Dorothée Royal-Hedinger: Chicago’s Digital Tree Hugger

April 21st, 2010 Posted by joshuasinason in Friends, Inspiration, Interview, Uncategorized

Dorothée Royal-Hedinger has been a force to be reckoned with in non-profit social media advertising since she started out at See3 Communications as a new media strategist. She moved on to co-found NobleTree Media where she has worked with non-profit causes like Minds Matter Chicago and the National Association of Working Women. She created OrganicNation.tv in May 2009 and has won numerous awards including Tree Hugger’s Best Food Twitter Feed (.treehugger.com/best-of-green-food-and-health) and the Do Something American Express Grant. In addition to being a top flight social media guru, her work with OrganicNation.tv has appeared on Current TV, The Huffington Post, GOOD and TreeHugger.com.

Q: How did you get started with the podcast?

A: It started in May 2009. I was working in documentary film and video production and getting into green blogging. I started to question where my food came from and I attacked those questions by starting OrganicNation.tv. Using video and social media tools came naturally to me as a way to share what I learned with the public.

Q: So is that the best medium for the message?

A: Definitely. The videos and the blog work well together because we provide links and resources for our viewers to explore subjects in more depth.

Q: Current TV also started with online videos and a blogging community and you’ve done some things with them. How did that come about?

A: I started submitting to them a few years ago. They’re great because they showed that there is a place for our kind of online videos to be viewed by a large number of people and have built a community around that.

Q: Switching gears a bit to social media, what do you do on a daily basis to build your fan base?

A: I make sure I am always updating with the latest content whether it’s something I’ve created or something from someone else. I try to be generous with the community and support others’ work. Hopefully they return the favor.

Q: What is your number one rule of building a social media fan base?

A: Listen first. Look at your competitors and get the landscape of the community. Find influential users on a social media platform (like Twitter) and pay attention to how they use the tool to communicate. That’s actually more than one. (laughs) One thing people don’t realize is that you can’t assume people are going to know about your new page, social media profile or video. You have to get the word out via your website, newsletter and other ways. For example, sometimes I’ll post a link to a company’s Facebook page on their Twitter feed just to make sure everyone knows the brand is on that platform as well.

Q: What new social media tools are you using?

A: I really love Vimeo. Hootsuite is another good one. Squarespace.com is good too. We built OrganicNation.tv on that one.

Q: Social Media can be a very unpredictable medium, sometimes things come together and sometimes they don’t. When you need to change something that’s not working, what do you do?

A: Giveaways and contests are a great way to spark conversation. I found that people follow you just for the chance you might give them something. Sometimes I post something controversial just to get people talking.

Q: What has surprised you most about your followers?

A: I didn’t realize this many people where interested in farming. We get people in city who really want to know where their food comes from and I’ve also been surprised by how many social-media savvy farmers there are online! I’m glad we have a very well rounded and well read audience.

Q: Do you change things based on your follower’s comments?

A: Definitely. We did an entire series of blog posts called “Dirty Dozen” (www.organicnation.tv/blog/category/dirty-dozen) based on what people wanted to know about the benefits of certain organic foods and products over their conventional counterparts. We encourage our viewers to post articles and share information.

Q: What do you do to encourage fan generated content?

A: I ask my readers lots of questions and I try to respond to all of them. I know I hate it when I ask a brand questions on a platform like Twitter and no one responds. It shows that they really don’t care about their fans. And sometimes it’s harder than others. I worked on a social media campaign for a women’s fashion line and it was easy to get teenage girls to talk about their dresses. But something like a joint pain supplement was harder to get people to talk about.

Q: So how did you manage that?

A: In the case of doing social media strategy for the joint pain supplement, I just made sure to keep the message positive and fun, at least as fun as possible (laughs) but as long as you keep the page active and answer questions the people will come.

Q: Do you feel it’s hard to keep people’s attention online and cut through the static of everything else vying for people’s attention?

A: Of course. I want to continue making videos and you do have to get views to do that. We want to make sure we are entertaining but we maintain our integrity. We’re happy with an average of 1000-2000 views per video. It’s really all about finding your niche market.

Q: Is it hard to keep up with a constantly changing market like social media?

A: Not really. I think people are too fixated on the tools – it’s all about the community you’ve built. I’m invested in the content, not just the tools. In the end, platforms like Twitter and Facebook are a way to connect with people and communicate a message. OrganicNation.tv has achieved lots of success with Twitter, but if something else came along that worked better I would spend more time there.

Q: What kind of gadgets do you work with?

A: I love my Android G1. I take it on the road with me when we go filming and post pictures and updates. I have to take breaks from it so I don’t get overworked but it’s great.

Q: You mentioned going on the road and filming recently, anything else you have coming up that you want to talk about?

A: The road trip is awesome. This May, we’re taking OrganicNation.tv on a Southwest tour through Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. We’ll be test driving a Ford Fusion Hybrid during the trip and we’re thrilled to be sponsored by Motel 6. It’s going to be fun. And of course at NobleTree Media, we’re working with a lot of great brands to grow their message online.

Q: What is your 3-year plan for OrganicNation.tv? Where do you hope to see it growing and evolving?

A: Right now we’re focused on continuing to cover the latest issues and innovations around sustainable food in each region of the U.S. So far we’re filmed on the East and West coasts, the Midwest and soon the Southwest. We still want to cover the Great Plains, the Southeast and Hawaii. We also want to develop a interactive mapping tool so that people can geo-tag photos and videos of the sustainable food movement around the country. Our goal is to create a visual landscape of the exciting things that are happening and give people both a local and national context for it.

http://www.organicnation.tv/

http://www.twitter.com/DorotheeRoyal

http://www.twitter.com/OrganicNation

http://www.treehugger.com/galleries/2010/04/best-of-green-food-and-health.php?page=26