St. Louis, MO – August 2021 – Associations are in a powerful position to build their community and further their mission by sharing video stories that they own.

The way media is shared today is unlike any other time in the history of humanity.

Any brand with a website is essentially an online media outlet capable of connecting with anyone anywhere in the world. Anyone can create and share content directly with an audience. The barrier to entry to sharing stories is lower than ever in human history.

Associations are in a uniquely powerful position with this new media landscape.

Associations are able to strategically share stories digitally that can reach an even larger audience. That is particularly true if they own the storythey share because they can empower their members to share it too by simply giving it them.

For our purposes, I would define an “association” as a ny group of people or organizations that are organized around a joint purpose or shared mission.

An association could be the local Chamber of Commerce. An association could be special business district, community improvement district or other taxing or special assessment district. It could also be a non-profit organization like the United Way , the Urban League or any other membership driven group.

PUT A FACE TO YOUR MISSION BY TELLING A STORY

Successful mission-driven organizations raise money by putting a face to their mission. The best way to do that is by sharing an authentic story that shows their mission at work in the real world.

Today, an association has the ability to affordably create and share an authentic story using video. The association can share it directly through their website blog, via social media and an email newsletter. Using video storytelling is a practical and tactical way of being StorySMART with their story.

StorySMART created our #mySTLbiz small business profile as an example of how an association might undertake a virtual video storytelling approach to highlight members.

#mySTLbiz is a templated single-interview short video news feature where a business owner tells us about their business in their own words through an interview I conduct over zoom.

We developed the series to help small businesses in our #greaterSTL community, while also showcasing our unique approach to brand journalism.

We believe video brand journalism is the easiest and best approach to video storytelling in a world driven by search.

Consumers online crave honest, authentic video content that is responsive to their search query. They want to be told, not sold.

If you run an association, you should be investing in video storytelling. You should be sharing those stories directly with your members. And you should be doing it consistently. Monthly or more frequently.

You should also be asking your members to share those stories with their brand community.

When you do those simple things, you will reap the rewards of the synergy of sharing stories.

FACT: when you own a story, you can give it to anyone you want as a gift (or through a license).

So if you run a chamber of commerce, you could do a member profile once a month. You could share it on your blog, via your social media and even in your monthly newsletter. Then you could also give that story to your member to share on their blog, via their social media and via their email newsletter.

When you do those simple things consistently, you will get a routine in place that grows your mission and strengthens your association.

Let me share an example of where this simple insight first came into focus for me.

For over a decade, when I worked with the St. Louis Cardinals, I served on one of the boards of Downtown STL Inc. I loved my time as a civic volunteer with this group because I share their passion for downtown.

Downtown St. Louis is the downtown for our entire region. No matter where you live in this vast 15 county region - we all share this one important neighborhood. While that is my point of view, that perspective isn't shared by everyone in our region. The fact of the matter is that many in our region hold the perception of Downtown St. Louis as being an unsafe or under desirable place.

That perception is a problem that DSI sought to overcome.

In 2016, at the exact same time that I was building the Cardinals video storytelling unit and producing a weekly magazine TV show called Cardinals Insider , I participated in a brainstorming session about how we might improve the image of downtown St. Louis.

Missy Kelley, the CEO of Downtown STL , had convened a group of marketing & PR experts to develop some practical ideas DSI could implement.

As anyone in our region can attest, Downtown St. Louis has had an unfair share of negative headlines over the years.

From a practical standpoint, every time a crime would occur downtown, Missy would do media interviews about the collective efforts underway to keep downtown safe for residents, workers and visitors.

While Missy would do a good job with these interviews, the fact is she was on defense with her PR.

I hated when I was on PR defense with the Cardinals.

In Missy's role (and in my role at that time) that posture is inevitable. It comes with the territory. The media were just doing their job. That said, the media coverage about Downtown seemed to be more focused on the bad news.

We needed a way to highlight the good news happening every day downtown. The fact was - and is - that there are so many good stories to tell about what is going in our region’s downtown. Many wonderful stories go untold.

