The Gong Blog

When we celebrate wins at Hodges, we bang the gong. Our blog is home to wins and winning advice for our clients and friends.

Badlands boy

On Sunday, I won’t be rooting for the Steelers, or the Cardinals.  I will be rooting for halftime. On Monday, I have already cancelled a meeting and probably pissed off my business partner.  You see at 10am sharp I HAVE to be in front of my computer with three browser screens open and and hands poised for action.  That’s when tickets for the next Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band tour go on sale. No, I’m not one of those people who can recite…

Digesting Shankman

As you probably can imagine, I have been thinking a lot about social marketing in the wake of Peter Shankman’s visit and our event.  The “thinking” has been helped along by a follow-up presentation by the wonderful Shonali Burke in a presentation to a client in Northern Virginia on Wednesday and by meetings and conversations with others including other clients over the course of the last few days. While the good wishes and good thoughts from others keep coming our way, so does the reality…

Shankman 4 Things – Shankman in Richmond

Wow.  This has been a pretty incredible morning.  We at THP would like to once again thank everyone who braved nasty weather to hear HARO’s Peter Shankman speak this morning.  We raised about $3000 and all had our social marketing consciences raised as well. Thanks also to Jen Pounders who sent over the yummy Two Sweet Cupcakes (shameless plug for more in the future) after the event.  He ate one and was bummed he couldn’t take the rest on the plane. Now for the good stuff. …

Shankman in Richmond on Tuesday

I just wanted to thank the 150 or so folks who have registered for the “Shankman in Richmond” event on Tuesday morning (7:30 nosh, 8:00 program begins) at WCVE’s studios.  The folks at THP and the Community Idea Stations are very excited about hosting and even more excited that all the proceeds will go to FightSMA.org.  (Editor’s note:  For now we are ignoring calls for bad weather on Tuesday but for those who have registered, we will be sending email updates tomorrow and Tuesday AM if…

How I explained social marketing to myself so I can explain it to others

Do you ever “know” something in your head, can envision how it works, but when it comes time to take it through step-by-step it is hard to explain? That’s how I felt about explaining social marketing until I reached out to the Twittersphere and found the calming words of Julie Bonn Heath (Julie’s blog) and Sonali Burke (Shonali’s blog).  They urged me to trust my instincts and apply my PR 1.0 thinking to explaining the new social marketing world of PR 2.0. What helped me explain…

My teachers in the 2.0 world

It’s pretty hard to learn if you don’t identify your teachers.  In school, they were for the most part either chosen for you or limited to the school you went to, your major, or in my case the time of day the classes started. In this new world, you can sample the teachings of many.  Blogging on the web has made that world a lot easier, as has the world of Google searching and SM launch pads like Twitter.  Over the last few months, I have…

PR 1.5 and the end of journalist competition?

One of the many things I love about Twitter is the ability to share ideas and thoughts about marketing with people from literally all over the world.  It’s great to hear different points of view from marketing vets to those still in school. One such moment came the other day in the form of a Twitter reply from @tyfn or as he is known to his friends, Phillip Jeffrey from Vancouver.  Phillip posted “@jonnew The future of news may be in collaborative efforts (e.g. pooled…

Old dog learning….

If I look back a year from now and can point back to one period of time when I made the quantum leap in my journey from PR 1.0 to PR 2.0 (+), I will likely be pointing back to this week. This is the week where everything sort of clicked in.  This week I: Approached 500 people following me on Twitter (I know for some that’s not a big deal but for me it is). Used my new found Twitter friends to make connections…

What can we learn from Tagalongs and Samoas

Guilty as charged.  Today I succumed to the annual disease that hit all parents of small girls with brown vests and patches, the dreaded “I want to help my daughter kick ass and sell the most Girl Scout cookies in her troop” disease.  I apologize to everyone who read by FB status and pledged to buy boxes out of friendship or pity.  You can recind your order if you wish.   Not that she needed help.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  She…

The PR person of the future and the dreaded I word

Eveytime anyone describes anything with the phrase “——— of the future” I’m reminded of the old Honeymoomers skit (me, dating myself), where Norton asks “Can it core a apple?” and Ralph “hamene, hamene’s” his way through the rest of the 1950’s style infomercial. In this “mashed up” world of marketing (more on mashed up in a few) where the blur between advertising, public relations, design, social and viral marketing, etc. is increasing by the second, I find that many folks in those disicplines answer with…

INews? Is this the future of newspaper?

A couple of posts ago I made my fearless prediction of 2009, that one major newspaper would go to an online only model and give permission to the industry to follow along. In his column today, David Carr of the New York Times speculates on an ITunes-type model, where people would pay-per-article like they pay for songs. Interesting idea and one of many being kicked around in publisher’s offices across the country.  Another is the Sporting News Today model, where a newspaper-looking file is delivered…

Advice from the guy on the other side of the….

Okay, I’ll admit it.  I used to avoid meeting with folks for information interviews like it was “the plague.”  I thought that my time was better off spent doing the work that clients were paying me to do than spending time in what is sometimes an awkward situation for both parties. I credit my business partner for teaching me (even though he probably doesn’t realize it) that there is great value for the interviewer.  I have gained great insight into the state of the PR…

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