32. 10050 Regency Circle, Suite 400 Omaha, Nebraska 68114 (402) 391-1991 www.jacksonlewis.com Presented by: Susan M. Schneider [email_address] Kenneth M. Wentz III [email_address]
33. You may access this presentation at http://slideshare.net Search for ‘NE Green Expo’
34. Questions? Can You Find Value in Social Media? Dennis Kahl UNL Extension [email_address] THANK YOU ! ! Nebraska Green Expo 2010
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Editor's Notes
Source: comScore Media Metrix – GREEN EXPO – sponsored by Nebraska Turfgrass Association and the Nebraska Nursery and Landscape Associations.
9 social media sources listed above. How many of you use at least one of them either for personal or for business? How many of you use Facebook? Etc. to get an idea of useage of social media at this point? Personal? For business?
The power of Twitter is in the conversation and community. The conversation is happening with or without agriculture. Communities are being engaged around issues such as organics, sustainability, environmental regulations and other issues relevant to your business. Misinformation about modern agriculture is being proliferated, such as a self-proclaimed farmer in NYC . In the last 24 hours, I’ve– (Michelle Payne-Knoper) had a lively discussion about “factory” farms with people in the UK, L.A. New York City and Virginia. Are we going to change the minds of the extremists? No, but we can at least get agriculture’s side of the story told far more effectively than what we have in mainstream media. I’ve spent 8 years trying to help agriculture find its voice – and honestly can say I’ve never seen the engagement of different perspectives in the conversation like what has happened on Twitter. Twitter is pretty simple – you find people you’d like to learn more about and “follow” them. You have 140 characters to communicate the info you want to share. Farmers tweet from their tractors and barns, ag media people are tweeting the latest news you need, academia are sharing technical information and commodity groups are spreading information about the value of farm products. If you need some help, just come on over to one of my new “Techniques for Ag Tweeps & Tweets” webinars. Or, connect with me on Twitter . To tweet or not to tweet – it’s up to you, but if you’re in agriculture, I’d suggest you jump on the train before you look back and realize it’s run with conversations running rampant that further misconceptions of our business. The power is in the people – and you hold those reins. Get started now…. http://twitter.com Source: Cause Matters Twitter: Twitters Business Value in Agriculture – Michelle Payne-Knoper When this question was posed on Twitter, “Why do you think Twitter is valuable to agriculture? Asking for responses back in 30 minutes, these are some of the responses she got back….
In the last year, many farm lobbying groups have established a presence on Facebook and Twitter in an effort to reach out to farmers. Americans farmers are old and getting older, with an average age of 57.1 in 2007, up from 55.3 in 2002. Social media, like most technology trends, is still thought of as the domain of young people, but the two fastest-growing age demographics on Facebook are 35- to 54-year-olds and those 55 and above, according to a Jan. 2009 analysis by iStrategyLabs, an online marketing company. "Every single advocacy group is thinking about how they can [use] social technology and social media to engage people who are passionate about their causes," said Peter Corbett, CEO of iStrategyLabs. "We don't have an excuse to think, 'We don't need to focus our marketing campaign there because our audience isn't there.' Because it is."
Before you wave it off as youth fad, the numbers below tell you that people 35 and older are driving the success of Twitter as a business tool. According to ComScore, college age and teenagers are 12% less likely to tweet than middle agers.
"A lot of people are confused about how to get value out of it." But the Ohio bureau has seen a surge in activity due to a controversial proposed amendment to the state constitution which would create a board with the power to regulate animal care of livestock. The ballot initiative is favored by farmers who see it as a safeguard against tougher animal care regulations proposed by organizations like the Humane Society. "We're seeing, on Facebook especially, members are becoming very, very active," Toland said. "More people are posting pictures of their 'Vote Yes for Issue 2' signs." OFBF posts videos of ads and announcements about upcoming rallies on its wall. and encourages people to post their own photos from rallies. It this kind of direct contact with supporters that makes social media an important and effective organizing tool, farm groups said. "We can write letters to the editor until we're blue in the face," said Tracy Grondine, director of media relations at the American Farm Bureau. "But it's a lot more efficient and effective to post directly on someone's site."
This is what Twitter looks like. You can join by going to http://twitter.com negreenexpo user pswd: NE1234 Tue Jan 20, 2009 Explore the Twitter Hashtag There is a pretty useful trick that twitter insiders use all the time called a hashtag. The roots of the #tag are buried somewhere in IM coding, but it’s what you can do with it using twitter that matters. ( More on hashtags if you want to techie stuff on this.) The hashtag or #tag added to a tweet acts as way to create categories, groups or topics for tweets that others can use as well. This way, tweets can easily be grouped together using the search.twitter.com feature. Let me give you a very commonly used tactic for this. Let’s say a group of folks are attending a workshop and tweeting their notes in real time. If everyone at that workshop were asked to add something like #mkt101 to their tweets, everyone present or not can see and share all the notes in one place. During earthquakes and fires hashtags are a great way for people to get news. Promoting events and product launches via a hashtag helps keep the word in context Companies often use hashtags as a way for remote employees to use twitter as a communication tool for all the stuff people should stay on top of. I use a hashtag for each of my live webinars and then people tweet and ask questions via twitter and I have a back channel of conversation and notes and another source of relevant content to support the webinar.
The Center for Rural Affairs (CFRA), a Nebraska-based rural advocacy group, started seriously investing in social media less than six months ago, but they already have more than 700 fans on Facebook and nearly 300 followers on Twitter. "We've had way more success than I anticipated," said Brian Depew, rural organizing and outreach program director at CFRA. Mission: Establish strong rural communities, social and economic justice, environmental stewardship, and genuine opportunity for all while engaging people in decisions that affect the quality of their lives and the future of their communities.
The ballot initiative is favored by farmers who see it as a safeguard against tougher animal care regulations proposed by organizations like the Humane Society. "We're seeing, on Facebook especially, members are becoming very, very active," Toland said. "More people are posting pictures of their 'Vote Yes for Issue 2' signs." OFBF posts videos of ads and announcements about upcoming rallies on its wall. and encourages people to post their own photos from rallies. It this kind of direct contact with supporters that makes social media an important and effective organizing tool, farm groups said. "We can write letters to the editor until we're blue in the face," said Tracy Grondine, director of media relations at the American Farm Bureau. "But it's a lot more efficient and effective to post directly on someone's site."
There are over 25 million businesses already using Facebook and a growing number using Twitter to reach and pass on information to the public and to their clientele.
Let’s browse through one story featured About.com blog that demonstrates how a short topic in a blog or even a product or service can be linked to Twitter, Facebook and other social media.. Example of Blog.
This short video tours the UNL Extension huskerpreNeur blog created in wordpress.com. This blog captures educational opportunities offered by UNL Extension as well as eXtension. A great place to add new content and provide links to Twitter and Facebook.
Facebook demonstration can come following this information or later.
This short video just gives a tour of Midwest Laboratories facebook page. Their ‘landing page’, the page that non fans will visit when brought there from Twitter or other social media locations. Go to http://delicious.com/sewardextension/socialmediaguides/ then select Creating a ‘Landing Page’ in Facebook to learn the steps of doing so.