This morning I had an email from some-one with a request for me send out some information to dairy farmers from their organisation via twitter
I was wondering if you could utilise your amazing twitter network.
It was important stuff but I was realistic in directing that person elsewhere because I knew no matter how “amazing’ my twitter network may or may not be we just don’t have too many dairy farmers active on twitter.
Is it important that dairy farmers be on Twitter? I will let them decide that for themselves. What I know is thanks to Twitter I am now aware Barry O’Farrell has resigned and he wont be celebrating his new career with a bottle of Grange
I am on Twitter thanks to wise advice from Flourish Communications’ Victoria Taylor who recently attended Ragan Communication’s Social Media for Corporate Communications and Public Relations Conference, in Florida earlier this month. See Victoria’s posts on her trip here
What I do know is it is very important for me and the organisations like Art4Agriculture I work with to reach out to the people we want to reach by being on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and LinkedIn and now Victoria tells me Pinterest (why do I seem to find that one a bit above my IQ level at the moment – Help Pinterest guru needed)
Apparently I ( and my associated Twitter, Facebook et al accounts) have a Klout factor of over 50 ( eyes glaze over – whatever ) and this is good because I (et al) am reaching our target audience
This has been well and truly reinforced this year as our entry surveys results for both schools participating in Archibull Prize and applicants for the Young Farming Champions program show they all heard good things about us predominately via social media/ word of mouth.
What’s extra awesome about this is we are attracting people who are excited about the things we are excited about and like us want to use multimedia and new media to share the stories we want to share.
Should dairy farmers be on Twitter to engage with other farmers? All I can say is there are some awesome farmers on Twitter and you can pick and choose who you engage with and how much you get out of it.
Big bonus is you can engage with the people who buy what you produce. If it works for Coca Cola surely it can work for farmers and agriculture. Like it or not no matter what we think we have to be where our audience is in the 21st century. Give it a try and once you have mastered Twitter please help me master Pinterest
If you need further convincing check out this infographic found here
