Smith &
Something
People
are
talking.
We help you join the conversation.
Our work falls into these four categories.
Let's make this easy.
PRESS AGENTRY + MEDIA RELATIONS
Here's how:
Expand your engagement through the media. Press, broadcast, blog, and influential publications are an endorsement of your message. I can empower your business with a hand-built list of media contacts suitable for your organization.
I can teach you or your staff the art of on-camera, on-the-record interviewing. I can help you up-purpose your day-to-day content by spreading the news to area media.
Media relations is about cultivating lasting relationships with the press. I can help you garner press coverage for events, openings, and new services in addition to ongoing media alerts and press releases. I can teach you how to be quotable and noteable in the eyes of the media and their subscribers.
Together we can maximize your presence through the age-old fashion of public relations.
INTEGRATED COMMUNICATION
Here's how:
Remember that famous slogan from Visa: "Everywhere you want to be." That's a great promise. The slogan for Integrated Communication should say, "Everywhere your brand should be."
Integrated Communication is the only way to take your branding seriously. "Integrated" is fully functioning. "Integrated" brings together all forms of media from social, digital, print, and paid to create a holistic media landscape for your message. Supported by automation and Ai, we can build a self-driving machine to disseminate your messaging.
Learn how to up-purpose blogs, social posts, press releases, and how to craft a message that works as well on Facebook as it does in a print ad. Learn how to measure your results based on sentiment, reaction, and useful data. Integrated services include auditing your current practice to crafting entire campaigns.
When you're ready to maximize your message, reach out.
WEB + SOCIAL STRATEGY
Here's how:
Social media and website management are daunting day-to-day tasks. They require writing, tagging, recording, and taking images. Not to mention the reacting, responding, liking and being engaged with your followers. There's a finesse to making that all happen authentically.
That's why most big agencies run programs to watch your social accounts, Google Reviews, Yelp Reviews, and general online presence in real time. Unless you have 15 monitors at your desk, it's a mess of clicking around. Doing all of that yourself means staying tuned in to digital and tuned out from your day-to-day work.
Learn how to manage your social media, watch the conversation in real time, and do what social media was intended to do: Keep the conversation going.
I teach social media and web management, and how to work ahead with a content calendar and scheduled postings.
I can teach you how to run it yourself, have it managed by an intern or staff member, or even how to find the right service provider to do it for you. And yes, we can manage it for you, too.
ADVERTISING + MEDIA BUYING
Here's how:
Advertising is pretty self explanatory: You pay for it. The question is where should you be advertising?
Between the targeting options on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and the big wide world of television, radio and print there's an unlimited amount of other places you could be putting your message. We think different, and everything has promotional potential. But, if you had a billboard in Times Square how would you measure the success? There's a way.
I can help you determine what options are right for you based on who you are trying to reach and what you are trying to get them to do.
Media buying implies relationships with stations, networks and ad brokers. There's an equation to Cost Per Thousand (CPP) and Impressions. I can teach it to you, or I can do it for you.
Those who want to advertise in today's media landscape should be smart about where and how they spend their advertising dollars. Advertisements are often tuned out by the daily consumer as interruption. How can you make your ads resonate? I have an idea or two.
Here's our toolbelt.
Our powerhouse of communication tools and certifications make it possible.
Joshua J. Smith, M.S.
Principal & CXO
Joshua J. Smith, an assistant professor at the Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture, leads undergraduate Public Relations courses and the Integrated Communication graduate program. He's the School's Director of Communications and the principal owner of Smith & Something, offering communication and media services nationwide. His expertise covers PR writing, media relations, graphic design, strategy, and integrated communication campaigns. For a decade, Smith has catered to diverse sectors in Virginia, from healthcare to government. He's active in PRSA's Richmond Chapter, previously chairing Student Relations, and collaborates with ICA on academic pursuits. Smith pursues a VCU Media, Art, and Text (MATX) doctoral degree, focusing on media effects and individual-media dynamics, contributing to mass and integrated communication research. His keen interest lies in media psychology, media literacy, technology, and PR's evolving landscape.
