Everywhere you scroll nowadays, you will inevitably encounter a large chunk of advertisements all over your social media feeds. These ads, often carefully curated by hard-working marketing teams across the world, know you intimately and focus on your wants, needs, interests and everything in between. Amid this sea of ads lies a distinct category – social, political and election ads. These ads serve not only as marketing tools but also as vehicles for advocacy and public discourse. As you might expect, behind these ads…
Read MoreThe landscape of digital marketing continues to evolve (at a faster rate than ever these days), but our philosophy remains the same: compelling storytelling that is rooted in strategy and data-driven insights. As channels multiply and opportunities to engage audiences expand, our approach focuses on generating high-value, high-quality content that evokes emotions, nudging audiences toward meaningful actions. In this post, we’ll share some of the key principles and successful examples that highlight the effectiveness of our digital marketing strategies. Strategic Storytelling Digital marketing comprises a…
Read MoreA couple of weeks ago, Colonial Williamsburg’s partnership with Williamsburg’s historic First Baptist Church was featured on The Today Show. Colonial Williamsburg, the world’s largest living history museum, began an excavation of what’s been determined to be the first permanent structure of First Baptist Church, one of the nation’s oldest Black churches, in September of 2020. The Today Show shared early findings in a piece during Black History Month in 2021. I’ve been working in media relations for more than 20 years. National morning show features (or even mentions)…
Read MoreAdvocating for your cause doesn’t need to be complicated. However, there are a few ways you can make your efforts more effective and long-lasting. If your public relations effort is weighing heavy on the public affairs side of things, then you’ll want to jot down these five tips. Make friends before you need them If an advocacy day in the General Assembly or on Capitol Hill is the first time you are meeting your elected official, you may already be behind the eight ball. Get…
Read MoreEditor’s Note: As part of the 20th anniversary of The Hodges Partnership, we are taking a more intimate look at the agency’s namesake and why co-founders Jon Newman and Josh Dare chose to honor Gil Hodges with the company’s name. Here is the latest installment. You can catch up on the previous piece here. Among the varied objectives for hiring a public relations agency, reputation management ranks among the foremost. Sure, clients want greater visibility and added exposure, and they want to turn the volume…
Read MoreWith a mask in tow and hand sanitizer and business cards in my pocket, I attended my first in-person conference since the start of the pandemic last summer. Seeing a registration table and a breakfast buffet sparked a latent delight I forgot I missed in between Zooms and working from home. The opportunity to meet new people, in-person again – a joy to my PR world. But as I haphazardly said, “great!” before someone asked how I was doing and stumbled through a few introductions,…
Read MoreBeing a PR professional married to a (music) therapist can be a humbling experience. I’m the professional persuasive communicator, but routinely she’s the one teaching me how to communicate effectively. This is more a testament to my personality rather than my profession, but I routinely approach a difficult situation wanting to be right, whereas she is seeking reconciliation. First in that process is empathy, something that is woefully undereducated in PR programs and underappreciated by young and old professionals alike. It’s by no means an…
Read MoreI’m a big proponent of taking time to think about the big picture when it comes to establishing and working toward your marketing, PR and overall business goals. After the New Year comes and goes, too often we’re all guilty of letting go of those big picture goals that we had set out for the year. All too often, we find ourselves getting trapped in the weeds of the day to day. Big picture goals, of course, aren’t tactical goals like posting on your blog…
Read MoreWhen it comes to B2B marketing on social platforms, there is something almost Pavlovian about the way many marketers default to LinkedIn. Intuitively, it may make sense. LinkedIn is the platform where you wear your work clothes. It’s where your posts showcase your business acumen, where you interact with like-minded professionals. Think of it as a giant online Rotary Club. Meet the right people, and there are deals to be had, jobs to be won. But LinkedIn may not always be the right choice, even…
Read MoreThe following is a guest post by Steve Kimball of the Chasm Group. The Digital Transformation of businesses is well underway and has fundamentally changed how customers buy. Digital Go-To-Market has now become table stakes. How you Go-To-Market has become just as important as what you sell. Orchestrating the Go-To-Market effort as a single motion across Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success is the key to sustainable success. High-growth businesses, those that experience 30 percent or greater year-over-year growth, share four common attributes. 1. They have…
Read MoreCubicles physically wall us off from our surroundings. Headphones help us stay heads down and focused. These physical barriers aren’t bad things, for some of us it’s what helps us generate our best work, but they often hinder our abilities to come together and have an open dialogue as an efficient, effective and cohesive unit. With the natural segmentation that occurs in an office setting, making a concentrated effort to open the lines of communication and taking the time to share knowledge with one another…
Read MoreWe’ve seen the stats: There are far more of us than there are of them. By us, I mean PR professionals; by them, I mean members of the media. Because of that hard truth, the already tough task of pitching ideas to the media has been made even harder as our industry has grown and theirs has shrunk, thanks in part to many former journalists coming over to the PR side as I did more than a dozen years ago. Remember, more of us means…
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