The Gong Blog

Topic: Public Relations

Women’s History Month: Celebrating some of the women who keep Hodges moving forward

Happy Women’s History Month! This month, and every month,is an excellent time to celebrate the women in our lives and reflect on those who fought for our equality (and continue to!) As a public relations agency comprised of over 60% women, we view Women’s History Month as an opportunity to celebrate the women around us. We work alongside powerful and influential women every day, not among our clients but on our team as well. According to the Public Relations Review, women dominate the PR field,…

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Community relations: What brands want from a nonprofit partner

One of the most rewarding and fulfilling aspects of public relations lies in the realm of community relations. When brands and causes align, great things can happen. Whether it’s building playgrounds in underserved communities or committing to ending hunger, the benefits of a well-coordinated community relations strategy are far reaching. On the agency side of the equation, we often serve as the conduit between the brand and the cause. Depending upon where our clients are in their community relations journey, we either collaborate to determine…

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A stack of newspapers sit on a wooden table

Five questions to ask before you pitch to national media outlets

Early in our conversations with prospective clients, we come to the inevitable question about their expectations, particularly in the area of media relations. Just where would they like to see stories placed about their company or work? Their answers can be enough to take the air out of the room. When a company that specializes in inventory management software, for example, starts ticking off media relations targets like the TODAY Show or The Wall Street Journal or even daily newspapers where they have neither offices…

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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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When you do business with the companies you’re passionate about, everybody wins

At The Hodges Partnership, we have a great group of community-minded individuals who quietly (sure, call us modest) serve the Richmond community through a variety of board positions and other community-related activities. It’s something that drew me to Hodges because community involvement is something I’m passionate about. I take pride in the fact that I’m able to work with a group who shares that enthusiasm. Fortunately, it’s not just outside of the office that we’re able to make an impact on the Richmond community and…

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Empty Tesla Charging Station

Tesla unplugs from PR: Why that’s a bad move

When I first read the headlines that Tesla had disbanded its internal PR department, my mind returned to a story in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call back in the 1980s when I was a congressional press secretary. The gist of the piece was about the perceived growth of the communications function on the Hill – the trending surfeit of press secretaries, communications directors, press aides, speech writers and the like (obviously well before the arrival of bloggers and tweeters and the cottage industry of…

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Closeup of shovel in dirt

Not enough fertilizer could help that campaign news conference

Frankly, I didn’t think I had to write a blog about a train wreck news conference. I didn’t think I needed to remind public relations professionals of the basic fundamentals of event planning. But of course, this is 2020, so… Implausibly, inexplicably, inconceivably, there it was. In broad daylight. A press conference of such colossal consequence that it held the potential to upend the unyielding march toward determining the next president of the United States. With so much on the line, and with a campaign’s…

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Monday is the deadline for this easy-to-apply scholarship for PR students

I proudly serve as the president of the Richmond Public Relations Foundation. Every year, we give out three $1,500 scholarships to public relations students in Virginia. The deadline to apply is this Monday, Oct. 12 at 11:59 EST. If you’re a junior or senior, I hope you’ll consider submitting materials. Get all the details here. Applying is easy. You’ll need to submit a one-page essay focused on “why you want to work in PR and how you have prepared yourself for a career in communications,”…

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And here comes the pitch

It is often said that baseball is a game of failure. After all, even the best hitters fail 70 percent of the time.  Or as the legend Ted Williams said, “Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.” Media relations is like baseball. It, too, is a game of failure. Singles and doubles – a quote in the local newspaper or a quick interview on the local news – take…

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hand holding iphone with all the social icons on the screen

The PR effects of cancel culture

If preparing for cancel culture isn’t part of your social media crisis planning, it should be. Cancelling is a way for an individual or a collective to publicly call out and demand accountability to everyone and everything – from individuals to big brands and organizations. When you can’t bring down the system, you can chip away at it by canceling those on top. (In case “being cancelled” is something you haven’t heard of, read this primer by Vox.) From a 1991 Wesley Snipe movie to a 2014…

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What We Heard: COVID-19 PR & Marketing Survey Results

A few weeks ago, we asked the Virginia PR and marketing community to participate in our survey to assess how COVID-19 has impacted our profession. We were fortunate to have 139 professionals respond – and if that includes you, thank you!  At this point, it’s more than a little trite to simply say COVID-19 has impacted our profession. Not to mention the additional unrest. Months into the pandemic, that’s a well-established reality. Some of the most pressing questions we’re now looking to answer include, to…

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Pandemic already changing how we communicate

I connected recently with a professional acquaintance with whom I hadn’t spoken for at least a year. In my email, I suggested that we catch up by phone, and he countered by saying that he’d send me a Zoom link so that we could converse like the Jetsons used to – face to face but from a distance. The exchange struck me as one manifestation from the coronavirus that is already changing how we interact with one another. The cameras in our cellphones and laptops…

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