New Fact Sheet on Social Media

Social media can be a great tool for farmers to share information and build relationships with customers. This publication offers an overview of several social media tools, including how to use blogs, Facebook, email marketing, and Twitter. It also provides tips and case studies on using them more effectively.

https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/summary.php?pub=412

Ag Must Do A Better Job Of Communicating With Consumers

Nov. 7, 2012 5:32am by Amanda Radke in BEEF Daily

Earlier this week, my youngest sister, Kaley, competed at her district FFA contest in both public speaking and extemporaneous speaking, two contests in which I also had the great honor of competing in as a youngster at the National FFA Convention. In extemporaneous speaking, a contestant draws three topics, selects one to speak on, and has 30 minutes to develop a 3- to 5-minute speech, followed by 5 minutes of questions. Kaley drew the topic of using social media to promote agriculture, and I can’t think of a more important topic for all of us in this industry to consider.

Many people still scoff about the power of social media, particularly those who are slow to adapt to these communication tools, but consider this:

• There are more than 650 million active Facebook users.
• More than 71% of all Internet users in the U.S. are on Facebook.
• On Twitter, there are 100 million active users, with an average of 1 billion new tweets every five days.
• Instagram has more than 5 million users, with 860,000 new photo uploads/day.
• The average Pinterest user spends an average of 58.8 minutes/visit, while the average time spent on Facebook is 12.1 minutes.
• There are 2 billion unique visitors/day to YouTube.
• There are 31 million bloggers in the U.S.

These statistics cleary indicate there is a huge audience waiting for us online. We only have to click a few buttons and the opportunity to reach out and educate folks about agriculture is huge. Using tools like blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are simple and cost-effective ways to bring the farm or ranch to the general public and help folks regain trust in American agriculture and fall in love with the cowboy all over again.

Temple Grandin says agriculture needs to do a better job about communicating with the general public. We can’t afford to become complacent.

Grandin says, “Agriculture across the board is horrible at communicating. Look at the ‘pink slime’ issue; the beef industry should have had a much more immediate response, educating the public about what lean finely textured beef is, and that it's a safe, efficient product. There was a response eventually, but it came too late. The damage was done.

“It shouldn't take an event like that to initiate the communication. Although most people are very detached from agriculture, they're still fascinated by it. I remember looking one time at the most popular videos on YouTube, and one of them was just of a front loader scooping up grain. Now, to a farmer, that has to be one of the most boring things to watch in the world, but to someone who's never seen it before that's fascinating.

“Unfortunately, much of what's out there are the videos of what's not being done right in agriculture. The ones who are doing things right need to show the public what's going on.”

Read Grandin’s entire story here.

Without a doubt, we all need to become better advocates for agriculture, and like my sister stressed in her FFA speech, social media is the way to do it. I challenge each and every one of you to post something positive or educational about agriculture online today.

Are You Maximizing Your Facebook Marketing Potential?

According to a study by Zickuhr and Smith 2012, 4 out of 5 Americans use the Internet.  Now social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and others are expanding that usage and can be an integral part of a farm enterprise’s marketing plan. But how can you maximize your Facebook postings?  Here is a great article by a farmer that helps us understand exactly what those tracking analytics such as “like” and “friends of fan” really mean and how to use the multiplying factor of the social media platform to expand our marketing reach.  http://local.farmersmarket.com/blog/farm-marketing-2/the-power-of-facebook.  This is a blog site with other informative articles about suing social media as a marketing tool.

Preparing your Electronics for a Hurricane

http://www.technobuffalo.com/technobuffalo/advice/preparing-your-electronics-for-hurricane-irene-checklist/

Some great tips at the above website during Irene and now we have Sandy to contend with!  What I learned from the article:
Follow Twitter Streams of Local Information  - I have "liked" our county government and EMS pages to stay up to date.
Text Messaging Has a Better Chance of Getting Through - didn't know that!

So after stopping for water and milk I will be sure to have all our gadgets updated and charged in case Sandy stops by!  I hope everyone is safe.

Mini's and Upgrading

The Washington Post reports that the ipad mini is sold out, was it on your Christmas list?

By Hayley Tsukayama,

Oct 26, 2012 03:22 PM EDT

The Washington Post Friday, October 26, 11:22 AM

Apple opened pre-sales of its iPad mini tablet Friday, and while some black versions of the tablet are still displaying a Nov. 2 delivery date, the white tablet sold out in less than a half-hour.

Cellular models for both colors are showing “mid-November” shipping dates, while black WiFi models were still available as of a 10:45 a.m. visit to Apple’s Web site.

This blog is not meant to highlight apple products or the apple craze but when I hear about a new product on the market the reminder to blog is there.  In other non apple news I am increasingly amazed and the level of connectivity we have these days.  At our house we just updated our DirectTV box.  It is now connected to my wireless network, the upstairs TV and my tablet.  I can even get pandora and other supported apps through my DirectTV box.  I have planned to one day have pandora streaming from my desktop, tablet, laptop and televisions just to freak out my husband.  But in truth the connectivity that we are now seeing is amazing. New televisions, DVDs and surround sounds connect to your home internet. Verizon is advertising a new product for home monitoring and energy conservation.  It might we worth a visit to your service providers to see what new plans and programs that you can upgrade to often for very little money.

Have you upgraded lately?

iPhone 5 Anyone?

iPhone 5 sold 5 million units over the weekend. Did anyone preorder?  According to Nick Bilton of The New York Times "that's more iPhones than the number of humans born in the U.S. in a single year".  For me I am sticking with my droid and am 13 months 6 days 4 hours and 32 seconds away from my next upgrade - but who is counting.   http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57519021-37/iphone-5s-5m-units-is-this-what-a-miss-looks-like/

Social Media Explained

For those of you confused with social media outlets.  This explains it perfectly with BACON!

Here Goes!

Here goes - my first attempt at blogging.  Feels sort of like a dear diary, facebook post and email mixed in one. 

Welcome to those that attended the Digital Farming workshops this past winter at various sites in Maryland.  We hope this can be a place to share tools and ideas as all of us learn more about digital resources and social media.  I hope to post regularly and hope that you will too.  Those with a blog, facebook page or website please feel free to post on here so we can continue to connect and learn. 

Here are blogs from the farmer speakers during the Digial Farming sessions:
Jennie Schmidt
http://thefoodiefarmer.blogspot.com/
Susan Schoenian
http://mdsheepgoat.blogspot.com/

Also if you have a facebook profile like the University of Maryland Extension Page!

A big topic this year has been the drought both locally and nationwide.  Below is a picture from a corn field in Talbot County.  The ear on the left is what an average corn ear should look like.  The ones on the right are from this year.  Talbot County has been hit hard by prolonged hot weather and little rain.  Any one else have a crop picture to share?