Platforms and some examples of how they're being used to share information and knowledge in the agriculture field.

1. Social Media is Everywhere
::
Education, Connection, Community
Dr. Jessica Laccetti
Image from twicepix on flickr.

2. Outline
• Introduction
• Platforms & Examples
• Social Media Strategy
• Questions

3. I used to live here

4. I now live here

5. I work here

6. and here
Image by Daveography on flickr

7. Social Media Consulting :: U.K.
• Worked for
• SMEs
• Local government/municipalities
• Educational institutions
Example
• Frontline Books
• Local, independent bookstore
• Led SM strategy focusing on blog to
• Curate, create & share content
• Book sales increased dramatically
leading to
• New coffee/computer area IN
bookstore
• Online sales (broadened reach)
• Physical expansion

8. Social Media Consulting :: Canada
• Worked for
• SMEs
• Educational institutions
• NGOs
Example
• Local Realtor
• Struggling in buyer’s market
• Led SM strategy focusing on Pinterest to
• Curate & share striking images of
properties for sale
• Facebook to
• Interact with potential buyers/sellers
• Gain feedback on properties
• Use feedback in future image curation
• Broaden reach beyond immediate
geographical area
• Residential sales increased & new client
base grew

10. Blogs
• “weblog” coined in
1997 by Jorn Barger
on 17 December 1997
• “blog” coined by Peter
Merholz in 1999 (VP,
Global Design at
Groupon)
Image from: http://usaelreflejo.blogspot.ca/2010/09/postear-versus-vivir.html

11. • Past:
– sharing interests, hobbies, thoughts
• Present:
– display thought leadership & expertise
– major publishing business
– Huffington Post sold for over $300 million (AOL,
2011)
• Over 500 thousand posts a day
• Over 400 thousand comments a day

12. Blogs
• Immediacy of news
• Perceived “open” relationship
• Two-way communication via comments
• “Ideal gateway” for organisations to
participate in web 2.0
[Rigby, B. (2008). Mobilizing generation 2.0: A practical guide to using Web 2.0 technologies to recruit, organize, and
engage youth. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.]
Image from Tim Green on flickr.

13. About
• Gary Chambers
• Farming,
technology,
agriculture
• Owns a grain farm
• Runs a century 21
brokerage in
Drumheller
• “Half the time in the
tractor and half the
time in a suit”
• Blog can “convey my
message”

14. About
• Lilian Schaer
• Writer &
communications
project manager at
Agri-Food Project
Services
• Focus of the blog:
“news, information
and comment about
the farming side of
food from the
perspective of
someone who works
for and with Ontario’s
farmers”

15. About
• Kevin Kossowan
• Aim: to educate readers
about “wild food”
• Started blog in 2006
• Blog won “Best
Seasonal/Local” in the
Canadian Food Blog Awards
• Video won “The Perennial
Plate” competition
• Featured in Edmonton
Journal, Calgary Herald,
CBC, CTV and more
• Includes tweets, videos,
photos, and Pinterest

16. About
• Lyndsey Smith
• Aim: current issues and
“insight into what the
news means to your
business”
• “real-world stories”
• Audience: farmers,
agriculture industry,
government
• RealAgriculture.com
business doubled in the
last year
• Include video, blogs,
articles, market &
weather updates

18. Facebook
• Creating a “page” for your business allows
followers to keep up to date with business
news, offers and updates alongside status
updates from their friends
• Quick and easy to use
• Community feel so no hard sells
• Encourages loyal following

19. Step 1: Build
• Build presence with a Facebook Page
• Create a business/organisation identity in the
social ecosystem
• Enables you to map connections between
people & what they find important
• Add your geographical location if there is one

20. Step 1: Build
• Use Social Plugins
• Graph API
• Apps on Facebook
– To create social “experiences” linking your
products with engaging and personalised
participation

21. Social
Plugins

22. Graph API
VERY easy to
access, parse,
collate and SEARCH
user data
You can try with your FB
account:
http://zesty.ca/facebook/

23. APPS
• Can integrate
your
product/brand
deeply into FB
experience
• Link with news
feed,
• Originally an iPhone app, now linked with FB apps
notifications, • Designed by Canadian Farmers
• Keep track of seeding, spraying etc.. & share
timeline updates with FB
• Employees can be synced w/ farm manager’s
account
• Employees can enter tasks while working in fields

24. Step 2: Engage
• Facebook Like Ads = Quickest way to acquire
fans Click “Like” on ad
Page can post content to
Connection made
news feed & send you
w/business/brand/product
messages
You may be displayed on the
Connection displayed in
Page you connected to & in
timeline
ads about Page
Friends receive news feed
story about connection

25. Step 2: Engage
• Publish & engage
in conversations
with fans
deepens
relationships &
you can gain
valuable insights

26. Step 3: Amplify
• Every time someone interacts with your
business, it is published to their newsfeed
• Organic stories engage & can be shared with a
much larger potential customer base
• Use Facebook Ads
• Employ Sponsored Stories to increase
distribution of News Feed stories

28. Twitter
• The shorter format of Twitter often means it’s more difficult to really build
a relationship with customers, however it’s great for getting in touch and
keeping up to date. Many businesses use Twitter primarily to release
news, market their products, and direct attention to special offers and
new content such as blog posts. Clever use of Hashtags (a word or phrase
preceded by a pound sign) means that followers or users looking for
information on a certain topic might find the information from your
business even if they have never come across you before.
• Twitter is a great way to get in touch with key influencers in your niche,
simply follow them and start a conversation with them! As well as
promoting your own blog post ideas, try retweeting good content that you
find from other people; you’ll find it’s a great way to get in touch with a
whole host of interesting people.
• Click on the following link to learn How to Use Twitter for Business – 8
Tweeting Marvelous Tips

