A Social Media Strategy for the Local Foods Movement
Can we organize? Photo by Jurvetson
The excitement within the local foods movement is building, and it is palatable. We are so close to dramatically remaking America’s food culture inculcating the wider culture with a value set that we cultivate and live every day.
I’ve been writing lately a lot about what we in the local foods movement need to do in order to make the next leap. I tell you this, the opportunity is there, and anyone who thinks it is inevitable that we win this war is wrong. We have to work for it, we have to use our resources, we have to muster our numbers and show the true power and force of a people powered, bottom up movement.
The Community Consists of:
- Farmers reclaiming poisoned land and healing it with their holistic approach to growing produce and raising animals, restoring heritage breeds of animals, and enriching rural communities,
- Chefs making it their mission to source their produce locally, educating their patrons with seasonal dishes that that work with nature and the rhythm of the seasons, even bringing a little glamor to farmers markets all over the country,
- Artisanal cheese makers, bread bakers, granola makers, chocolatiers, coffee aficionados and wine makers heralding a renaissance in traditional American food customs and rituals,
- Policy wonks, journalists, nutritionists and advocates working tirelessly to untangle the web of government subsidies, unintended consequences and insane governmental policies that have distorted the free market, made us fat, ruined our food heritage, decimated the land and turned our food into the cheapest commodity possible, and
- Foodpreneurs finding innovative ways to connect capital with sustainable business opportunities.
And then there are the bloggers. Yes the bloggers. And guess what? We are important! Like, really important. The amatuer cooks, chefs, farmers, writers, foodies, recipe mavens, podcasters, video makers. All of us. We SO matter.
I’ve been writing for a the past few months about some of the things we, as amateurs, need to do. We need to play our part. I’ve talked about finding good leaders, and I’ve talked about banding together. I’ve talked about forming community blogs, overcoming our differences, marginalizing people who allow “perfect to be the enemy of the good.”
And yet the one thing that we haven’t done to date, at least with any kind of coordination and organization, is work out a social media policy. And the truth is that we haven’t done this because its been staring us in the face all along. Many of us have been slowly incorporating the tools of social media to broadcast our message, share our expertise and connect one another. The wisdom I have accumulated about social media, its tools, its philosophies, its best practices have been some of the most rewarding aspects of my experience as a blogger, writer and editor of others.
So what does a social media policy look like?
Well for one, it doesn’t involved techno-gimmickry, something I decry personally and see no reason to incorporate professionally. The web is awash with SEO gurus who will pump your site in order to attract the higher traffic. I prefer organic traffic, traffic that I have worked for. I prefer to concentrate on content first and I’ve found that traffic follows consistent production of quality content. Blog consistently for three months and it will come.
A Group Blog: I’ve already written that I think the local foods movement needs a group blog as a way to maximize our traffic. I won’t lie, I want my writing to get in front of your viewers. But I also want my viewers to see you! I’ve received commitments from almost 30 people to contribute to the blog. That means we could have fresh content multiple times a day. We could also take on other features like podcasts, videos, interviews and leverage our larger networks to grow the community from there by giving them a unique landing space with the authority to positively their further experiences.
Are You Listening? Photo by Spoon
Twitter: Probably the best marketing tool ever created, and that is because we are only too happy to help out people we share interests with, people who we have gotten to know through conversation. The follower/ following aspect is also ingenious. We should make a study, but I’ve got to believe that if you took the follower count of the most active local food twitterati, the numbers would be in the tens of thousands, even counting for overlap. Now THAT’s a number! If the community rallied around 1 or 2 stories a day, we could drive some serious traffic around the web. We need to encourage this, and we need to find a way to make this equitable, so that one blog or story is continually getting hundreds of RTs and links.
Facebook: How many FB groups do you belong to having to do with local sustainable food? Have you organized lists on FB to separate out foodies from non-foodies? I personally have a Farm to Table list with over 250 people in it. I check this list most often for status updates and blog posts. But really, its SO disorganized, and the noise is overwhelming. How can we get more organized on Facebook? The days when I have had the most traffic on my site are days when influential players on Facebook like Cooking Up a Story or Michael Dimock have linked to my pieces. I am always so grateful for that, but there has to be a better way to coordinate this influence.
