GrünHandeln
A look behind the scenes of a format dedicated to the climate crisis and sustainable change. Join me as I explore the ups and downs I experienced with GrünHandeln and discover how they shaped my journalistic skills.
During my practical bachelor’s thesis, I created @GruenHandeln, a multimedia, constructive-journalistic Instagram format with the goal of shedding light on the connection between the climate crisis and our individual actions.
With guidance from author and environmental journalist Prof. Dr. Torsten Schäfer I was able to develop the concept of GrünHandeln with a strong scientific foundation. I had the opportunity to delve into various climate journalism quality criteria and utilize multiple project development tools:
- Market analysis of climate formats on Instagram
- Persona development to determine target groups
- Creation of a donation-based revenue concept
- Performance tracking of engagement parameters
- Audience survey for user evaluation
My journey at GrünHandeln taught me to craft platform-specific journalistic content, manage communities responsibly, and extract insights from performance data. These experiences significantly strengthened my digital journalism and social media management skills. Within seven weeks, GrünHanden was able to
- address five sustainability topics,
- publish 49 Instagram posts,
- reach over 4,600 profiles and
- achieved an interaction rate of 27 percent.
Failure, making mistakes, or having certain content not meet our expectations is inevitable. This was also true for GrünHanden: unnoticed errors slipped into the subtitles, interviewees didn’t always respond to inquiries, and the planned content schedule couldn’t always be followed. However, it’s in the realm of mistakes that the seeds of growth find their most fertile ground. My time at GrünHandel taught me to adapt flexibly to changing plans, streamline existing production processes, and motivated me to gain new expertise.
Nonetheless, the climate crisis is a global challenge demanding a comprehensive systemic transformation. A project centered on promoting climate-conscious changes in an individuals‘ life may inadvertently shift the responsibility for essential political and economic changes onto individuals. For this reason, I decided not to continue producing content for GrünHandeln.
