Tweney Media – leadership communications

Word wizardry for tech titans

According to Harvard Business Review, most leaders under-communicate by a factor of 10.

When they do, it’s overly complicated and self-serving, which reduces their credibility rather than enhancing it. You can see tech execs making this mistake in the news every day.

No wonder they struggle to make their visions understood.

If you’re a leader with a transformative vision, what you need is not “more content.” It’s certainly not more AI. What you need is to communicate in a way that demonstrates leadership. You need a powerful, intelligent, resonant story you can tell over and over again, consistently and authentically.

Tweney Media offers a hands-on approach to crafting articulate, effective stories that help tech leaders communicate more powerfully.

We work directly with leaders through one-on-one story-development interviews, tailored communications strategy sessions, and bespoke content creation. By guiding you through message development and real-world best practices in leadership communications, we’ll uncover your unique narrative and show you exactly how to share it at every opportunity.

We provide top-notch ghostwriting, speechwriting, and editing to help you craft, polish, and publish your stories on a variety of platforms. We also offer media training and communications coaching to get you ready to speak to the press or onstage at venues ranging from 10 to 10,000.

Tweney Media’s founder and editor-in-chief is Dylan Tweney, an award-winning tech journalist, communications consultant, and writing coach.

Dylan has been working with tech leaders for over a decade, building their communications platforms through bylines, op-eds, speechwriting, and custom content. The stories he’s produced have generated millions of pageviews and millions of dollars in sales opportunities.

“Dylan and I worked together on an executive thought leadership platform. He wrote the highest quality pieces I’ve seen during my decades-plus career and provided excellent strategic counsel. He’s also a joy to work with. I couldn’t recommend him more.“

Shoshana Deutschkron, tech marketing executive, ex-Upwork

Results

Dylan Tweney and Tweney Media’s work has helped some of the most distinctive tech brands establish market leadership by communicating their ideas in effective, memorable ways.

Some of the outcomes we’ve delivered:

✨ Hundreds of items of news coverage for a series A/B startup, including high-profile mainstream media appearances, driven by a powerful, ongoing research and communications program

✨ Millions of dollars in sales pipeline for a tech client, produced by a single, crisp, well-written 20-page research report

✨ Credibility-enhancing bylines in Quartz, HBR, Fast Company, and the World Economic Forum’s blog for C-suite social impact leaders at two leading tech companies

✨ An impactful investor video script for a tech IPO that closed up 35% on the first day

✨ Consistent coverage and placement of thought leadership articles in top-tier press for a marketplace startup’s CEO

Past and present clients:

Bloom Energy, Serve Robotics, PWC, New Relic, GitLab, Twilio, TaskUs, Samsung Mobile, Upwork, MailChimp, Trello, Cornerstone Learning, D2L, Greylock, Matrix Partners, Bloomberg Beta, Lookout Security, Korn Ferry International, Demandbase, and Valimail.

We’ve helped these clients win coverage in:

WIRED, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Quartz, The Washington Post, O’Reilly Media, AdAge, Entrepreneur, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and Coindesk.

And broadcast coverage on:

CNN, Fox Business, CNBC, Vox Media, and significant local markets.

We’d love to do the same for you.

“Tweney Media has been such a solid partner this past year. Dylan has been responsive, easy to work with, and consistently delivered quality work.”

Jenn Malleo, Senior Director, Corporate Communications, GitLab

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Services

Tweney Media’s services encompass communications strategy, content strategy, content creation, and brand positioning / message development.

Communications strategies

Effective leadership communications plans and messages that win coverage; media training to prepare you for media interactions or speaking events; comms team training, pitch development, and pitch craft.

Messaging development and brand audits

Compelling, differentiated message frameworks and narratives; plans for rolling those messages out across multiple channels to create consistency and impact; copywriting and copywriting training.

Content strategy and content creation

Engaging thought leadership content across various media types and formats to help you build an audience, demonstrate authority, and build your brand; ghostwriting and speechwriting.

We create and ship everything from monthly bylines to complex, high-quality content projects, on time and on budget.

