Digital Community Leaders - Helena Traill

Helena Traill is the founder and creative director at nooh Studio, a design-led storytelling agency. Helena and the team at nooh work with companies and charities to build brands, by telling their stories through a range of different mediums.

As well as this, Helena recently embarked on a huge community project, "100 Stories". 100 Stories is a collection of stories from people affected by cancer, a topic very close to home for Helena.

Throughout this weeks episode of the Digital Community Leaders Podcast, Helena chats to us about her work at nooh Studio, and her experience building a community centred around a taboo subject.

Storytelling at the Centre

At nooh Studio, they aim to work with community-led clients as well as businesses and charities in the health and wellbeing industry.

Helena spoke about her favourite interest as a creative is storytelling, and she aims to use this in her work of building brands.

From books to podcasts, Helena always aims to bring creative campaigns to whoever she is working with.

“My favourite job title is definitely 'Head of Storytelling'!”

Helena's Story

The 100 Stories project began from a six-month project at art school. Helena was encouraged that adding a personal touch would be beneficial.

The first thing that sprung to mind was her dad, who has been battling with cancer and brain tumours for over 20 years. This inspired Helena to look at the affects of cancer, both direct and indirect.

Helena started the journey with Twitter, claiming she sent out a Tweet and closed her laptop for the weekend. To her surprise, she returned to over 60 emails and questions from people eager to get involved. From there, it grew.

Over the next few months, Helena spoke to over 250 people, collating 100 stories.

Since graduating, Helena has made a book, launched a podcast, and writes a blog - generating a passionate and thriving community across social media.

Progressing Community with Twitter

After having a think about what expert advice to give when it comes to growth, Helena came to the conclusion that for her, the approach to growth is very simple.

Twitter.

Helena explained that the root of all her community work comes from putting a call out on Twitter. From using the right hashtags, to utilising the retweet function on Tweets from big accounts, Helena has found that it can be surprisingly straightforward to gather a particular demographic.

“I was amazed at how useful Twitter is within the charity and healthcare space.”

Helena Traill was a fantastic guest to have on the Digital Community Leaders Podcast, offering great advice on the world of community and charity.

Be sure to check out 100 Stories at http://www.100storiesbook.com.

The full episode is available to listen to now on all platforms!