FriendFeed: Friendfeed is one of my favorite services and really encapsulates the aggregating and real time aspects of the social networks. It is where I push a lot of my information, blog posts, and other content into the streams of Twitter, Facebook and other sites. But more than that FriendFeed has amazing real time chat capabilities that far surpass Twitter. We have 3 ProFood rooms up that are each geared to a specific audience and weekly profoodchat’s in one of the those rooms that is open to the public. This is one of the best ways that the community has come together to discuss things without limitations of character limits etc…I strongly urge you, if you want to get more involved, to join friend feed and subscribe to this room. Here is the link: http://friendfeed.com/profoodchat We already have 81 subscribers and if you are not already a member, you will definitely recognize some familiar faces in there.
Delicious, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon: Personally, I only use Stumble Upon on a regular basis and it is a wonderful driver of traffic to my blog. I love discovering new sites, and the algorithm that runs Stumble seems to be getting better every day. When I stumble through Food/ Cooking I see fantastic sites, amazing recipes with gorgeous photos, and all sorts of ideas and opportunities to share. So honestly, please go join StumbleUpon now and then let us know in the comments section so that those already using it can add you to our friend list!
It behooves the entirety of the local foods movement to get a stumble account, and start using it. This way, we can create our own group. If one or two pieces a week gets anointed by the community, we can use our numbers to thumb up those pieces allowing not just ourselves to see them, but to drive it in front of people who never would have in the first place. From there its only a hop, skip and jump to a whole new level of RSS subscribers, blog readers and eventually more community members.
But what am I missing? How do we coordinate this? Can anyone speak to Delicious, Digg or Reddit with any kind of authority? If so, leave your input in the comments section and I’ll elevate it to a post if its really helpful!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by AlizaEss. AlizaEss said: RT @kubileya RT @hungrygarden: Interested in food and social media? @Zacharycohen has an interesting new blog post at http://bit.ly/NIfer [...]
I'm in. I write a blog about sustainable food in Austin Tx (http://www.austinfarmtotable.com) and am willing to help however I can.
To expand the local food movement, we can take a cue from the wine industry. Thirty plus years ago when I began my career in the wine trade, our lament was – not enough people drink wine. The consumer base for wine was small. At that time wine was considered the domain of the elite connoisseur – or the wino. Our objective was to make wine fun, unintimidating, a part of every meal. We have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams, and wine consumption continues to increase in this country.
This success was achieved through a very concerted effort among wine producers to present wine as a beverage for “everyman.” We continually pushed the message that “you don’t have to be an expert to enjoy wine.” There’s nothing complicated about it. Wine goes with every kind of food, not just a gourmet meal. It’s not just for special occasions. It doesn’t have to be expensive to be good. In short, the message was inclusive.
There continue to be wine groupies, and in fact many people who started out drinking simple, inexpensive wines became wine aficionados; but the vast majority of wine drinkers in America today are not experts and don’t care to be. They don’t know who Robert Parker is, and they don’t subscribe to wine magazines or wine blogs. They like how it tastes, they select a bottle in their price range and they enjoy.
To introduce someone who is now eating pre-packaged, processed foods to fresh home-made meals, the message has to be simple. It’s easy, it’s fun, it doesn't have to be complicated, and you can do it. Recently a co-worker who was entertaining guests for dinner asked me for some advice. She wanted to know how to bake a potato. What? The fact is she eats frozen French fries and frozen stuffed potatoes. She was delighted. It was so simple. She’s going to do it all the time now!
Our farmers’ market has a monthly “shop with the chef” program, so shoppers can see how you buy produce that isn’t pre-packaged in a plastic bag. It’s that rudimentary. Some processed food eaters may go on to develop a passion for food and cooking, but most will not. They can, however, become fresh-food eaters if we make it easy for them.
