You have taken the time to advocate for agriculture. You’ve created a really cool video or blog post about farming, and you’ve put it on your website or your farm’s social media channel.
This is an accomplishment given how busy your days are on the farm.
But, unfortunately, you are not done. This is not like “Field of Dreams” where “if you build it, they will come.”
The checklist below is skipped by most people, myself included. Many people think that if I’ve created the content and posted it, then it’s time to move on to the next thing.
This isn’t the case. You need to spend time distributing the content to places where your urban consumers might see it and possibly share it. This isn’t as easy as it looks.
Here’s what I recommend you try to do every time you post content.
The Six-Step Outreach Checklist
1. Create a promo video or photo with your content headline that people would share.
Creating something people would share can be difficult — it’s got to be entertaining, educational, or sensational/emotional.
2. Share with your social media channels.
Too many times I see people not even share their own content with their personal profiles. If it’s not good enough to share with your own profile, then why would others? Also, you must become comfortable with tooting your own horn. Consider using hashtags that are popular with your audience. For example, using #undeniablydairy will expose your content to many people who work for the dairy checkoff.
3. Join online Facebook groups, Instagram groups, Twitter parties, etc. within your tribe and outside of it.
After you join the group, become a contributing member by helping others and engaging in their conversations. Once you feel you are a part of the group, begin sharing your content. Ask those in the group to help share it with their friends. Those groups might even have their own hashtags.
4. Put your content on other people’s platforms.
Will you lose traffic to your website or social media? It’s possible at first. But then you’ll gain new fans from the other platform. I guest post a lot (just like I’m doing here) and it helps to get my message out to others in the industry. Thank you, AGDAILY!
5. Advertise for just a few bucks.
You might think that ads don’t work but they do — that’s why so many companies use them. If you’ve taken the time to create some good content, then consider spending a little bit of money to reach people who are disconnected from your farm instead of just those who are already your friends. I recommend Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads. Both platforms are simple to use and can really help you reach others — I would select women, 25-45, that live in the closest metro area as a target ad audience.
6. Reach out to your local/national checkoff.
We are always looking for amazing stories of farmers that we can share with consumers through our Dairy Good publishing platform. We have an online forum and website called the Dairy Hub (you can join if you are a dairy farmer or work within the dairy industry) where you can share your stories. We have an Instagram group and a communications and social media group that are active and fun. You can also just send me a story direct at don.schindler@dairy.org or tag me on your posts @donschindler.
Getting your story out in front of the audiences takes a lot of work, so it’s good to have a checklist of the things you need to do to make sure it gets to the right people. Did I miss something that you do when sharing your posts? If so, just shoot me an email (don.schindler@dairy.org) or comment below and I might add it to the list. I love learning new things!
