How Farmers Are Using Social Media
Lisa Richards of Mack Hill Farm is responsible for one of the most beautiful and inviting social media campaigns out there. Mack Hill Farm is located in southwest New Hampshire on 343 acres where Lisa and her husband raise Tamworth pigs, Percheron horses and Icelandic sheep and chickens. I have long admired her photos, cooking projects and farm musings. I am a fan of Mack Hill Farm on Facebook and I adore the frequent updates and pictures of her animals. She was kind enough to share some of her advice with us.
What prompted you to use social media?
Social media is something that just makes sense to me. I’m a sales and marketing professional by trade, though I gave up the high tech corporate world to farm full time three years ago. I’ve always been an early adopter of technology, especially in the social media space. We’ve had our farm journal online since March of 2000, almost 10 years now.
What social media platforms work best for you?
The platforms that work best for me are probably in this order: my blog, Flickr, Facebook, then Twitter. The blog is useful to me in particular because I use it to record things for the farm that I want to remember, that I need to brainstorm about. It started out as a gardening journal, and has really evolved over the last ten years. But I routinely look up stuff in it. What did I plant where? Who did I breed to that sheep? When was that litter of piglets born? I’ve met lots of people through the blog over the years, especially farmers who are of a like mind—pastured animals, raw milk drinkers, real food eaters, heritage breeders.
Next, I’d say Flickr is my next favorite. I take a LOT of pictures. I walk around with a point and shoot in my pocket. I am constantly finding critters doing things that I want to catch in a photo. I take pictures of food that I cook, plants that I grow. It helps me illustrate my journal, in ways that I find personally helpful, and I like to be able to show other people how I see my farm, my life. I sell some prints, some cards, and some digital photos through Flickr, and that income helps support the farm.
I like Facebook because it lets all the different parts of my universe collide. I have lots of family I haven’t seen since I left Texas 20 years ago. There are many former work colleagues, most of whom are quite amused to see me farming after having seen me closing multi-million dollar deals and jet-setting around the world. Many of my farm customers follow my farm fan page now, and that’s helpful for scheduling pick-ups and letting them know when we will have different things for sale.
Twitter is a whole different kettle of fish to me, because it’s mostly filled with people I don’t know. I tend to treat it sort of like cable television—I dip into the stream when I have time. I enjoy it in small doses, and have found communities of farmers and cooks and people who can like I do, and it’s been really fun when I can make the time for it. I just got a cell phone after years of refusing to carry one, so we’ll see if I use Twitter more now that I can do it away from the computer.
What were your goals for using social media?
Farming full time is a lot of physical labor, and I enjoy social media for the short breaks I can take. I don’t watch television and I spend so much of my life either outside or in the kitchen. I rarely see people, speak mostly to animals, and social media gives me a little human contact.
I’ve helped several small farms and local restaurants get started with social media. I’m good at teaching people who aren’t very computer literate how to use technology. Social media is a fantastic way to connect with customers, as long as you do something besides sell. I try to get them to follow my example—take pictures and show us your world. Write about your day on your blog. Give us recipes for what you cook. Be consistent. Give things away. Tell interesting stories. It’s fun!
Mack Hill Farm Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/MackHillFarm
The blog: http://www.mackhillfarm.com
On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/lisamackhill
On Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanh/
On Etsy: http://mackhillfarm.etsy.com
This was a great insight into family farming and Social Media. I’ve always tried to support family farms in my area. Sadly, I’ve watched them close one by one.
Social media brings Lisa, her animals and her story to life. Both Ulla and Lisa are bringing people back to the farm. Helping them understand the love, the drama, the work, importance and humor involved in the ancient, noble art of farming the old fashioned REAL way. Bringing people closer to the food will educate and lead to our desiring organically kindly raised and carefully own producats. Supporting family farms helps our economy, the farms stay and hopefully more will return or more interested executicves take up farming. I love what I’m learning on Twitter, facebook & blogs about farms & farming. I love seeing the pictures of gorgeous sheep, beautiful chickens and jaunty ducks. I love passing this knowledge on as I learn it. And mostly, I see social media as a way to pull it all together. Maybe the next big parcel of land around me won’t become a new development, condos or shopping center. Perhaps the land will be cleared once againand used to farm.
Thanks so much Lisa, Ulla and Zachary
Andrea,
Thank you so much for your comment! I so agree. What I think is so interesting about this movement is that the consumer(like you) are so well informed and passionate about farming practices. Not easy for branders to “fudge” how they farm. This presents a unique opportunity for farmers like Lisa who are farming unconventionally and are willing to share their world with others. It really is a amazing thing. I know the biggest hurtle for my father was marketing. Grass based farming was a well established niche but he never really realized the importance of connecting and selling his meat as a value added product. The internet is now a source of support, research and connection for farmers and consumers like you!
Thanks so much for your support and enthusiasm. Also thanks to Lisa for being so generous with her advice, it will surely help many farmers make the leap online! And a big thank you to Zach for letting me share with the world this important info!
.-= Ulla´s last blog ..Notes From NYC Food and Climate Summit, Part I =-.
I actually was inspired in part by another post on this blog, to start a social media site specifically for connecting farms and communities. I just launched it yesterday (29th of December, 2009).
The site is FarmConnect.net
I agree with Ulla that it is hard for branders to fudge the way they farm. It is interesting to watch the big corporate farms try it, though. Aside from providing farms an unprecedented way of communicating with each other and their customers, social media will only become more important as community members increasingly seek to be part of the conversation about how their food and fiber is produced. Farms would not exist without customers, and the ones who treat their customers with respect and make them part of the conversation are increasingly gaining marketshare.
The more farmers witness the conversations taking place online, the more their world opens up to new possibilites. It still amazes me how many cow calf operations out there raise their cattle just fine on pasture and hay, but the experts have convinced them if they want to sell them as beef, they need to be sold to to the feelots to be fattened up. How many farmers would rather sell their grass fed beef directly to customers at a premium as opposed to selling it for a fraction of what it is worth, only to have it made unhealthy for people to eat in the feedlots, and then taking the little money they get to buy ‘food’ at the grocery store that does not nourish their bodies?
Many farmers just don’t know how to go about this, but that is changing. FarmConnect.net was started to help farmers connect with communities. In minutes, you can sign up and start letting people know what you have for sale, and how you raise it. Believe me, there are people out there that want to support farmers. They are hungrily searching for them online every day.
Thanks for anything you can do to spread the word.
Sincerely,
Mike Murphy
http://www.FarmConnect.net
If you eat, you are invited!
.-= Mike Murphy´s last blog ..admin created the group Murphy Family Farm =-.
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