Agriculture is Using Social Media, How and Why

Agriculture is Using
Social Media
How and Why
1Wednesday, September 4, 13
Good morning,
Welcome to the webinar
Agriculture is Using Social Media,
How and Why

Truffle Media
Ned Arthur, Director of Sales and
Content Development
John Blue, Chief of
Community Creation
Hi, My name is John Blue and I work at Trufﬂe Media Networks, an agriculture media company focused on agriculture animal
health issues.

Thanks to the Extension team
running the Animal Care Wednesday
Webinars for the opportunity to
provide you information you can use.
Thanks to the Extension team running the Animal Care Wednesday Webinars
for the opportunity to provide you information you can use.

WhyHow
Social
Media
Agriculture
What I want to share with you today are some thoughts on
agriculture and social media.

1793 The Pennsylvania Evening Post becomes America's
ﬁrst daily newspaper.
1851 Selling for a penny a copy, the New York Times
debuts.
1885 William Dempster Hoard wrote his issue of a "journal
devoted to dairy farming.
1962 Agri-Marketing magazine started
1984 United States newspaper circulation peaks at 63
million people
191 Years
Before we start, I want to share a perspective: It took 191 years to get from ﬁrst American
paper to a newspaper with a peak circulation of 63 million people.

1995 The American Reporter ﬁrst daily newspaper on Internet
2004 Podcasting started
2004 Facebook launched
2005 YouTube launched
2006 Twitter launched
2010 Facebook passed 63 million US people
15 Years
In contrast to newspaper, It took 15 years to go from the ﬁrst internet newspaper to get to a
single digital service having 63 million users.
The speed of technology adoption and use will continue to be fast.

Landscape
Media use over the last 20 years has changed.
People have moved from utilizing media based on time and location to discovering
and ﬁnding information in real time through multiple channels and various sources of authority.
Information media has become time free, virtual, digital, and very participatory.

Trends
39% of Americans say they get most of their news on national and international issues from the web.
This data, from the Pew Research Center, shows that people are shifting their ways to get news and information.

Trends
2012, 19% of Americans said they saw news or news headlines on a social network.
And, among adults younger than age 30, 33% saw news on a social networking site the previous day.
with just 13% of those young adults having read a newspaper, in print or digital form.

http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/08/21/report-social-network-demographics-in-2012/
Big kid
on the
block
This chart highlights the prevalence of social media use by Americans over the age of 45
(orange, red, and dark red). This is important to know because 25% of principle farm
operators are over the age of 65, and the average age of farmers is 58 years old.

Pinterest has strong Interest
Data from
Services like Pinterest and

Data from
Over 300 million
visits per month to
Tumblr based sites
Tumblr are gaining traction and demanding the attention of people

Other services like LinkedIn and Google+ also are demanding on people’s attention.

Trends
(June 2011, 500,000 Android activations per day!)
April 2013, 1.5 Million Android activations per day!
http://agtoday.us/android-activations-chart
The number of android activations per day has jumped from 500,000 per day in June 2011
to 1.5 million activations per day in April 2013.
45 million in one month!
540 million activations in one year!

iPhone
22%
Blackberry
7%
No
smartphone
35%
Android
31%
2012 Survey of farmer smart phone use
From a Q2 2012 survey, the number of farmers and ranchers with smart phones is over 50%.
While “the No Smartphone” option is still a large percentage,
access to “non smartphones” is becoming harder
as carriers offer great bargains on new plans and new phones

Write down as many
things as you can:
What are the things
you take for granted
about agriculture and
media today.
Before we continue, I would like you to
Write down as many things as you can that you take for
granted about agriculture and media today.
We will come back to this topic later.
Let’s take about 60 seconds.

What is Agriculture?
What is agriculture?
Some traditional views are that it’s all about
growing corn, soybeans, cattle, chickens, and pigs.

Number of farms
This map shows the number of farms and ranches across the US, with Texas having 200,000+ farms and Alaska about 600~
farms.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0823.pdf
Relative farm population segments
http://agtoday.us/us-farmer-subgroups-info-2011
Farming is has many aspects; This is the population of farmers by subgroup.
There are approximately 2.1 million crop farmers and about 61,000 hog farmers.

Relative farm revenue size
http://agtoday.us/us-farmer-subgroups-info-2011
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0823.pdf
And farmers aim to make money with their operations.
Crop farming revenue for 2011 was about $142 billion dollars and sheep/goat revenue was about $550 million dollars.

But agriculture is more than just growing
corn, soybeans, cattle, chickens, and pigs.

There are many players in agriculture beyond the farm.
Farm products are transformed into various food products
delivered through a variety of outlets.

And there are many constituents groups representing
the players in agriculture across a wide ecosystem.

