitter is still relatively chronological. Like our intern candidates, I also get a lot of my news from Twitter because I follow many outlets and brands, and I’m seeing a feed of news in...
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Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I love reports. I love falling into a big pile of information and pulling it together into something digestible to help my clients, and our team, evaluate our work and make strategic decisions for the next cycle. I’ve worked up reports of all shapes and sizes – for both media relations and content marketing clients, that range from multi-page narratives with lots of charts and graphs, to boiled-down infographic reports –...
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The team here at Hodges knows media relations in Virginia. From the Eastern Shore to Bedford and beyond, there is a level of nuance and finesse needed to navigate the ins and outs of Virginia’s various media outlets, which differ in shape and size. On the surface, media relations may seem like a lot of copy and pasting the same email without much rhyme or reason. But the reality is, there’s a significant amount of planning and strategizing before we...
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Building the perfect sandwich takes precision, finesse, gusto. The same goes for building the perfect report. With the flair of a sous-chef, I’m serving up a recipe for one top-notch report. Start with the bread The bread is what makes the sandwich. It’s the first and last thing you sink your teeth into. Your goals and objectives are the bread. Start your report by reiterating your goals and objectives as a reminder of what the metrics you’re about to present...
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You may know that you have a certain number of dollars in your content marketing budget, but do you know the best way to split that spend? When you clicked on this blog post, you were probably thinking, “Woah, thanks Hodges, this is going to be the answer to all my internal struggles!” Well, not exactly. This is more of a, “WHAT’S IN THE BOX?” or a Pulp Fiction gold-illuminated briefcase kind of deal. We’ve laid out three content marketing...
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