Over the first half of this year we've had the opportunity to work with a number of clients as they expand their presence and communities on Facebook. In some cases, we have designed fun contests with viral elements. In others we have created customized landing pages for designed to inform, driving traffic, increase community and extend the client's brand. After some learning, I'm comfortable enough with our own experience to share those experiences and talk about what has worked and things to keep our eyes…
Read MoreI have been an on-again, off-again fan of the AMC series “Mad Men” since its debut but each year I try to re-engage because it is my wife’s “appointment” TV show. So you didn’t have to twist my arm last night to still down to the season premiere, especially since it was titled “public relations.” (SPOILER ALERT) In the episode, the folks at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, explore what I like to call the “Two Golden Sins of Public Relations.” There are really more than…
Read MoreMost people who know me know when I refer to “The Boss” I’m usually referring to the E-Street Band variety. But growing up in the New York City area in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s you could hardly avoid exposure to another “Boss” who passed away today. You have to go back to the days of my youth in the late 60’s and early 70’s to remember a time when the Yankees sucked. As a Mets fan, it happily dovetailed with the Mets heyday. For…
Read MoreEditor’s note: This is a guest post from Stacey Brucia, commonly known at The Hodges Partnership as “employee number one.” Stacey works for THP in Seattle. We blame her husband for that. Usually, my gripes about Apple are purely personal – and from the typical consumer standpoint: Husband calls. Speak for two minutes. Dropped call. Repeat. (Until we got so frustrated here in Seattle that he has now switched back to Verizon, and our Apple love is restricted to the coveted iPad.) But in working…
Read MoreIn the spirit of full disclosure I'm a long-time Knicks fan from the Willis, Clyde and Red days and vividly remember as a kid watching Reed limp out of the locker room, hit the two shots, and the Knicks winning the championship. So my writing is clouded, albeit slightly. Other than the Miami Heat, there were no PR winners coming out of last night's Lebron-A-Thon. In some cases, those involved may never recover from the events of the last few days. It was likely one…
Read MoreWith this blog post I am officially declaring the social media learning curve over….done…finis. Okay so while some will think I'm crazy, over the last six months our experience with clients and perspective clients has shown that this is the case. Sure, they (and we) don't know everything, we all never will, but there is no longer the gap that existed last year. Most not only know about basic social media platforms and participate on them personally and professionally but they are ready for the…
Read MoreOkay, so it all started when I had to add two new people to our American Express card account. Five minutes later everyone in the office was getting cards with different colors and they all came in the mail in nice looking envelopes. It had been a very busy period at The Hodges Partnership and also a very successful period, so we figured in addition to giving out the cards, we'd give everyone a $100 reward for all the hard work. Hey, they needed to break…
Read MoreThe most difficult thing about creating a “personal” brand is deciding when to cash in on the equity you have built with it for business purposes. For that reason I have been careful over the life of this blog not to be overly promotional about the work we do at The Hodges Partnership. It’s not because I’m not incredibly proud of the work we do, but because I didn’t want this blog to just be a promotional tool for the agency. The same goes for…
Read MoreThanks to Jeff Wilson from our friends at CRT-Tanaka for Tweeting about this Shel Holtz article on how PR is “winning the battle” over the control over social media in most organizations. This continues to validate the thoughts of many (including me) that PR is best positioned to manage social media activities for all the reasons Shel and the folks at the Annenberg School outline in the study and in his piece. Apologies to our friends at ad agencies or IT firms, but given our…
Read MoreIt’s happened… Facebook has met Disney and the future of social commerce will never be the same. As reported in the New York Times this morning, Disney has launched “Disney Tickets Together” on Facebook. In advance of the opening of Toy Story 3, the new application on the Toy Story fan page, not only lets you buy tickets for the movie at your local theater in advance, it also gives you the opportunity to invite your friends to go with you. While Disney isn’t the…
Read MoreJust a quick note reflecting on the end of two of my “appointment” TV shows in the last two days and how their main characters were true to their personal brands (SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO ARE CATCHING UP ON DVR’s) The two “Jacks,” Jack Bauer on 24 and Dr. Jack Shephard on “LOST” remained true to those brands till the very end. Whether you liked the endings in either case or not, Bauer stuck to his guns (literally) as the defender of truth justice…
Read MoreIs Facebook on a path to self-destruction? Likely not, but if you were having some of the same conversations I’ve been having with folks this week, you can feel the rising sense of frustration folks feel about the 500-million pound gorilla these days. First came the well-documented concerns over privacy issues since CEO Mark Zuckerberg basically asked the question “privacy, who cares about privacy?” This lead to a Time Magazine cover story and Zuckerberg’s open letter today which address changes that Facebook is planning in the…
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