US Population
Number of
US farmers
Comparing the population, farmers only represent ~1.5% of the
US population. But everyone eats. So agriculture has a larger reach
than just growing corn, soybeans, cattle, chickens, and pigs.

Social Media
What is social media?
We have had social media for a long time
Polaroids, Postcards, Sheet music, Mix tapes&CDs, Jokes
But the speed and scale of sharing that media was very limited.

Social Media Today
Today, the ability to share has speed, scale, and selectivity because
the channels are digital. We can reach far more
people with media that can spread very quickly.

Why Social Media?
Why do people use social media?
People love to share.

Why Social Media?
People want to be entertained.

Why Social Media?
Some people want to help.

Why Social Media?
And others want attention.

Why Social Media?
And, yes, people want to make money using media.

These next set of slides start to bring focus on agriculture’s use of social media.
Each examples aim to provide a why and how.

Create a safe place to have conversations
The Agvocacy 2.0 conference, produced by the The AgChat Foundation, is focused on bring together about 80 to
100 farmers and ranchers to help them learn more about social media use. The conference sets up a secret
Facebook group for the attendees.

Why?
• Safe place for conversations.
• Channel easy for all to see and utilize. Many
people understand Facebook
• Record of activity over time, to see what
people are talking about.
• Creates opportunity to maintain the
connection for future event promotion
and conversation.
For the 2012 Agvocacy 2.0 class, the participation and activity on the private Facebook group
has been the largest in the 3 years doing this engagement approach. The 2013 alumni are
now just kicking in their thoughts.

How?
• Create private Facebook group several
months before the event, adding people
as they register.
• Utilize the private group during the
event, with team members assigned to
help with posts and conversations.
• Continue to seed the group on a regular
basis and participate in conversations,
even after the conference is over.
The conference organizers created a private Facebook group for attendees to the conference. (share hows).

http://www.ilovefarmers.org/about.html
This agricultural awareness group is a student run non-proﬁt out of Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA, called I Love
Farmers, They Feed My Soul.
They organize around other events, cater to the needs of young people (music, T-shirts, food), and bring youthful
energy where ever they go.

Why?
• Many people are not familiar with farming
and the work it involves.Young people
have energy and a belief they can make a
difference.
• To build a team of people that can share
and tell the story of agriculture.

How?
• "Together, our generation can make a
difference." through concerts, design, Social
Media, Selling T-shirts at events, talking to
many people, using social media

http://agricultureproud.com/
Ryan Goodman comes from an Arkansas cattle ranching family. A graduate of Oklahoma State in Animal Science,
Ryan is currently in Tennessee working on a Master's degree in Beef Cattle Reproduction and Nutrition. He works
continuously to share his story of ranch life through community outreach and social media, all while encouraging
others in agriculture to do the same. Ryan blogs regularly blog and shares those updates through many channels.

Why?
• To help consumers with perceptions,
beliefs, and understanding of agriculture.
• To create a broad platform for dialog.

How?
• Blog,Twitter, Facebook
• Ryan also writes for Eatocracy on the CNN
website.
• In person by sharing farming and ranching
stories at many events, ag and non-ag alike

https://www.facebook.com/HeartwoodFarm.info
Laura Daniels is a mother, wife, farmer, and agriculture advocate. At Heartwood Farm in Cobb, WI, Laura, and her
husband Jarred, take great joy in teaching their children their values as they work together. While Laura and
Jarred share in ownership of the farm, it is Laura who serves as General Manager in charge of day-to-day
operations. They have 6 full-time employees, 300 Jersey cows and operate 650 acres of crop and pasture land.
Laura also does consulting in the areas of team building, employee management, and dairy cattle nutrition. More
recently she is hitting the road to deliver pro-ag and motivational speeches across the country, inspiring many to
ﬁnd their passion, build their skills and have conﬁdence to tell their story.

Why?
Laura says this best in here presentation: The disconnect that exists between those who grow
food and those who eat it: this is why she uses social media as part of her efforts to reach out
and start a dialog.

How?
• Facebook,Twitter, Blog.
• Getting out and talking with people

http://zweberfarms.com/
Jon and Lisa Zweber farm with their son, Tim, and his wife, Emily. Their farm is four generations strong, located in
Elko, Minnesota. They raise pasture beef, pasture chicken, free range eggs, and all natural pork. They sell all their
meats direct from their farm and straight to consumers.

Why?
• Increase real foot trafﬁc to their farm to
see what they are doing, increase sales,
and create connections with real people
(social).
They believe their website and social media activity will help people learn about what is happening on the farm
and more about how food is raised.

How?
• Facebook, Blog,Twitter,YouTube
• Demonstrations, talks, being in the
communities they want to share with.

http://realfarmwivesofamerica.com/
The Real Farmwives of America and Friends offers a glimpse inside the world of growing up and living on the family farm.
These women are farm girls, farmwives, moms, daughters, and aunts. They are friends that have the bond of the farm
among other things.

