No, it’s alive and well especially in agriculture.
Blogging isn’t dead even though the big names in marketing and tech claim it to be almost every year. Here’s one from 2012 / Fast Company.
And then this year, supposedly it’s doing great.
Of course the company, GigaOM isn’t. But that’s beside the point.
When it comes to reaching out to our customers, farmers want to know if they should spend time blogging. I get this question a lot from farmers when I’m on the road teaching digital marketing.
My answer is always the same. Yes. Yes, you should.
“Why?” asks the farmer.
I have a lot of answers to that. But for this post I decided to reach out to ag bloggers and see what keeps them blogging and doing this kind of digital outreach.
Here’s one of the biggest reason of why you should be blogging.
People go online looking for information about farming if they don’t get it from us, who will they get it from? The number of people who want simple agricultural information is astounding and I personally want it to come from credible sources.
Janice Person – http://janiceperson.com
The farmers are credible sources of agriculture information.
Other reasons to be blogging is that all that time you spend in social media is great but you should be housing all of your photos, videos and longer text format in a place you control. Facebook’s posts and Twitter tweets are fleeting and get lost in the ether.
Why would you take all that time to craft something so beautiful to let it be lost?
Another reason is that the search engines especially Google still love blogs and give them a lot of credibility. Blogs are workhorses of the search industry. Many of the major news organizations nowadays were once just blogs (and are still structured that way).
“OK,” the farmer says, “I’m convinced that a blog is the way to go. What should you write about?”
Ranchers/farmers don’t necessarily see their daily lives as unique, and sharing the simple things of country life tend to be overlooked, but I can’t tell you how many times readers have asked how far to the grocery store or gas station, how do all the vehicles keep running or why do we have so many, can I get take-out? Lots of the daily stuff is worth blogging about, just because we understand it’s an hour to town, doesn’t mean the readers do! Sure moving cattle is a highlight, but most of the year, it’s Life that takes up my days.
Carol Greet – http://reddirtinmysoul.com/
I don’t think you need to just focus on the farm…snippets of the life of a farmer are good, because it draws in more of the non-ag audience. It’s good to write about things they can relate to, and to build relationships…that’s when you become their trusted source.
Carolyn Olsen – http://carolyncaresblog.com/
I’ll bet you that when you attend a city event and people find out you’re a farmer you get a barrage of questions.
- What’s the difference between conventional farming and organic?
- What do the cows eat?
- Why do you take away the calves from their mothers?
- Why do you live on a farm?
If you are looking for blog topics, you can also just use Soovle and it will help you see what people are searching for around your topics. Soovle will pull the auto completes from Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Amazon, etc…
Then the farmer asks, “How do you go about starting a blog?”
I’ve got a quick “how to blog” on my blog and some 13 best practices but there are many different ways to start a blog and tons of people writing about how to do it.
But some good advice came straight from the farmers.
I suggest that anyone who wants to start blogging have 10 posts wrote before they launch. That way when they get busy they can use something they already wrote to keep their momentum going.
Plus if they can’t get 10 posts wrote in the first place, they can decide if maybe blogging isn’t their thing after all.
Carrie Mess – dairycarrie.com
Find a good blogging planner. My resolution for 2015 is 2-4 posts a month and I’m hoping a planner will get me there!
Brooke Behlen – http://meetyourbeef.com/
Your own blog helps you write about your passion. It will keep you interested in blogging.
Judi Graff – http://farmnwife.com/
Do something simple. Don’t worry about making a post the definitive post of all posts on the subject. Non-farm people are often fascinated by things we thing are mundane.
But if you’ve tried blogging and it just wasn’t working out, don’t just give up on online communications. We definitely need your voice out here.
Are there other things besides blogging – yep! Try video or images.
If writing isn’t your thing, think of moving to YouTube. The second most utilized search engine is YouTube. Find YOUR way and don’t think you have to follow others.
Katie Pinke – http://thepinkepost.com/
Visual definitely makes a difference. Sometimes just a photo, sometimes photos illustrating, sometimes just a photo along with the article. I usually aim for 1 if under 400 words, more if over to ‘balance’ it or if needed to explain something.
