Social media can be a great tool for farmers to share information and build relationships with customers.
Social media is gaining popularity for large and small businesses alike, including farm businesses. Social media platforms such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter are great ways for businesses easily to share information about products and services, network with new people to build a loyal customer base, and stimulate market traffic.
Social media allows direct communication with customers that is personalised and targeted. Farmers also use social media to put a face on how food is grown. Farmers share photos and stories about how their farms are operated, making a personal connection with consumers.
Farmers can use social media to inform people about agricultural issues that matter to them, using Facebook and Twitter for activism or support of the local and sustainable-food movements. Social media also is used to keep farmers engaged with other farmers – sharing ideas about crops, pest control, and marketing strategies.
“Like it or not, there’s been a revolution in the way people expect to receive information and carry on conversations,” says Scott Stirling, a corn farmer from Martinton, Illinois, and Illinois Corn Marketing Board chairman. “There’s nothing magical about social media. These applications are just another way to deliver good information and encourage conversation.”
Marketing
The key to effective marketing is to love what you do, work hard, believe in your product, and let that shine through to existing and potential customers in your marketing strategy. The more authentic you are, the more people will be attracted to your product and want to participate and support your business.
Caring about your customers is vital for a successful social media campaign. If your goal is simply to get people to buy your stuff, you won’t have as much success. When you care about customer satisfaction, the quality of your products, and the experience customers have with your business, that concern will become apparent – and it matters to customers.
More than ever, people want to know where their food is coming from and want to get involved. Invite people to visit the farm and get to know you to build a lasting relationship that they’ll share with others. Also, by sharing your business approach, values, successes, and failures through social media, people will feel like they’re part of your farm when buying your food.
A common strategy among social media marketing experts is to determine a few goals to focus on: stimulating market traffic, generating awareness, building customer relationships, or promoting events. Keeping it simple in the beginning with an end result in mind will help you achieve your goals.
Blogs/ Websites
The word “blog” comes from the terms “web” and “log” and describes a body of text and other media published on the World Wide Web. Blogs are used to post text and photos, usually pertaining to a particular subject. Sometimes they are used as personal journals, and often they function as a business’s online information platform and advertising page.
There are many blog-hosting sites available, accessible to people with basic computer skills.
Blogs have become increasingly popular as software design evolves, making blogs more functional and easier to use. Blog software enables users to customise their sites, providing different layout options, font and image-placement choices, and tabs, and also offering plug-ins that add more functions to your blog site.
Blogs use a narrative format. Using this conversational writing style is a good way for farmers to provide updates to consumers while also building strong relationships with patrons. Blog posts can include photos and text that effectively communicate farm news and operations. Using photos to show how a farm operates is the best way to illustrate to consumers how their food is produced, which is important to a growing number of eaters.
Recipes, local food news, and beautiful pictures give value to your site and give people incentive to visit your site more often. Blogs can be used to update customers about crop harvests and are also being used for sales.
Many farmers are using blogs to take orders before farmers markets, take orders for delivery or pickup, and offer online signup for CSA membership. Creating an editorial calendar can be helpful. Decide a day and time that you’ll always post content so that readers will know when to expect new information and will come back routinely.
Deciding whether to use a blog or website for your farm can be confusing. Many people assume that blogs are amateur or that developing a website will bring more credibility or success. Websites require more software (like Dreamweaver or Front Page), require more programming expertise, and usually require a monthly hosting fee.
Also, to clarify, blogs are websites; they are free, user-friendly, and allow you to post information easily and immediately. Many, like WordPress, look like websites. So if money is limited and you aren’t an experienced web designer, a blog will do just fine to get started with an online presence and you can look into a website later if you need more functionality.
It may seem like everyone and their dog has a personal blog, but don’t let fear of competition discourage you from using the format too. The most successful blogs target a specific interest group, post regularly, and offer valuable information to viewers.
Free Blog sites and Fee-Based Web Hosting and Design Options
There are three free blog templates that many people and businesses use: WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr. Each offers something different and attracts a certain type of user.
Word Press
WordPress is the most-used blogging tool worldwide. It can be obtained to use for free by downloading and installing software, which allows users to build individual blogging websites. WordPress is unique because a community of web designers has written programs and created templates without being paid, improving the software for personal intrinsic rewards.
Th e result of this vast public collaboration and design of WordPress is a large variety of blog customisations. The plug-ins for WordPress also add to the appeal. Plug-ins are code added to the original code of a software program that increases the functionality of the software. An example is Google analytics.
If you enable this plug-in for your WordPress blog, you can track how many people visit the site and get other user statistics.
To begin using WordPress to create a blog for your farm, the website www.codex.wordpress.org/MainPage may be the best place to start. There you’ll find several tutorials about how to begin and will also find information helpful to more advanced users.
Specifically, you’ll find instructions for getting started, creating posts, using themes and plugins, and troubleshooting. You’ll also find links to WordPress support forums. An example of a WordPress blog is Bit of Earth, created to promote a family farm’s production and sale of honey, eggs, and free-range beef. Check it out at http://bitofearthfarm.wordpress.com/home.
Blogger
Blogger, also called Blogspot, is a free blog template owned by Google that can be used to share text, photos, and video. Blogger has been in service since 1999 and was a paid blog-publishing tool until Google bought the site in 2003 and made it free to the public. It is user-friendly and allows domain names other than blogspot.com. For example, your blog domain name can be snoringpigfarm.org if you choose rather than snoringpigfarm.blogspot.com.
A guide for getting started is available at https://support.google.com/blogger. The guide provides information and videos on how to create and customise a blog using Blogger, how to write posts, and how to add images and video.
If you need additional information about Blogger, you can search the web for forums or tutorial videos. Also check out the links below to visit farms that have used Blogger to create blogs. http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com
Tumblr
Tumblr is an alternative blog site, designed as a short-form blog, and is a cross between Facebook posts and traditional blog posts. Tumblr allows users to post photos, videos, music, links, and text. It also is similar to Twitter and Facebook in the sense that Tumblr users follow each other and get updates when something new is posted.
With almost 53 million users, Tumblr is one of the newest social media sites and is catching on quickly. Tumblr is known for its user-friendly features. A free blog account can be set up by visiting www. tumblr.com. Th e site will walk you through setting up a blog page, and if you have questions, see www.tumblr.com/help. You can customise the site with your choice of text, colours, or layout using different themes.
If your social media strategy includes several platforms such as a blog, Facebook, and Twitter accounts, be sure to post links on your blog for users to see that you’re using different platforms.
Different people may prefer one mode of social media over another, so if you use several you may capture a broader audience.
There is a balance in deciding which tools to use. On one hand, the more tools you use, the broader the audience you may attract. On the other hand, each medium requires an investment of time and effort, and you shouldn’t take on more than you are able to maintain.
Social Media Consulting Services
Many farms use social media consulting services for the benefit of their expertise or to preserve time for farming – what farmers do best! Consulting firms offer services like strategic planning, social media development, marketing, and outreach.
Source: https://attra.ncat.org
