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Agvocating in the World of Social Media

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

~ guest post by Celeste Settrini

This past year has definitely been one of exciting opportunity for me. Why? The world of social media blossomed into my friend.  Many might say that at 43 I am a late bloomer when it comes to Facebook, Twitter, and blogs but in 2010 I decided I would tackle this new adventure and what tremendous fun I have found. There is a whole new world at my fingertips.  A strike of the computer keyboard brings me new friends involved in all who share in the same passion and visions as I have.

I love to talk and I love to talk about agriculture – not only my own family beef cattle operation but all agriculture in general.  I get excited to meet new friends, share stories and figure out ways to better “tell the story” to those that may not be as familiar as we are with where their food comes from.  So for me social media is a new world of everything wonderful.

This past year I took Facebook by storm. I posted photos, connected with fellow agvocates, educated those friends not in agriculture and focused on creating a spot where my Facebook friends could come for “up to the minute” agriculture news, events and “celestial” thoughts on all of it.  I then ventured out and learned to write a blog- 2011 will be the year I actually create my own(Time is a tickin’, I better get on that) . And then there is Twitter!  Twitter always scared me but with encouragement from fellow agvocates I decided to give it a try and though I have not yet completely mastered Twitter, I am tweetin’ with the best of you.

Social media gives me an avenue to express my thoughts. It also helps me try to understand the rationale behind some perspectives. I have learned to “ask why” and then “tell me more” to differing views.  I then do my best to try to educate with experiences and facts.  One fellow agvocate told me “you are an expert in your own experiences,” at that moment I knew I could do it.  I have lived it and I know it, now it is my responsibility to all farmers and ranchers to share my journey for those that will take the time to listen.  I have even created my own tagline on my email and business cards , it reads “”I am investing in the future of agriculture with a desire to share my journeys ~ by doing this I hope that I can empower farmers and ranchers to share their stories and do the same! We are all in this together as the voice of American agriculture.”

I hope that by demonstrating my pride it will give others the push they need to share their experiences. It is hard to take time out of our busy lives each day to educate, to tell the story, to promote our industry but anymore I make social media a part of my day like brushing my teeth, it’s just something I need to do.

I am blessed by a large range of agvocates who have given me the push to get where I needed to be.  Your life’s journey is becoming more of who you are, everything you have done prepares you for all that you can do and be. This is where I need to be and this is what I must do.

My new world is exciting, it helps me talk about my journeys, it gives everyone a snippet of who I am and it helps me to be a part of the bigger picture. Where’s your journey taking you?

Celeste SettriniCeleste is a 5th generation cattle rancher working on her family ranch located in the foothills of the Salinas Valley, on the Central Coast of California. As a youth, she had an extensive career showing livestock and went on to attend California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, where she earned a B.A. in Agribusiness Marketing. Today she works in the commodities market as a broker for Fresh Network, maintains her duties on the family cattle ranch and promotes and advocates for farmers and ranchers nationwide.

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Posted in Advocacy, Agriculture, Facebook, Farm Life, Farmer, Social Media, Twitter | 4 Comments »

Teaching with Technology II: Agriculture & Universities

Friday, December 17th, 2010

Laptops in agriculture educationContinuing with the theme started in my last blog about technology in the university classroom, I recently spoke with John Scott, a Purdue University sophomore majoring in Soil & Crop Management, about the technological advances he’s noticed in his classes.

“We’re using computers more and more in all of my ag classes.” From taking lecture notes off the internet to finding video examples of lab experiments, Scott claims it is nearly impossible to be an ag major without gaining a knowledge of computers and advancing technology. When asked which class in particular he’s learned the most about technology in, he immediately chose his Soil Fertility course.

During the fall semester, John had the opportunity to use technology through his in-class assignments, his online resources and his lab portion of the class.  While each part of the class may not directly pertain to farmers, it appears that the tools his class learned from the course will bode well for them and all of agriculture in the future.

The first asset given to the students is a working knowledge of various websites related to their major. During lecture, students are taught to navigate through different web pages showing everything from maps of soil types around the state of Indiana to an online text book to simply looking at the agronomy department’s posts on Facebook. These maps allow the agronomy students the chance to understand the various physical properties of the soil around the state, preparing them for what may be seen out in the field (no pun intended).

Additionally, the students have a computer-based lab to correspond with lecture.  According to John, the students watch slide shows and videos of different experiments and are required to apply the lessons in their own experiments.  They also utilize a variety of different soil testing equipment in the class as well as on field trips.  With this hands-on approach to learning, the students are familiarized with actual day-to-day tasks of people with the careers they are working toward.