Jan Hoadley – https://slowmoneyfarm.wordpress.com/
Again, blogging is a powerful tool to connect with your customers. You can pass along insights about life on the farm and how you farm as well as the commonalities you share with them.
Your farm voice is one of the most important communication tools ag has and without it other voices will fill the void and the imagination of our customers. You can set the record straight and build strong relationships with the people that trust you to grow their food.
If you have any questions about getting started or getting back into blogging, please let me know. I would be happy to answer them. You can leave a comment below or just hit me via Twitter or Facebook.
Are negative comments really negative? Sure they are but you can change them.
Photo courtesy of Sharon Mollerus (creative commons)
Yep, they are negative. It says so right here “negative comments”. But you can approach them as if they were a positive and I think you should because:
Negative comments are an opportunity to connect with people.
In a world where engagement is so very important, any opportunity to connect and engage is definitely worth the time.
It’s like when my wife says, “I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t care about you.”
So sometimes the purpose of a negative comment is to communicate about something an outsider perceives as negative to your business or image. You probably don’t want to hear about the negative but by learning about it you can make things better for the future.
Negative comments are an opportunity to share your passion and understand theirs.
Listen, if people didn’t care, they wouldn’t leave comments. You could take their negative comments as “I wouldn’t take the time to say this to you if I didn’t care what you are talking about.”
This means they are passionate about what you are talking about. I believe that people are as passionate about food as they are about religion, music and sports. You need to be sensitive to this information – passion can start a conversation with someone – even if it starts in a negative way.
Ray Prock, dairy farmer from CA, says this about negative commentary that he’s ran into:
Negative comments are an opportunity to share your insights into how your farm works, how their food is made, how your cows are treated, how much you care about your business, etc…
A negative comment can come off from someone’s lack of understanding – and you can share insights into how your farm operates.
I prefer to share insights over informing your readers that you are going to educate them on food production. By the simple fact they are reading and communicating with you, you can assume they are educated and informing them that you are going to ‘teach’ them usually gets them defensive.
Their thoughts and opinions may differ from you based on where they have received their information so approach those differences by sharing, not attacking their knowledge or education level. People need to know that you care about their opinions and that you empathize with them before they’ll care about your opinion.
Negative comments can give you insight on how you are coming across to others.
I think Mike Haley sums up this point best in his blog post on AgChat:
I’ve seen Mike in action on blog posts and in comment sections, talking with people in a very respectful manner about their point of view. So I thought it would be great to interview him for this post and ask him directly about how he deals with negativity.
He says, “The biggest goal to any type of online social conversation is not converting people to your point of view rather it’s about opening up the dialogue – it’s a two way street.
Don’t spend so much time trying to get people on your side, instead spend quality time on the conversation. Everybody can be right – everyone’s opinion matters. When you treat negative comments in this fashion, then it’s much easier to get common ground.”
Janice Person, who has a great deal of experience with negativity, is in agreement with Mike. Her best advice comes down to:
Sometimes negative comments are NOT an opportunity.
Sometimes when you answer back and try to listen the other person will not engage, they are looking to just to use your platform to get their point across.
We call these people trolls.
All they look to do is to use your platform to attack you, to hijack other conversations, to incite anger in you or others and, generally, just be a nuisance.
When it comes to this type of behavior, you don’t have to put up with it or engage in it – actually, that’s the worst thing to do because that’s what the troll wants. To actively see you get upset.
How do you know if someone is a troll?
Check their information with a simple Google/social media search. If you can’t find them, then consider the conversation is over. Remember you can always walk away – it’s tough sometimes but it might be better in the end.
As you get more experience on the internet, you’ll start to know who are trolls and who is genuinely interested in having a conversation with you.
How to deal with troll comments, posts and tweets?
There’s a old saying out there that “never wrestle with a pig, you are going to get dirty and the pig likes it.”
In other words, don’t stoop to their level of fighting because your reputation will be damaged more and that was their intention in the first place.
Carrie Mess has a great point on how to deal with trolls.
So what do you think, do you think negative comments are opportunities to engage or should we avoid them at all costs?
In my next post, I’ll go through the steps that I use when dealing with comments – it’s a simple social media flowchart but it can help guide you on whether you should answer back or delete that comment.