I’ve talked before on our blog about how thankful I am to have ongoing professional development opportunities here at Hodges. Joining media relations and writing coach Michael Smart’s Inner Circle in 2021 has been incredibly valuable to me, particularly the monthly master classes and Inner Circle Facebook group where members can ask questions and share advice. One of my favorite sessions each year is the December session on lessons learned from the best pitches of the last year. Members submit their best pitches,...
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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...
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Whether she is coaching travel volleyball or seeing her favorite alternative bands in concert, Amanda Christian has her finger on RVA’s pulse. After graduating from JMU in 2020 with a degree in communications, she joined The Hodges Partnership as an intern, then came back to join the ranks of former-interns-turned-Hodgers this fall. With unwavering ambition, joining our team most recently from Virginia’s Wine Board, she has already propelled herself into a successful career in public relations. Without further ado, if...
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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...
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For nonprofits, those precious, tax-deductible, unrestricted, end-of-year gifts represent one of your largest appeal campaigns of the year. Development appeals can take many shapes and forms, but if you have a donor that sends donations to several places, you’re competing with other nonprofit organizations for those funds. That’s why leveraging owned data is the key to success in your outreach – and we’re giving you three ways to use that data to your advantage. Targeted, tailored social media campaigns You...
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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...
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Every year during performance reviews, you can ask almost anyone in our office, and they will likely tell you one of their goals is to complete a certification or training. But the reality is, it can be extremely hard to get that done. When you have client work and life demands, it’s difficult to work the professional development that so many of us want – and need— into the week. Enter: HodgesCon. HodgesCon came about as a way to protect...
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He’s baa-aack. Faithful readers of these pages may remember Andrew Knight. He interned with Hodges back in 2020. At the time, he was simultaneously pursuing his M.A in Communication at Virginia Tech and teaching public speaking. A couple years later, we are excited to welcome him back to the team. Through his upbeat personality and optimistic perspective, Andrew brings great energy to the office. To balance the fast-paced nature of agency life, he enjoys spending time on the river. He loves...
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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...
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Creating a communications crisis plan is like writing your will. You know you should, but the thought of willingly putting yourself in a nightmarish situation that hasn’t even happened yet isn’t exactly the best motivator. And as much as I hate to break it to you, that’s the exact reason why you need to have a plan in place, because when that crisis strikes – and it is a when not an if – you aren’t going to have the time...
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Trying to be everything to everyone is a recipe for disaster. People often have conflicting needs, and individuals—or organizations for that matter—only have so much time and attention. Trying to appease everyone is difficult even in the best of times, but in a crisis, not knowing how to prioritize your stakeholders will compound the problems facing your team at an already stressful time. However, before you can start prioritizing stakeholders, you first need to know who they are. Identifying...
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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...
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