Lessons gathered from this  type of lab and lecture can be valuable to those outside of the classroom as well.  First, it is important that members of agriculture remember all the resources that are available to them over the internet.  Whether it’s a website with soil types for each farm or just access to social media sites to confer with other farmers, the internet can be incredibly useful for every facet of agriculture. Secondly, ag  will benefit from students learning how to use new soil equipment efficiently upon graduation, as well as teach it to others.

“With agriculture, everything’s changing so quickly that, by the time I graduate, some of what I’m learning now will already be outdated. The new technology should be based off what I’m learning now so I won’t need to learn new methods, just new concepts…  That’s why people in agriculture have to keep going back to school.” While Scott’s right that there will be many advances in technology for soil scientists, the foundational lessons on technology are going to continue to serve both the students and the farmers well.   How were you prepared in class for on-the-job technology use?  What are you doing to share your knowledge of technology with others in agriculture?

~ guest post by Laura Padgett, Oklahoma State University sophomore

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Posted in Advocacy, Agriculture, Environment, Facebook, Farm Life, Farmer, Farming, Social Media, Technology | No Comments »

Teaching with Technology: Agriculture & Universities

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

Ag & University Technology use“American Farmers Venture into a New Field: Social Media,” “Tweeting for Agriculture,” “Farmers Learning Benefits of Web-Based Social Media.”  Almost everywhere you look on the internet, you can find articles about farmers advancing their industry through technology.  Keeping up with the latest forms of social networking and technology tools, we’re reaching countless consumers and other agriculturists.  I’m glad to report that furthering our knowledge through technology spills over to the college classroom.  Over my next few blogs, I’ll highlight the uses of technology in the college classroom that could provide more ideas for online agriculture.

Starting with my own experience, there are multiple classes that take advantage of the benefits of technology.  The first example of this stems from my Plant and Soil Science course.  Each Monday preceding a test, the students in the class log-on to Facebook and participate in a group discussion asking and answering questions over the material – essentially making a virtual study group.  This is a really valuable discussion, allowing students to clear up any misunderstanding while learning and discovering information other students found useful, that might have been missed in class.  Though this is a similar method of connecting students with information like #AgChat on Twitter, there may be a few advantages to this type of conversation.

While #AgChat is an excellent source for those in and around agriculture to connect with each other and share information, I find the group discussion format is more conducive to asking questions from each participant.  It allows anyone, including consumers to post questions and start discussions at any time, allowing it to become an additional resource to connect consumers whenever necessary.  Further, this form of study group proves to be convenient for all, due to the fact the information can be accessed at any given time; therefore, students waiting until last minute will still receive the chance to find the resources they need.  Similarly, consumers could take advantage of open discussions at any point in time as well.

The idea of conveniently connecting people with information  is spreading like wildfire.  Great strides are being made towards increasing awareness and knowledge of various agrifood topics in both the classroom and the agriculture industry.  While I’m not suggesting there are flaws in the method of social media use on either end, it may be to the benefit of both students and agriculturists to take a lesson from each other when it comes to online connectivity.  What ways did you use technology in the classroom?  What ways are you using social media and other online resources to help in your current career?

~guest post by Laura Padgett, Oklahoma State University

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Posted in Advocacy, Agriculture, Facebook, Farming, Social Media, Technology, Twitter | 3 Comments »

When your brain isn’t enough.

Friday, September 24th, 2010

What happens when you’re just not smart enough? As an entrepreneur, I used to worry a great deal that I wouldn’t have all the answers in my said area of expertise. Nearly a decade later, I’ve come to realize that’s not only arrogant, it’s a disservice to the people I serve in the agrifood business.  I’m still not smart enough to have the answers, but I know a lot of smart people. And if they don’t have the answer – they usually know someone who does. That’s the power of community – especially in these days of hyperconnectivity through Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Take this Gate to Plate blog as an example; you may have noticed a shift in the last month with more frequent postings by guest bloggers.  I finally realized I didn’t have to come up with pithy blog postings that would change the world every day. I know a lot of smart people who have a great perspective to share in the advocacy, agrifood and social media arenas.  We have a mom writing every week to help provide insight for moms (and dads), a college student posting a couple times a month about her experiences as a young agvocate and agriculture or food experts providing guest posts 2-3 times monthly.  The resulting connections for guest bloggers has been a testament to the value of collective brainpower. Each of them have appealed to a different crowd; so the end result  is more leveraging of the agricultural, food and farming message.

As a 1.5 person shop, Cause Matters Corp. can’t keep up with all of the ideas we have to grow food literacy through agvocacy.  As such, efficiency is key.  Building a team with diverse expertise really helps us accomplish more in less time with greater results. We’re smart enough to ask for help. For example, Truffle Media is producing the new Agvocast series to take ag social media training virtual.  Farmer Darin Grimm peruses analytics of the website, which was designed by professionals at Prime Concepts.  College student Kelly Rivard has taught me video editing on a Mac. Could I have done these things myself?  Sure, but it would have taken more time. And that’s time that could have been spent helping others learn to connect farm gate to consumer plate.

