Farming the Online Community: Your Guide to Social Media


Michele Payn-Knoper, CSP
Cause Matters Corp
http://www.mpk.info/


Facebook. YouTube. Twitter. LinkedIn. Digg. Farmers. Wait - how do farmers fit with all of these new-fangled tools? Welcome to 2009 and the age of social media. Studies show that four out of five online Americans are active in some form of social content at least once a month. Believe it or not, you've been a part of the Web 2.0 social media revolution if you've been on e-bay, blogs, photo sharing websites or forums interacting with others. Now it's time for you to tap into social media to impact your bottom line though access to soybean and other market intelligence, technical expertise, discussions with other farmers and consumer thought patterns about farming.

You've likely calculated your harvest success based upon yields, market conditions, input costs and other return on investment measurements. I encourage you to consider yield measurements beyond combines and grain bins. One of those areas is consumer understanding about agriculture, such as why we need to improve soybean yields. Look at the long-term yield opportunity if the non-ag public understands these types of critical issues.

• What are the benefits of using biotechnology?
• How have soybean farmers reduced their environmental impact?
• Why do farm productivity improvements help consumers?
• How does your farm view sustainability?
• Why do you farm and what does it means to your family?

You can farm your online community to communicate with the non-farm public about these issues. The quantity of people engaged in social media clearly illustrates the opportunity to connect farmers with the 98.5% of the U.S. population not actively involved with a farm. The number of Facebook users now exceeds the U.S. population, over two million tweets (140 character messages), are sent daily on Twitter and there are 20 hours of video uploaded every minute of every day on YouTube.

Why should you take the time to engage in social media?

• Network across the business: People with multiple decades in agriculture have told me that they’ve never found a better networking tool than social media. For example, Twitter’s #AgChat on Tues., 8-10 p.m. Eastern, engages over 110 people in the business of raising food, feed, fuel and fiber in a weekly online discussion. In addition to discussing timely issues and educating others about agriculture, participants in #AgChat regularly dialogue about what they’re doing in the field, the latest equipment, ways to improve practices and experiences in animal care.
• Listen louder: Identify trends and thought patterns shaping opinion about what you do on a daily basis. Social media offers an early glimpse of emerging trends – and media outlets have been using tools such as Twitter to break news, as well as source it.
• Gain technical knowledge: Information overload is a common complaint in today’s fast-paced times. Well-built communities centered on your personal and business interests give you easy (and fast!) access to breaking news, real time market information, high-level expertise and feedback from others in similar situations.
• Share sound bytes about agriculture: Create greater understanding of what’s happening on the farm, in the field and the challenges faced by those who produce food. In a society two or three generations removed from the farm – this is a critical business tool to ensure your long-term success.
• Put a face on the plate: Connect with consumers and influencers – by the millions. Take five minutes a day to share what you’re working on your farm, in your agribusiness, or challenges in the business. If you’re not telling people about farming, how do you expect them to understand? When I began tweeting a weekly food fact in January 2009, my followers diversified and I then fully realized the power of Twitter when major media outlets began following me. People are hungry for information about food.
• Engage in dialogue with people from different backgrounds: This is particularly true when misinformation is running rampant. Blogs and Twitter have taught me how single-minded some people can be in debates about sustainability, local food, biotechnology, organics, animal rights, urban gardeners, et al. Time spent in civil discourse is constructive if it builds understanding of both parties’ opinions.

Today’s Internet experience is about efficient community interaction and information exchange; agriculture loses when farmers don’t engage in that community. Arm yourself with a base knowledge of social media to leverage it as a tool for your farm with customers and influencers. After all, farmers offer the best voice for agriculture in social media.

posted by Expert 1:25 pm