29. • Connect with interested people
• Ask questions
• Share interesting information (links, photos,
videos)
• Participate in the conversation
• Serve clients
• Track and monitor (engagement,
community)

30. Twitter Strategy
• Why?
• Who (do you want to monitor)?
• What?
• How (will you use the results)?

31. Business/Organisation
• Track reputation, brand, product mentions to
increase sales
• Monitor what consumers are saying about
competing products/organisations
• Monitor in order to improve products/services
• Educate gaps in knowledge

32. Listen
• Content
• Context
• Sentiment
• Gaps in conversation (you can engage here)
• Reach (strength of conversation = broader
implications)

33. Next Step
• Join conversation
• Develop relationships
• Integrate what you learn into
product/teaching/communication

37. http://www.cnbc.com/id/41950415/How_Twitter_Is_Revolutionizing_The_Agriculture_Trade?slide=2

38. Steve Tucker: Tweeting Farmer
@Tykerman1
“People out in the cities aren't familiar with
agriculture like it used to be 100 years ago.
They may not have an appreciation or an
understanding of what goes on out in the
rural side of things…. I just try to be an
information source for whoever may be
listening.”
Quoted in Leslie Bradshaw’s 6 Trends in Social Media & Agriculture presentation.

39. FACT: Twitter posts are helping bridge the urban-rural divide.
FACT: Phones and social media are connecting eaters with sources of food.
Content Credit: CNN.com; Steve Tucker (@Tykerman1), Leslie Bradshaw

41. Sharing Knowledge with Twitter
• Example: At the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology meeting
in July 2009, 1400 researchers came together
• Hardly any maintained lengthy face-to-face contact…instead,
• They tweeted (& blogged) about:
– research as it was presented
– following parallel sessions
• Provided an opportunity for researchers not at the meeting, as well
as a far wider community, to actively participate
• Interestingly, the “virtual coverage” of the conference was so
complete, that it was used to write an authoritative conference
summary published in PLoS Computational Biology:
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi
.1000263

43. • 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute
• 500 years of YouTube video are watched on
Facebook every day
• 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter
every minute
• 1 billion global users
• Mobile traffic tripled in 2011

44. YouTube
• Video marketing is hugely effective
• Popular with search engines
• YouTube bought by Google = good reason to
start a profile and have at least one video

45. Educational
BUT SERIOUS

48. Educational
BUT HUMOROUS

51. YouTube
AS A CALL TO ACTION

53. • Agriculture supporters used YouTube to
persuade on Prop. 37

55. Pinterest
• If you can tie in images and pictures to what
you the Pinterest will showcase it
• Estate Agents, to bakers, dog walkers or
photographers, travel agents, farmers and
other ag business use Pinterest to build
interest in their products

56. Pinterest
• Social
• Visual
• Viral
• Easy to use
• Fastest independent site to reach 10 million
monthly unique visits (in the U.S.)
• Focuses on the “interest-graph”
• Connects you with interests rather than
people

57. Pinterest
• New opportunities to
learn about
consumer/client likes &
interests
• “Avoid Self Promotion:
Pinterest is designed to
curate and share things
you love…try not to use
Pinterest purely as a
tool for self-promotion”
(Pinterest)

59. Food + Tech Connect
• Use Pinterest after noticing people were
pinning their infographics & videos
• “As curators, we are excited for a new visual,
medium to share our favorite tools,
infographics, apps, and resources. We are also
excited about new ways to discover new food
and technology resources from the Pinterest
community.” (Danielle Gould)

61. Pinterest
57%
interact with food-related content (Source: Citigroup Global Markets)

62. 55.6%
Canadian
farms using
the internet
2011 Census of Agriculture
Image from Wayne Black on CBC.CA

63. SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

64. Social Media Strategy
• Define objective
• Define audience
• Define tool - target your demographic
• Develop content
• Market your tool/tools
• Remain authentic & true to your message
• Evaluate results
Image from jpverkamp on flickr.

65. Caveat
integrate into overall
communication planning, activities
& data collection.

66. Content Engagement
• Pictures 44%
• Status updates 40%
• Videos 37% (Source: Performics)

67. Metrics
Facebook
shares have
the greatest
influence on
Google search
rankings in
the US
(Source: Searchmetrics)

68. Key Findings
• Web traffic increased after employing social
media
• Social media connections can be global
• Learning & education is two-way process

69. Take-Aways
People want to know about:
– production and process
– educational efforts
– developments on the farm
Image from cabeza1979 on flickr

70. Take-Aways
• Go where the people are
• Simplify the message
• Engage the public and target audience by
using various methods, responding to
questions and comments on Twitter, creating
contests, and interesting and humorous
videos
• Empower others to use social media

71. "Social media can be a very low-cost but hands
on way for farmers or anyone in agriculture to
reach out and tell the story of food and farming
in Canada. It's direct, it's unfiltered, and it's
quick - and let's you reach people you would
otherwise never have the chance to connect
with. "
Lilian Schaer
Image by chris.diewald on flickr

72. Thanks
jess@jesslaccetti.com
@JessL

73. Tells the Story of Hoven
Farms:
• a century old Alberta
family farm.
• Mathias Hoven moved
to Eckville, Alberta from
Hoven, South Dakota in
1909 with two of his
sons.
• He rented some land for
one year and then
bought the land that the
farm now operates on in
1910.
• Tim and Lori Hoven and
their 8 children own and
operated the farm with
Tim’s parents, Cecil and
Carol Hoven.

75. Aim: to educate:
• Changes in Canadian AG
• History of Canadian AG
• Real Life Stories