An informal poll on my Facebook fan page shows that people don’t feel smart enough when change comes their way, with technology or when they’re verbally attacked.  With all due respect to farmers, I see a lot of folks who are independent and stubbornly trying to figure a lot out on their own. Sure, we work with vendors and experts for input on the farm – but at the end of the day we know it’s up to us to figure out. After all, farmers fix things, right?  I’d suggest a different approach.

Asking for help isn’t admitting defeat; it’s actually working smarter.  Maybe it’s working with your processor on producing better meat for customers or talking with another farmer about how to utilize the latest precision technology in your field.  It may involve working with food retailers to understand their perspective. Or perhaps it’s getting help understand how to use your mobile device or Facebook as a business tool. It may even be standing up as an expert in agriculture when the media calls and finding someone to help the reporter if they have a question outside of your area. Accept that your brain isn’t enough to do it all alone- you’ll be smarter for it!

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Posted in Advocacy, Agriculture, Blogging, Facebook, Farmer, Farming, LinkedIn, Moms, Motivation, Social Media, Twitter | 4 Comments »

Advancing Social Media for Agriculture

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Society has shifted in an era of  500 million Facebook users, 50 million tweets, 450 million people on mobile internet and 68 million bloggers -  whether you accept new media or not.   We’re bombarded by 13,000 marketing messages each day, now largely due to new media. Watch the Evolution of Online Agvocacy if you want to see more.  All of this social media mania is also building a fear that humans may just stop having real conversations -after all, we can just text, direct message, instant message, Facebook or email (how old school!).

Lots of Agvocacy 2.0 buzz!

Nothing could be further from the truth, based upon the energy level of a group of farmers, ranchers and agricultural folks this week at the inaugural AgChat Foundation Agvocacy 2.0 Conference. The best talent in the business spent about 24 hours together in Chicago with the unified vision of helping connect food, fuel, feed and fiber by empowering farmers to tell their story. This is the same group that’s been a part of creating 6.7 million unique impressions with a “Thank a Farmer” effort on Twitter last November, influenced a change in Pilot and YellowTail’s support of anti-ag groups, answered non-farm questions in February for three hours for 3.1 million unique impressions. Suffice it to say, farmers have embraced the opportunity to help the 98.5% of the population not on a farm or ranch.

We talked “techie” tools like Tweetreach from dairyman Ray Prock and rancher Jeff Fowle – our resident 140Conference stars, who also demonstrated Tweetdeck. Artist and DVM Kathy Swift discussed FBML for Facebook and Ohio Farmer Mike Haley taught people how to shorten & track URLs with and the value of Listorious. There was threat of an “ag nerd versus ag communications smackdown” over Google Analytics with people like Kansas  data farmer Darin Grimm, who also loves TwapperKeeper. From blogs to videos, hundreds of tools flowed from nearly 30 speakers at the Agvocacy 2.0 Conference – and even more were shared in hallways and at dinner tables.

The greatest tool demonstrated at the conference? It didn’t have anything to do with technology.  It was the people connecting on a personal level. Some of my greatest learnings:

  1. Humans connect to humans. The Agvocacy 2.0 attendees had shared thousands of conversations, but most had never met. The buzz and energy were palpable, as you can see at Agvocacy 2.0 Buzz.
  2. Being 100% present. Sometimes technology moves people farther apart, even when they’re face-to-face. We saw people engage immediately, lay their technology aside and be fully present for the experience.
  3. Idea sharing. Some businesses believe they need to keep their “intellectual property” internal or it loses value.  How is an idea really valuable until you share it with others?
  4. Laughter. People in agriculture are very serious in trying to advocate. We sometimes forget the happy hormone release associated with gut laughs. I heard a lot of those in Chicago and even invested some nocturnal time in enjoying this myself.
  5. Community propels influence: One person may be able to reach 100, but 100 people create the momentum to reach 10,000 or 100,000. I’ve seen agvocates generate amazing results through their blogs, simple Facebook posts and YouTube responses. The personal connections galvanized in Chicago are going to influence the roadmap for our business for the long-term, big picture. This isn’t about a singular idea; it’s about a shift in thinking.

How are you advancing social media to tell agriculture’s story?  It’s not about the technology, it’s about the people.

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Posted in Advocacy, Agriculture, Blogging, Facebook, Farmer, Motivation, Social Media, Technology, Twitter, Uncategorized, YouTube | 6 Comments »

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