Ag, Food & Social Media
New Opportunities to Connect Food & Farming
Why should people interested in food and farming care about social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube? It’s really quite simple. Mass influence. Facebook reached 150 million users nearly three times faster than a cell phone. Social media is a culture changer, not a fad. If you’re not at the table, you can’t be a part of constructing the conversation about nutrition and agriculture – nor can you counter the misinformation campaigns around food, fuel, feed or fiber.
Anti-ag activist groups are becoming increasingly active on social networks and understand the power of messaging, according to Cause Matters Corp. research. The Humane Society of the United States has had a more than 100-fold increase in their Twitter following since January 2009. Videos on animal rights and environmentalism increase 30% monthly. The conversation is happening about food and farm – even if farmers and ranchers aren’t at the table talking.
Do the math about how many opportunities you have to connect agriculture if 98.5% of the U.S. population aren’t actively engaged in farming. Food is an extremely hot issue – and it’s time for agriculture and nutrition professionals to leverage that through social media leadership to influence public opinion, rather than react to rhetoric. Following are resources to help you understand new media tools such as blogging, Linkedin, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Even more articles are posted weekly on the Cause Matters Facebook Fan Page.
Social Media Strategy, Influence & Information
Customers Don’t Want Ads, They Want a Conversation
Marketing is rapidly transforming into a dialogue between buyers and sellers or collaborative marketing. Crowdtap CEO Brandon Evans on the five trends driving the shift.
Why Connecting is the Fast Track to Success on Social Media
Social media has turned the focus of businesses to connecting: be it with clients, customers, potential employees, partners or jobs.
It’s Time for Mobile Marketing…Yesterday
More and more people are accessing the internet through their mobile devices. In fact, Microsoft Tag estimates that mobile access to the internet will overtake desktop access by 2014.
Getting Started in Social Media
Discover Your Social Web (OFBF Guide to Getting Started)
Social media is all about building relationships, a key component in Ohio Farm Bureau’s mission to create a partnership between farmers and consumers.
MPK’s Social Articles
Archive of articles written to help farmers, agribusinesses and nutrition professionals get started in the social conversation with practical tools and explanations.
Social Media Tools, Guidelines and Best Practices
The use of social media tools is a powerful channel to reach target audiences with strategic, effective and user-centric health interventions.
Facebook Fundamentals
13 Ways to Boost Your Facebook Edgerank Status
How do you make sure that your content appears on feeds regularly? Here’s the best methods to increase the number of people seeing your content.
A Facebook Insider’s Guide to Posting Perfectly Shareable Images
“Less is more” and “be social” are just two suggestions to keep in mind when planning posts on Facebook.
12 Tips to Optimize Facebook Page for Maximum Reach and Brand Visibility
You have all the big plans lined up for your fans, but is your Facebook Page optimized for visibility? How to make sure your brand reach out and get more eyeballs?
Twitter Tips
50 Powerful Ways to Get More Twitter Followers
These powerful tips for building a strong Twitter brand can attract literally tens of thousands of followers, or more!
How to Use Twitter for Business and Marketing
A checklist of everything your business needs to do to get on (or back on) Twitter and start seeing great results.
10 Tips for Using Twitter Like a Pro
List of tips for how entrepreneurs can get the most out of Twitter for their businesses.
Pondering Pinterest
Pinterest Finally Rolls Out Business Accounts: How to Set Yours Up Today
Pinterest announced that it’s not only letting companies set up business accounts (as opposed to personal accounts), but it’s also releasing a business-specific terms of service, totally separate from the TOS for regular ol’ people like you and me.
Farms & Rural America, Food & Agriculture
Group sharing of images and links related to the conversation about food, fuel, feed and fiber is happening at this board.
Blogging Backgrounders
The Definitive Guide to Online Reputation Management
There are a lot of misconceptions about online reputation management. In this guide, I’m going to explain the role of online reputation management in today’s business and media landscape.
Blogging: What I Wish I Knew When I Started
Before starting a blog, most prospective bloggers believe that it’s all about the writing. Yet the reality is that writing is only a small part of the total effort required for a successful blog.
Leveraging LinkedIn
The 2013 LinkedIn Marketing Guide
LinkedIn is a great network for businesses looking to increase traffic and leads, as well as individuals looking to market their expertise for new career opportunities.
LinkedIn Refreshes Profile Pages
LinkedIn is revamping its core profile pages. Users will see a host of new tools and user options on their Linkedin profile pages.
Video Tips & Tricks
Supercharge Your Social Media Strategy with Video Content
Social networks harness a great deal of social capital. With effective social video content, your company can harness this capital to attract a wide, captive audience.
Top 10 YouTube Tips for Small Businesses
Video can be a very powerful tool for businesses of any size, but YouTube‘s free-to-use model, ease of use and mass market audience means it’s a great channel for small businesses.
Need more? Overwhelmed by new media or feel like you’re behind the times?
Don’t let all of the hype surrounding new media intimidate you; Michele provides common sense approaches to social media, combined with real life experiences of how to influenced significant change through these tools. As she says “it’s not rocket science, it’s just different.” She’s learned by rolling up her sleeves & building communities around food and agricultural issues, such as #AgChat and FoodChat on Twitter. Her “Farming Your Social Community” ranges from one-hour webinars to a full-day workshops, or Cause Matters Corp. hand selects a few organizations to work with on a special project basis. Contact her if you’re interested in building a social media hub, personalized training on each of the tools or strategy.