Missy assembled a group of us ( Brian Hall of Explore St. Louis, Lindsay Van Quaethem who led DSI's communications, Jim Woodcock of Fleishman Hillard and others) during the summer of 2016 to talk about strategies to share those positive stories.

As a group, we came up with idea of creating a news website called #mySTL to share authentic stories about what was going on downtown. The hashtag name was a way for us to convey the idea of shared community ownership.

This is my city. These are my stories.

The hashtag approach was also a way to eventually encourage user (or member) generated content. When that happens with your association (others sharing their stories using a common hashtag), you can expect synergistic results.

For example, your member does a story and shares it with the association. The association shares it with the other members.

You get the idea here. We all gather around the fire and tell stories. In this case, the campfire is replaced by the internet, social and digital media.

The idea behind the #mySTL video storytelling effort was fairly simple.

• DSI would hire a full-time MMJ (multi-media journalist)
• DSI would equip them with a nice camera, computer and editing equipment.
• DSI would task that person with doing a single story per week about something wonderful happening downtown.

I envisioned that we would hire a good reporter away from one of the local TV stations.

Most reporters working at a TV station have to do a single story per day, so we reasoned that a single story per week would be very doable if we hired an experienced, trained journalist.

The journalist working for DowntownSTL would produce an honest authentic video news story with a written blog post. That story would be shared on the new shared news site.

Downtown STL would also share the story as well on their website and within their weekly email newsletter.

Then, and this is key best practice, they would also give the story to whoever was being featured within the story for them to share as well.

So, for example, if the story was about a small business owner who opened a clothing store on Washington Avenue, the owner would be given the story to share that story through their facebook page, email newsletter and website.

Needless to say, I absolutely loved this idea that the group generated!

The idea lined up perfectly with the video storytelling strategy we were trying to implement with the St. Louis Cardinals -- i.e. sharing stories directly with our fans.

I thought the DSI effort would be an amazing approach that would gradually build an audience and a community one story at a time. It was practical and tactical. It was also SMART.

Instead of creating a full-time position, that fall Missy and her staff decided to sponsor an RFP process to find potential vendors to provide a full scope of PR services including video storytelling. They selected a vendor and moved forward trying to implement the approach.

While I left the organizations board in 2018, I watched them try to implement elements of the storytelling idea. It fell short of my expectations, but I think that was a function of the multiple staff and consultant changes the organization has gone through over the last five years.

The fact that it fell short doesn't diminish the fact that it was a good idea.

While they fell short, a wonderful direct storytelling effort that was born of the Arch-To-Park Initiative.

Today, the #STLmade effort ( thestl.com ) is a great example of taking that authentic storytelling approach for our entire region. While there isn't a high-volume of stories being told, it is high quality storytelling.

I'd love to see that effort grow at some point into a digital newsroom of reporters telling even more stories. I could see it working like a real newsroom with an enterprise model that empowers reporters to come up with stories. It wouldn't be hard to make that happen or require a huge investment.

The region could tap into taxpayer media outlets like HEC , STL TV and the other local access cable franchises in Missouri and Illinois. Those outlets already invest millions of dollars into some of the highest quality storytelling in our region, employing some of the best journalists in our town. I could see a collaborative model that could elevate our game using an association like model. A combined public and private storytelling effort could be a game changer for our region.

Las Vegas has an interesting model that seems to combine public and private resources to communicate in a relevant digital way. It would be good for our civic leaders and elected officials to look at some of those models.

We must all recognize that today it is all about the shareable link and search.

Even when someone goes on TV, the next day they want to share the link from the story with their community. I know I'm more likely to watch the link online than actually watch something live anymore. I suspect I am not alone.

It is within that simple practice of sharing a link to an authentic story that the power of an association can be fully optimized. I suppose you can call it the network effect.

1. The association creates a story.
2. The association shares it.
3. The association gives the story to their network to share directly.
4. Each member of the network shares the story via their website, email & social.
5. Rinse and repeat.

When you do that consistently, you are not only sharing stories, you are building a brand community. That is the synergistic power of owning and sharing stories.