January started with a “bomb cyclone” that pummeled the east coast in snow, but the crazy weather did not hinder the Aria team from doing what we do best! We made it through the first month of 2018 and we are geared up for yet another exciting year! Before we dive head first into the rest of 2018, we wanted to share our some of our client’s PR wins for the month of January!

New year, renewed motivation to get our clients amazing results! We worked to ensure our clients started the year off strong with a robust media presence, all while prepping for HIMSS19. Below are some of our clients’ biggest wins from January:

Public Relations professionals get a bad rap. No matter where it began, the misconception of PR people as “spinners” is out there, and has been furthered by stereotypes, assumptions, and narrow perspective. Why should you trust me, a PR professional? Because I only recently stepped onto the public relations side from the other side of the aisle. Just a couple years ago, I was a full-fledged journalist.

Summer is in full swing, and here in Boston, we feel blessed to finally get some sunshine! Even with our long weekends and fun summer Fridays, the Aria team is hustling for results for our clients. Take a look at some of our major client highlights for July below:

Summer is officially here! While our team is ready to hit the beaches and enjoy the warm weather on our #SummerFridays, we are still hard at work securing great press coverage and other PR wins for our clients. So, slap on those shades and let’s reflect on our PR highlights from the past month.

The temperatures in Boston certainly hit some record highs in June, and adding to the heat, our clients had some sizzling results all month long. So grab your sunglasses and take a look at some our top client wins throughout the month of June:

It was during college that I first became interested in the public relations field, so I decided to major in PR. I took all of the required courses and four years later at graduation, I “strutted my stuff” across the stage and assumed I would have a PR job lined up within a matter of weeks. However, a year and a half and multiple interviews later, I found myself still without a PR job. I was told time and time again that I lacked ‘real world’ experience as I never held a PR internship during college, so I began looking for the right PR internship, willing to put in my time and get more experience in order to one day fulfill my dream of working at a PR agency. Soon thereafter, I discovered Aria was looking for a full-time intern so I reached out, interviewed, and got the job!

As we all (should) know, social media is a valuable, even essential, tool for connecting businesses with a wider audience. At Aria Marketing, in addition to our public relations work, we lead social media programs for our healthcare clients, developing organic and paid content to boost sales and increase their digital reach. Through social media channels, our clients can share relevant news stories, promote recent coverage, and connect with other industry leaders. But, creating great social media content can only go so far; engagement from employees and a broader audience is needed to propel the content, and company, forward.

They say the month of March comes in like a lion, which certainly rang true for our Aria team as we began the month by heading to Las Vegas for HIMSS18 (which we lovingly refer to as our PR Super Bowl). The event was a great success for us and our clients, but it wasn’t the only March highlight. Check out some other notable client wins from last month:

The weather in Boston may not have been very spring-like in May, but Aria client news was in full bloom all month long. Here’s a recap of all of the highlights from the past month. Cheers to more great PR, and beautiful weather, as we roll into summer.

One of the greatest benefits about transitioning to a virtual workforce is having the ability to access a talent pool far beyond Massachusetts (where our office was formerly located). At Aria, our healthcare public relations team is quickly taking advantage of this, welcoming employees from outside the Greater Boston area, like our newest Senior Account Executive, Karina Stabile, who joins us from Long Island, New York. I had the pleasure of (virtually) sitting down with Karina to find out a bit more about her. Teaser: when Karina isn’t writing pitches, creating thought leadership agendas, or developing media strategies, she’s busy training for marathons or enjoying a Broadway show. Read on to learn more about Karina.

Like many college grads and young professionals who entered the workforce during the pandemic, my first glimpse of Aria Marketing was through a Zoom meeting. However, even though I joined the company as a virtual employee, I immediately knew that it was the right fit for me— so much so that I referred my roommate to also apply to this healthcare public relations agency. I’m happy to say that Elizabeth Coleman, my former Boston University classmate, joined Aria last April as a fellow account coordinator. To introduce Elizabeth to the broader Aria community, I sat down and interviewed her over coffee (in our living room/office) last week.

 While Aria has been somewhat remote since March 2020, we have now transitioned to become a fully remote company! Recently, we touched on some of the benefits of remote work, but another huge benefit is that we can now welcome employees who reside outside the Greater Boston area. One of our first out-of-staters is our new Senior Account Executive, Jennifer Brooks, who resides full-time in Florida with her husband, and dog, Dixie. I had the pleasure of virtually sitting down with Jennifer to learn a bit more about her.

Our team at Aria is growing like weeds this summer! For this blog post, I got to know our newest account coordinator, Danielle Adams, and account executive, Kara McCrudden, and found out some of their big life goals, dreams, and favorite things (including their mutual love of defunct bands from the early-2000’s, and Harry Potter).

It’s hard to believe it has been more than six months since Aria Marketing became a fully remote agency. Though there have been some bumps in the road, the transition has gone surprisingly well and has actually helped us to grow as an agency. We are now able to hire public relations all-stars from across the country. One such all-star is our newest employee, Account Coordinator Haley Collins. I had the pleasure of virtually catching up with Haley to get to know her a little better and to find out how she likes to spend her time when she is not securing coverage for our healthcare IT clients. Read on to learn more!

If you follow us on social media, you know that at Aria, we love to celebrate any and all major milestones. Well, we recently celebrated an old one… oops, I mean “a big one,” as our President, Scott Collins, just hit the big 5-0! In honor of Scott’s birthday, we asked him to share some little known facts about himself:

As a political junkie and a healthcare public relations professional I have followed the healthcare debate with keen interest, and I have been anticipating the day when we would finally have a serious political discussion about how best to fix or replace the ACA.  Sadly, even as we remained hopeful a decision would be made pre-Independence Day break, the Senate decided to delay the vote and now we are barely having that conversation.

So, I thought it might be useful to use the occasion of the new Senate Republican healthcare bill to bring-up a few relevant issues that seem to be getting left out of the conversation:

As we’ve entered week 10 of social distancing here in Massachusetts, all eyes are on strategies for resuming activities without compromising safety. Working at a healthcare-focused PR agency like Aria during the COVID-19 pandemic has given us insight not only on the acute effects of the crisis, but on the wider-reaching consequences the virus has on the industry. With quarantine and stay-at-home orders in place, people have missed routine and non-emergent medical appointments, forgoing care that they might have sought in a more normal circumstance.

The beginning of the year always provides a perfect opportunity to pause and reflect on the past, and strategize how to make the future the best yet. That rings true at Aria, where we fuel our healthcare communications work with a robust wellness offering. As we prepare for another successful year of public relations wins, we are bringing the best of 2019's wellness initiative forward, plus scheming up new plans and activities. Here’s a taste of what we did last year plus a sampling of our team’s feedback and goals for 2020.

Last month, my fellow SAE Danielle Johns and I had the opportunity to attend INFLUENCEHER Week in the Seaport district in downtown Boston. Organized by the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX), the event featured an inspiring lineup of panels (one of which featured Julie Yoo, CSO and Co-Founder of Kyruus, one of Aria’s clients!), presentations, and workshops to promote and further women leaders and entrepreneurs in the technology industry.