Why?
• “The Real Farmwives of America and
Friends offers a glimpse inside the world
of growing up and living on the family
farm.”
They use digital platforms to help extend the conversations around farm and food.

How?
• Blog, Facebook,Twitter, Google+
• Network of bloggers
• Out and about speaking with various
groups.
Their blogs tell you about their hectic & amazing lives on and off the farm. They represent dairy, pigs, and grain farms,
with a goal of helping people understand more about the food they eat and where it comes from.

http://www.fooddialogues.com/
U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) consists of more than 80 farmer – and rancher-led organizations and
agricultural partners representing virtually all aspects of agriculture. They were formed to engage in a dialogue
with consumers who have questions about how today’s food is grown and raised.

Why?
• Working to engage in dialogue with
consumers who have questions about how
today’s food is grown and raised.

How?
• Website,Twitter, Google+,YouTube,
Facebook
• Multi-location events with experts on
panels, promotional activities at major
conferences across the country.

Some examples
How do you ﬁnd farmers and producers on digital communities? Where are they?

Tools
http://hashtagify.me/
Hashtagify
https://gephi.org/
Gephi: Open GraphViz Platform
Look for
relationships
SocialBro
http://www.socialbro.com
These tool examples allow you to search for a Twitter hashtag or users. Example: Hashtagify sees who are
top users of a tag. Other tools like SocalBro and Gephi can be used to organize social media information on
people and discover connections. This connection information can be used to help steer decisions on
outreach, blog topics, and events.

Search networks
Another approach is to use the search tools
of the various social media channels
to ﬁnd and listen to farmers and ranchers.

Arlan is on these lists
Senior Market Analyst for Water Street Solutions. Former Grain
Market Analyst for Farm Futures. Views are my own. Tweets
intended for information only.
Arlan subscribes to these
Find interesting people
Find interesting people and follow where they participate and hang out.
Build lists of people as you travel through discovery. Have a way to capture and organize information
(Twitter lists, Highrise, MailChimp, etc). Make your lists of connectors. (next slide now)

Arlan is on these lists
Senior Market Analyst for Water Street Solutions. Former Grain
Market Analyst for Farm Futures. Views are my own. Tweets
intended for information only.
Arlan subscribes to these
Find interesting people
This example shows Arlan Suderman of Water Street Solutions.
He tweets about the crop markets and follows a few twitter lists.
Look at those lists to see who else might be of interest.
Also, Arlan is listed on other people’s lists,
which may contain some contacts of interest to you.

Listen to your existing audience!
Another approach is to use your already existing base of supporters, audience, and fans. They don’t need
convincing. They can help you learn more about your ecosystem. Cultivate these people. (next slide now)

Listen to your existing audience!
This slides shows the Truffle Media Networks audience on a couple of email updates sent using MailChimp. I can
use the audience’s attention (using clicks as a proxy) to guide what is and is not of interest.

Why?
• Your current audience already believe in you
at some level.
• The data is easy to obtain once you have
setup the services.
• You get a history of action and re-action.

How?
• Utilize services like Google
Analytics, your email service
provider, or survey service.
• Regularly ask your existing audience
questions and see how they
respond.
• Use the data to understand actions.

Why?
All the prior engagements had a why.
It is important to have a reason why plus a
measurable component to understand how that
engagement is progressing.
This measurement provides objective information
on which to act.
What is your Why? and how are you going to
measure it?
All these uses of social media in agriculture had a why. It is important to have a reason why plus a measurable
component to understand how that engagement is progressing. This measurement provides objective information
on which to act. What is your Why? And how are you going to measure it?

Write down as many
things as you can:
What are the things
you take for granted
about agriculture and
media today.
If you can, please share one of your items you listed in the chat area.
Look at those things you take for granted about agriculture and media.
What do they say about your approach to media and what one thing can you tackle to change the assumption?

Truffle Media
Questions?
Questions?
Please type you questions in the chat area on the webinar.

And if you still wonder what social media is, this “Social Media Explained via Donuts” can help.

Contact Information
info@TruffleMedia.com
@TruffleMedia
TruffleMedia.com/Facebook
(877) 558-7833
TruffleMedia.com
Contact Truffle via Phone: (877) 558-7833, Twitter: @TruffleMedia, Facebook: TruffleMedia.com/Facebook, and web:
TruffleMedia.com.

Truffle Media
Ned Arthur, Director of Sales and
Content Development
John Blue, Chief of
Community Creation
Close on Trufﬂe team.

Thanks to the Extension team
running the Animal Care Wednesday
Webinars for the opportunity to
provide you information you can use.
Thanks to the Extension team running the Animal Care Wednesday Webinars
for the opportunity to provide you information you can use.

Agriculture is Using Social Media, How and Why

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