As a former newsroom editor, Dylan has vision and context to create editorial that stands out from the sea of undifferentiated marketing content. He has the skills and the network needed to lead teams, manage projects, and produce copy at scale. He can tap his network of freelance writers, designers, and multimedia producers for larger projects to meet your needs.

A project may include…

Research, interviews, and planning: We start with a deep dive into your industry and audience to craft authentic narratives based on what people are responding to. Together, we’ll use that narrative to build a communications strategy that supports your business goals.
Writing and editing: We create, refine, and optimize content for you, maintaining high quality under tight deadlines.
Publishing and measurement: Working with outside publishers, journalists, or your own publishing platforms, we prepare copy and see it through to publication. We help you assess the results quantitatively and qualitatively.
Project management: We deliver projects on time and within budget, ensuring you get seamless delivery of excellent work.

The specific deliverables depend on your needs and may include:

Bylines and op-eds
Speechwriting and speech preparation
Ghostwriting
Media training and coaching
Presentations and talk tracks
Event coverage reports
Video scripts
Research reports
Sponsored posts
Press releases
Blog posts
Website copy
White papers
Case studies
LinkedIn articles

Find out more about Tweney Media’s approach to content creation.

“Dylan is a true extension of our team and consistently delivers thoughtful, timely, and engaging thought leadership content that captures our brand voice. Dylan’s creativity, flexibility, and keen understanding of what will resonate with our audiences is invaluable – an excellent partner and a joy to collaborate with.“

Miya Shitama, Twilio

Let’s work together

Typewriter photo: Suzy Hazelwood

Approach

To demonstrate leadership, you need a media platform — a channel of your own.

I’ll help you build that platform — and an audience.

I use my background as an editorial leader at WIRED and VentureBeat to mine your stories, bring them to the surface, and polish them into editorial products that shine brilliantly.

As your writer, story coach, and messaging expert, I’ll challenge you to defend and refine your ideas. I’ll bring the perspective of readers and target markets to ensure you’re not just preaching to the choir, but sharing stories that can reach a wide audience and convey power and authenticity.

And then, as your editor and publisher, I’ll craft publication-ready content, help you deploy it across multiple channels, and build an audience on the platforms that matter to you — your blog, LinkedIn, news brands that publish op-eds and bylines, and more.

Here’s what that looks like:

1. Research, discovery, and sourcing

I start by analyzing your existing content, including previously published thought leadership work. When relevant, I also review existing comms, marketing, and sales decks as well as any website and marketing materials. I also review the messaging used by competitive and/or comparable companies.

I then conduct story mining calls with executives and key team members to understand current messaging, to identify thought leadership challenges, and to uncover stories that can help deliver the right messages to the target audiences. We can also use these sessions to discuss message and story parameters (must-haves, want-to-haves, and must-nots).

As needed, I conduct sourcing calls prior to each writing assignment to ensure alignment on goals and the hoped-for outcomes, as well as to capture key anecdotes and examples that will make your stories come to life.

2. Organizing

I create abstracts to share ideas and guide the content creation process. Once you green-light a story idea, I provide outlines for review and approval, then proceed to draft your copy.

When speed is important, and we already have clear alignment on your goals, I often can proceed directly to drafting without first outlining.

3. Writing, editing, and delivery

With decades of experience in journalism and corporate content creation, I deliver polished, engaging, on-message content with speed and grace.

But first drafts are often just a starting point, and collaborative creation is often an iterative process. After you provide comments, edits, and revision requests, I deliver a revised and updated draft.

I work with you to make sure that every step of your review and approval process goes smoothly, leading to publication-ready copy.

4. Studying outcomes and learnings

I don’t abandon you after delivering the copy. I’ll work with you to understand what works and what doesn’t, incorporating traffic analysis, social media metrics, and qualitative feedback as necessary to ensure you (and we) understand what resonates with your target audience. I incorporate these learnings into style guides and frameworks that I use to guide ongoing content creation and strategy development.

Dylan is rare among PR and marketing executives, because he has a full-stack publisher’s skill set. He’s brilliant at both audience engagement and content, whereas most of his peers are good at one of these disciplines.

Kurt Foeller, tech industry marketing exec

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Notepad photo by Dylan