TED Talk Impact: Dr. Renée Lertzman

Renée Lertzman uses psychological insights to help organizations understand how best to engage and mobilize their audiences on environmental issues such as sustainability and climate change.

Her take? Yes, the world is burning, and yes it’s a crisis that can cause us to shut down, go into denial or throw up our hands in despair. But she believes those responses are normal and human, and if we acknowledge and accept them, we can move through the paralysis to unlock the kind of creativity and solutions we so desperately need right now.

With a newly released TED talk on how to turn climate anxiety into action, Renée came to Forge & Spark for a rapid-fire strategy to amplify her impact and reach a broader audience with her thought leadership.

The Work

In the span of a couple of weeks, we turned out a month-long impact campaign that included:

Story and Messaging

Our first step involved creating a messaging strategy for Renée’s professional brand. While her work is steeped in academia and backed by deep scientific insights, we needed to ensure her messaging was accessible to an audience of non-academics. To that end, we created a language and story framework for presenting her expertise and services, along with recommendations for content she could use to amplify her impact on her own channels, TED’s and in the media.

Web Design and Content

With refreshed messaging in hand, we then designed and delivered a fresh home page for Renée’s website designed to highlight her TED Talk with new messaging and photography. We also added a Media Kit to facilitate PR efforts and updated her Events list with her upcoming appearances. Finally, we designed a newsletter template and created content for—and delivered—her inaugural newsletter.

Social Media Support

To amplify the release of Renée’s TED Talk, we updated her social channel bios to reflect her new messaging and created more than 60 social posts for LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to promote both the talk and Renée’s thought leadership over the course of two weeks. We also planned and managed influencer outreach support and community management for the duration of the impact campaign — responding to questions, engaging relevant influencers in her space, and cultivating followership.

The Outcome

Renée’s TED Talk has, since the launch, garnered 2,202,000 views (and counting!).

In the span of two weeks, traffic to her website more than doubled, with the majority of referrals coming from her social channels.

An increase in followers occurred across all channels, and media coverage was extensive, including interviews with CNN, The Guardian and Rolling Stone.

Why We Love Her

Renée is not only passionate about a topic we hold dear (the future of our planet!) but she’s also committed to getting her message out to organizations that have the ability to make a real difference in solving our ecological crises.

Quick Overview

When this climate thought leader did a TED talk, she hired us to amplify the impact. In just two weeks, her web traffic and followers surged, and media coverage blew up – hello, Rolling Stone.