As featured in The Missouri Times
Show Me Victories (SMV), a strategic political communications management company, has expanded from two clients to managing over 36 accounts of civic leaders, political campaigns, and national groups. SMV is a department of the Kelley Group, a St. Louis based political consulting firm.
“The Kelley Group is more of our public affairs communications,” Braxton Payne, Director of Digital Communications at SMV explained. “Show Me Victories does political campaigns, we do some lobbying as well, we do a lot of social media and digital communications for our clients.”
The Kelley Group founded SMV nearly seven years ago, but only have been doing social media for the past five. Last year, they expanded their employee base to manage their digital strategy to suit their client’s needs. Currently, the team is led by Michael Kelley, Kelley Group founder and principal of Show Me Victories. He is assisted by Patrick Lynn, a longtime Missouri political consultant and Director of Policy, and Bryce Summary, Director of Research and Polling, effectively the group’s in-house pollster.
“We’re really data-driven in what we do digitally, taking communications from polls that we do here and making those messages work on social media and other digital platforms,” Payne said. “We see that continuing to be on the forefront of digital advertising and digital promotions on social media is really important because social media isn’t going to go away. We’re focusing on how to use it best for our clients; we’re focusing on growing.”
A part of their strategy is to first understand the goals of their clients and then tailor their specific message according to their national and local research. Specifically, they find what has been receptive in their client’s demographics and make the necessary changes to maximize results.
“We’ve been doing the digital stuff for about five years, it’s a big area of growth for us, but it’s important that we continue the day to day management of our current clients while growing,” Payne said. “That’s something unique we provide: we’re making sure that we’re posting on a daily basis, monitoring all the comments, and monitor analytics on the comments every 24 hours.”
Some of their clients include national and local labor unions, corporations, small businesses, elected officials, candidates, political campaigns, coalitions, and civic leaders. The SMV team is also assisted by Megan McBride, Director of Campaign Services, and Tom Platten, Deputy Director of Digital Communications.
“Our team is passionate about what we do. We understand that social media is a full-time job and many organizations or individuals cannot keep up with the demanding nature of social media on a day to day basis,” Payne said. “That is where we come in to assist them in messaging and get the biggest reach for whatever their set forth goal may be. Our clients get the experience and attentiveness of a full campaign team as well as the service of a large advertising firm.”