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Farm groups, ag biz join social media bandwagon

By MEGGIE I. FOSTER
Assistant Editor

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Online social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, once dominated by teens and twenty-somethings, now grab the attention of ag groups and businesses hoping to take advantage of this new-age method of social communication.

What was formerly considered a Web-based avenue to update friends and family on a new haircut, a pet’s illness or weekend plans is now becoming a useful tool for ag organizations such as the Ohio Pork Producers Council (OPPC) and the Indiana Pork Producers’ Assoc. (IPPA), to engage consumers and build a fresh network of industry advocates in the continued fight for the livestock industry.

“Social media has been an important tool for us to find our industry advocates,” said Sarah Ford, public relations specialist for IPPA. “These are people who are friends on our Facebook page or followers on our Twitter page that we would have never been introduced to, otherwise.

“This is building a network of grassroots advocates who can go out in their communities and tell the story of animal agriculture.”
“We developed and released our Facebook and Twitter sites in January of 2009 as a way to meet and network with new people,” said Jennifer Kellar, director of marketing and education for OPPC. “I’ve heard there are well over 100 million users, half who check it daily – so we see this as a very powerful tool to communicate our message to a wide audience.”

Launched in 2004, Facebook was originally designed as an online tool for college students to network with one another. Since that time, it has become a social media force to be reckoned with, experiencing monumental growth by signing up more than 200 million users, with half of those added in the last eight months.
Twitter, a social networking and microblogging service released on the Web in 2006, enables its users to send and read other users’ updates, known as “tweets.” Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length, which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers).

Today, Twitter is home to nearly 14 million users, with an estimated 1,382 percent growth in the last year (as of February 2009).
“If you aren’t familiar with Twitter, it is one of those things, like MySpace, that sounds totally ridiculous and stupid when you first hear about it. But once you start using it, you realize how much fun it is,” said The Dead Travel Fast author Eric Nuzum, in an online Twitter statement.

Benefits of joining

The benefits of joining one of these social networking sites, according to Truffle Media Network’s John Blue, is to simply “find out what’s going on.”

Blue, who serves as the chief of community creations for the podcasting network home to PoultryCast, SwineCast, BeefCast, DairyCast and CropVillage, said his company has not necessarily seen increased business or Web traffic through its Twitter page, but “has it increased awareness of our company? Yes.

“We use Twitter to post information from events that we are covering, such as the National Institute for Animal Agriculture event – here’s the material we’ve captured with a link to our website,” said Blue, who added that Truffle also has a Facebook and LinkedIn page. LinkedIn is a more business-oriented social networking site, launched in 2002.

Blue mentioned Truffle’s interaction with ag “followers” such as Monsanto, Elanco and Pioneer.

“Twitter can be used to see what’s happening in topics across agriculture – from that we can determine if there is a story lead or perhaps a market opportunity,” he said.

For the IPPA, sites such as Twitter and Facebook “keep us updated on what others in the agricultural industry both statewide and nationally are saying and doing, and we also use it to stay updated on what our opponents such as HSUS (Humane Society of the United States) and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are saying and doing,” said Ford.

“Social media is a new level of exposure for the association and the industry and it is a cost-effective way to deliver our message to a large audience. Most importantly, it is a way for us to provide accurate information, when so many of our opponents are providing inaccurate and sometime malicious information to the public.”
According to Kellar, the OPPC “wants to be proactive” in the campaign for the animal agriculture industry.

“We didn’t want people to think we have anything to hide by showing what happens on a typical day,” she said, referring to OPPC’s OhioPorkTour.com website and subsequent YouTube video posts showcasing modern hog operations that address animal care, environmental and social concerns. Many of these videos have also been posted on IPPA’s and OPPA’s Facebook and Twitter pages.
Kellar said OhioPorkTour.com and the video series were funded by the Ohio Soybean Growers Assoc. in 2008 “to share the truth behind modern pork production with consumers who may not otherwise be aware.”

Currently, OPPC and IPPA are working together to develop a streamlined effort in a social media campaign designed to “get bigger and better with what we’re already doing online (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube),” shared Kellar.

What’s holding people back

Blue said the top three reasons many people still haven’t joined social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace or Twitter are time, privacy concerns and technological hurdles.

“There is a time requirement with some of these sites and the mindsets of some people is that it’s part of their daily workload to constantly update their status, while others simply don’t have the time to do so,” he said, adding that many mainstream news sources such as CNN, Fox News and local media utilize Twitter to share up-to-the-minute news with Twitter followers.

According to Ford, “social media takes a great deal of time to update and manage, and our producers simply do not have time to participate.” She also attributed slower growth from the ag community to possible “intimidation of not having enough computer knowledge to be effective at social media.

“I think some producers have a natural comfort with the behind-the-scenes aspect of social media, while others are more comfortable speaking with groups in programs such as Operation Main Street,” she added. “I think the key is finding the areas that our producers are most comfortable and providing them with the tools to help them to excel in those areas.”

Kellar said the OPPC does not plan to actively engage farmers to be involved, yet. “Of course we’d love to see more farmers on (Twitter and Facebook), but farming is demanding on your time and there is a level of commitment involved in keeping up with these sites,” she said.

Farm World joined the social media movement in 2008 through development of a Facebook fan page, and a Twitter page in early 2009. View exclusive news tweets online at www.twitter.com/FarmWorld or become a fan of the Midwest’s number-one newspaper at www.facebook.com/

5/6/2009