I was asked by a new client years ago, “What makes a good client?” The question took me aback. I’d always focused on being a good (if not great) agency; now here was someone on the client side (where I spent more than half my career) putting some of the onus of the success of the relationship on themselves. It was a smart question. Now, years later, here’s my answer… No TODAY Show-itis We used to say that the three warning signs that we were…
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I was talking the other day to a longtime journalist who, about a year ago, came over to the “dark side.” He took a position doing public relations for a nonprofit organization. His role as head of communications is not atypical – media relations, writing content, organizing webinars and a dash of community relations thrown in. Like many journalists, he has made the transition seamlessly, and the skills that he had as a reporter have translated well to PR. He’s enjoyed not having daily tight…
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I spent the first half of my career – if my math is right, about 22 years – on the client side, toiling in our profession in the government, at corporations and with startups. Most of that time, our communications resources were pretty self-contained – that is, we did what we could with the staffs and budgets that we had. There were occasions, however, when we looked beyond our walls for some added assistance. And there were three primary reasons we would retain a public…
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After more than five years of employing the EOP (earned, owned, paid) public relations model – for our clients and ourselves – I set aside some time to contemplate whether the paradigm had run its course, whether it was time to move on to new strategies and new ways of thinking. Short answer: It’s not. The EOP model (some call it the PESO model by adding “shared” into the mix) is every bit as effective today as it’s ever been. The combination of these interconnected…
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Blogging is a two-way street. As much as you can busy yourself with plans for new, yet-to-be-written blogs and fill editorial calendars with content ideas, it’s just as useful to take a look in the rear-view mirror at some of your past blogs to see which ones are engaging your audiences most. In that spirit, here are some excerpts from our top five most-read Gong Blogs from 2022: 1. Five Examples of Media Interviews Gone Wrong. Our most popular blog of the year actually was…
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Social media platforms have emerged as some of the most effective tools for public relations practitioners. Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn provide us with receptive avenues for reaching target audiences, for telling stories that help shape brands and showcase a company’s expertise. But information on these platforms does not flow in just one direction. How audiences respond to social media posts tells us a lot about how interested and engaged they are with the nature of the content. Measuring the number of likes and shares…
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This slow-moving car wreck that is Twitter has turned me into a curious rubbernecker – strictly professionally of course. I find myself craning my neck from moment to moment to assess the damage and divine whether there will be any survivors. So often in the near aftermath of such crashes, there remain way more questions than answers. First, a confession: I’m not a big Twitter fan. While I signed up for the platform not long after its launch, I never posted a single tweet nor…
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Let me start by saying that I’m not a big fan of news conferences. I can safely say that the greatest moments of anxiety in my 40-plus years in public relations have been those insufferably long minutes leading up to the beginning of press conference when, despite all the best preparations, there are no reporters around. No camera crews. No sound guys attaching microphones to the podium. No eager journalist wannabes working for the local shopping news. The good news is that today, there are…
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I had lunch with an old friend not long ago who regaled me with the pleasures of retirement, one of which was an indulgence he never made time for – novel writing. By all accounts, he has made a seamless transition from journalist to novelist, a pivot that not everyone can make, but his first works display a flair for fiction – for storytelling and characters and drama – and I found myself eagerly turning page after page. When I asked him about finding an…
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One element of a productive content strategy is effectively repurposing your messaging on various platforms. After all, you only have so many stories and only so much expertise, so the trick is to find multiple ways and places where you can tell those stories. That’s what helps keep the content pipeline filled on all fronts. At Hodges, those fronts run the gamut – from our monthly e-newsletter (Press Box) to our video podcast (Teaming Up) to the Gong Blog, all of which help populate our various…
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By the time you are reading this, Gil Hodges – our agency namesake – will have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. The old saying “good things come to those who wait” seems especially appropriate. Gil’s 18-season playing career ended on May 5, 1963 at the Polo Grounds. Gil trotted out to his familiar territory at first base, starting the second game of a Sunday doubleheader against the Giants. He would go 1-4 in his valedictory game, driving in what turned…
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The Pew Research Center, which regularly tracks the ups and downs of the nation’s newspapers, recently offered some encouraging data. Americans are rediscovering their newspapers…on digital platforms. While print edition readership continues to dip, the traffic to newspapers’ websites has been growing considerably. Digital circulation is up a whopping 30% from 2019 to 2020. Since 2014, when Pew first started tracking online circulations, the average number of unique monthly visitors to local news websites is up 44%. At the same time, many online-only publications are…
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