Social media (SM) is still so young and it's uses and effects to promote a company/cause are still being figured out. During 2009, I have witnessed (and participated in) tremendous growth in the use of SM to promote local food down here in Georgia; but we have a LOT of areas to improve (one being to connect with like-minded people outside of the state like yourself).
A few really big advantages that we have are that we do not have to justify a monetary ROI for our efforts (unless of course you are a for-profit enterprise), the subject that we promote (food) really connects with and inspires people, and our movement has many extremely talented people just looking for a way to help. We just need to point everyone in the right direction and get them coordinated.
Right now I am serving on the Communications Committee for Georgia Organics (http://www.georgiaorganics.org) and would love to discuss with anyone their opinions and ideas to coordinate efforts locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. It is time to start using Web 2.0 for one of it's biggest strengths…connecting and coordinating the work of many geographically separated people.
[...] View post: A Social Media Strategy for the Local Foods Movement [...]
amazing comment, sound like you really get it and yes we should stay in
touch!
I come from the farming perspective and see a great potential for farmers to compete with the big corporations in marketing through social media. We have the upper hand because we have the authentic story.
This post gets me SO excited because I think we are going to have an online revolution.
Frankly, all the complaining from traditional media makes me feel conflicted. Granted, investigative journalism is a must but where were all the journalists when all my neighbors dairy farms were going under? Food is now a big story but it has as much to do with bloggers as it does with old media. So I say cheers to that!
And cheers to you Zach for you constant energy and commitment to this movement both online and off.
Love this post! Would love to contribute too;)
Another aggregation service to look at is Cliqset (similar to friendfeed).
http://cliqset.com/
http://mashable.com/2009/10/13/cliqset-friendfeed/
One suggestion: twibes. I joined one for environmental journalists a month or so back and my follower count has more than doubled. The way they work is that the Twibes site makes it easy to follow all the members at once, and each member boosts the group – as in “Follow all America's (or you could do it by state) best local food tweets” with the link. Works wonderfully and would be a big help to joining forces.
Seriously Zach, your energy is inspiring. I'd love to help however I can.
And hey, you finally convinced my to join Stumble Upon – look for me as NaturalPrincess.
Zach… Excellent!
Paul Hughes
http://twitter.com/paulinate
http://twitter.com/gardencommunity
http://calgaryfoodpolicy.blogspot.com/
#LFS = Local Food System **Only 4 characters and really captures the movement… this is my vote for twitter hashtag as it is really up for grabs…
#SusAg = Sustainable Agriculture
#UrbAg = Urban Agriculture
janetex <- How do I get a hold of you? I am trying to do the same thing with beef, learning from wine. I didn't realize the efforts behind wine were so coordinated, I'd love to learn more. Thanks! carrie dot oliver at oliverranch dot com. ps Sorry in advance if you're a vegetarian,
Zach, just left short recommendation on friendfeed. I will give you a call.
ps I'm in and will happily help you lead this.
amazing
[...] so much to Zachary Adam Cohen for this great cross-post from Farm to Table. Zachary is a social media strategist and local foods blogger based in New York City. He blogs at [...]
Here in DC, land of national policy, we’re starting a local project to do just this.
DCfoodforall.com is being launched this weekend!
We’re a mix of activists, educators, organizers, farmers, gardeners, non-profit staff, tech nerds, cooks and interested residents. We are bridging the gaps that so often divide our movement, to share our work and have the hard conversations that need to be had.
For social media to message a movement, then there needs to be a coordinated movement to message. It needs to include people across class and race lines, and needs to have the interests of all (not just chefs and artisanal cheese makers) at heart.
Relationships need to be built across competing interests – I’m excited to share our successes [and lessons learned] as we make it happen.
[...] week over at the Farm to Table blog, Zach Cohen wrote a post titled “A Social Media Strategy for the Local Foods Movement” in which he explores the next steps that the growing local food movement needs to take in order to [...]
[...] If you are not already convinced visits Zach’s post on Social media. [...]
