Media Engagement

Successful media engagement is essential in every campaign, but today’s crowded media landscape requires you to move beyond traditional media outreach.  Story Partners can develop and implement a media strategy that connects the dots between leading broadcast journalists, columnists, editorial board writers and the bloggers who drive the conversation online. Our relationships with editorial writers across the country are unsurpassed as are our strong working relationships with bloggers, writers and journalists across all media platforms.

Media engagement opportunities:

• Desk side and editorial board visits
• Blogger engagement
• Targeted editorial outreach and opinion writing
• Broadcast outreach and booking
• Press conferences/social media releases
• Reporter roundtables and introductions

Social Media

What does your online profile say? How are your competitors performing? Who are your harshest critics? How is your digital profile impacting your reputation?

In today’s connected world, the first source of information is online. Employees, legislators, potential clients, and even opponents are constantly monitoring the web. Updates on Twitter and Facebook are driving conversation more than the evening news shows.

Story Partners has an experienced team who will help reach your goals online through creative and cutting edge strategies. We will determine if your message is being heard by the right audiences as well as test the effectiveness of your existing online strategy.

With social networks as part of our daily lexicon, the need for the right message broadcast through the right networks is important.  Story Partners will utilize social networking tools and crystallize your messaging so they “stick” and can be easily shared across multiple platforms. By employing the latest social networking tools, we will create multiple echo chambers online.

Today’s online environment provides great opportunities along with perilous challenges.  News travels fast today and bad news even faster.  The wrong information can damage a brand or set an issue debate back almost instantaneously.  When an attack or misinformation presents a serious viral threat, you need to counter it immediately with sound strategies that provide an opposing or clarifying view.  Story Partners can provide both internal and external resources to both mitigate and manage online threats.

Digital Media offerings:

• Develop an online strategy that communicates effectively to your stakeholders;
• Launch social networking programs to create online echo chambers to influence policy, media or marketing conversations;
• Educate and train internal teams on social networking engagement;
• Create viral risk management programs to protect viral threats. And, if a threat unexpectedly spreads virally, deploying a team to respond.

Coalition Development and Management

”If an enemy has alliances, the problem is grave and the enemy’s position strong; if he has no alliances, the problem is minor and the enemy’s position is weak.”

– Chinese Philosopher Sun Tzu

Forces working together always have better results than individuals standing alone. In today’s political environment, you cannot afford to let your story stand alone without support of friends and allies.  Story Partners has decades of experience recruiting and managing coalitions to advance shared policy goals. Some of our best success stories include pairing together allies from unlikely backgrounds to speak with a unified voice – recruiting national leaders and coupling them with community activists that provide a foundation of support critical for success. We have an extensive network of potential allies and third-party advocates we can engage to develop a strong coalitions.  Whether it is a labor leader, a community activist, a local business executive, an NGO representative or a non-profit leader, Story Partners can add powerful voices to help leverage your story with decision makers.

We will put these critical voices to work for you – as authors of opinion pieces, media spokespeople or in meetings with key decision makers.  We not only know how to recruit allies, we know how and when to utilize them – carefully orchestrating single voices into a symphony of support when you need it most during critical times of the debate.

Traditional and Online Grassroots

Ask any policy maker and they will tell you the most powerful stories come directly from hometown constituents.  Harnessing the power which local voices bring to a debate is one thing that will never change for as we all know “all politics is local.”  Story Partners’ principals have been at the forefront of directly reaching targeted constituencies and motivating them to act. We pioneered the development of recruiting local citizens through a national network of political field operatives – a fundamental tool of the most sophisticated political campaigns. Our grassroots and grass-tops operations incorporate comprehensive field strategies and a field network that you can trust. Local experience and understanding is key to successful grassroots. Story Partners knows that having the people on the ground that can “read the politics of a local community” is as important as the strategy itself.

We have led the grassroots industry for decades in utilizing new tools for organizing — in fact, our Chairman developed the first national field network for issue campaign organizing. Today’s social networking environment and online engagement is the next evolution in the grassroots industry. Story Partners’ team of new media experts are at the forefront of defining this exciting new movement today.

Reputation Management & Executive Positioning

As a former president said, perception is reality, and with news cycles running 24/7, there has never been a more challenging time to build or protect a reputation or a brand.  In the policy arena, decision-makers want to work with trusted organizations as they develop policies and regulations that impact industries, jobs and constituents.  At Story Partners, our team serves as trusted advisers helping our clients build reputations and influence.  We help shape the decision-making process by coupling high-touch leadership programs with high-tech communications channels.

Our programs materially impact an organization’s bottom line and promote strong relationships with core stakeholders.  We have helped CEOs and senior executive teams translate a corporate vision into solid programs that help drive legislative and regulatory agendas.  Through strategic stakeholder outreach, we have successfully positioned companies with valuable allies who can drive a critical issue dialogue with targeted decision-makers.

Articulating the vision of an executive or issue, positioning them as an industry leader in Washington, Wall Street or Main Street is part of our successful repertoire.  We have shaped regulatory agendas through think tank engagement, tackled workforce initiatives, managed mergers and restructurings, and know how to navigate through complex issues.

Messaging

Defining the debate first and on your terms is the key to winning the battle.  If you control the language of the dialogue, you often control how the debate is perceived and acted upon by decision-makers. The difference between a tactical campaign and a strategic one often lies in how the issue is framed for the variety of audiences who will be engaged in the dialogue. Story Partners works to frame your message in ways that attract allies and support. Using insights from research, core messages are developed for near and long-term use and tailored to a variety of audiences. Whether your issue is internal or global, at Story Partners, our time-tested strategies coupled with new tools and techniques keep your message effective, cohesive and resonating with your target audiences.

Story Partners uses the latest tools available for message research including online surveys and focus groups as well as traditional message research capabilities.

Crisis Communications

When your reputation is at stake, every minute counts. In today’s fast moving media environment, a reputation which took years to build can begin to crumble in mere moments.  With vast online echo chambers amplifying bad news swiftly, even the most loyal business partners, customers, employees and decision makers can begin questioning relationships which have been carefully built.   When you are under serious assault, you need an experienced team that knows how to stop any escalation, mitigate existing damage quickly and begin the process of rebuilding and repositioning immediately. Story Partners’ principals have dealt first hand with high-profile crisis – whether surrounding a prominent elected official, a corporate or non-profit executive, or a corporate brand.  Our ability to assess and respond in an unpredictable situation comes with experience from managing high-profile crisis situations and knowing key strategies to respond to both the reality – and the perception – of a crisis.  Essential components, such as message development and dissemination, rapid response media relations, third-party ally deployment and monitoring of media coverage are part of the Story Partners crisis management “playbook.”

Learning to manage a crisis before it happens is a key component to minimizing its escalation.  Part of Story Partners Crisis Management Program is to conduct a risk assessment, which will identify, study, and prioritize areas of vulnerability before a crisis occurs and develop a plan that establishes what constitutes a crisis and establish protocols in the event of a crisis, no matter how large or small.

Advertising

Communicating your message through creative advertising that actually speaks to and motivates your target audience requires the talents of a seasoned team that is skilled in public affairs communications.  Story Partners has put together a team of unsurpassed creative skills and media buying expertise to ensure that clients’ resources are focused and achieve results.  Story Partners creative knows how to harmonize your message to reach policy makers and consumers. Whether it is telling your story, building brands, or positioning companies and industries, Story Partners will formulate your advertising campaign, with creative and impactful messages, from conception to action.

• Creative development for print/radio/TV/web
• Strategic placement of print/radio/TV/web
• Production for print/radio/TV/web