Zachary, there is truly strength in numbers, and organization will be very important. I'm (belatedly) posting our interview with you on just this topic. Of course, organization takes time and someone to lead the way. These are exciting times! I took your suggestion to join Friendfeed, but have to admit it has me stymied. I was able to figure out twitter and facebook after a week or so, but just do not know how to join conversations in friendfeed or keep up with the chats. Where can I get help?
i can help you cathy, i promise you that friendfeed is the simplest program
you ever used…
Also hope you can join us for profoodchat tonight at 7:30 pm EST. Will be
talking about the future of the local foods movement and what our online
community can do to further it!
Very cool! So I just need to click this link and 7:30 and jump in? I
can do that! The interview scheduled for October 19th should be up in
the next hour or so. Sorry for the delay. With our fundraiser, my full
time job and Jon away, I got way behind on my responsibilities!
Cathy
Dm joya parsons on Twitter @kubilyea or ask her how to get on
I'm a teacher in suburban Atlanta who buys 80% of my food (pork, beef, poultry, lamb, eggs, milk, produce) from local farmers. I'm chapter leader of a Weston A. Price Foundation chapter and produce a blog and Podcast on natural living with a heavy slant toward the Weston A. Price philosophy of eating traditional, whole foods. Today's posted interview with Zachary Adam Cohen is about using social media to promote the sustainable food movement.
u realize you are posting this to my blog right?
if you want to join profoodchat, please go to twitter and use the
#profoodchat hashtag or join this room
http://twubs.com/profoodchat
At first I didn't, but decided to leave it. I'm on profoodchat now.
[...] I met Zachary on Twitter and found that we had several followers in common. After several tweets and a couple emails, we eventually had a telephone conversation that led to this interview. This is one of the beauties of twitter, which Zachary describes as “global thought talk.” It is a place where one can have conversations 24 hours a day with like-minded individuals from around the world. In our interview and in a recent blog he discusses the use of social media as a medium for change. [...]
(I'm late to the conversation because I missed it here and had the jcarrot's version flagged for over a week before I decided to deal wuth my older RSS items. However, it keeps the conversation going.)
Amen. Good idea to create Facebook lists. I don't know why it never occurred to me to do so. My problem with Facebook groups and fan pages is that they tend to stagnate and there are a lot of people who are experiencing Facebook fatigue and rarely log in anymore. Is there even notification when new content appears? (Found it, but only because I went looking for it for the sake of this comment: The filters on the left side of the home page include filters for “pages” and for “groups”. Not ideal if I had to go find it.)
Where do you find time to maintain all these social networks/social media? I breathe social media but still can't keep up. I use Delicious for links that I want to both share and refer back to, when I don't necessarily want to tweet them or put them on Facebook, which are my two primary social networking tools. I tried Digg for awhile but couldn't get into it. It's rare that I Digg something. I don't quite “get” Friendfeed even though I have an account.
In fact, I don't “get” most of the tools. I have the Sharaholic add-on for Firefox and make it a point to see what each service is but there are too many to be useful. Many seem to do the same thing, so what's the point? I guess if you're a blogger it makes sense to engage as wide of an audience as possible and some readers might be so passionate about an item that they want to share it widely, but as a reader it doesn't seem to make sense to read all. When you look at it that way, if everyone is sharing but fewer people are reading, who are you sharing with? I guess everyone has their favourite service. One of the big tech blogging websites (think Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch) must have metrics to support who's using what service. Someone needs to keep an updated report on these things so that bloggers and marketers know where to concentrate their efforts.
I know that there are social media aggregators out (eg Friendfeed) there but it's just more STUFF. There are so many of those too. Maybe the problem is that I still use an RSS reader.
I breathe social media but this is giving me a headache.
RSS is still my favorite tool, and its where I share and find most of my
content.
I think you are right in that there is way too much. I think everyone just
has to find what suits them best. I use primarily, RSS, Twitter, Facebook
and Friendfeed.
I stumble a few times a week through a few hundred websites, maybe an hour
or two each time just seeing whats out there. Sharing on stumble is great
and can be a great driver of traffic.
[...] said before privately and publicly, that, from what I can see, the best opportunity to bring things to the next level of attention, of [...]
[...] said before privately and publicly, that, from what I can see, the best opportunity to bring things to the next level of attention, of [...]