Description

Agvocacy – a term coined within the agriculture community; commonly used to refer to agriculture advocates.

Whether our start was documenting ranch life in Wyoming or selling lingerie on Twitter, our online advocacy has transformed over the past several years.

Make sure you listened to the first episode of the Over a Beer series!

In Episode 021 of the Agriculture Proud Podcast, Dairy Carrie and Ryan continue their Over A Beer Series, with a conversation about the evolution of agvocacy via social media.

Highlights:

• There have been a number platforms over the years. Some have grown, some have fallen back. One thing for sure is today’s prominent medium for sharing information is video and audio.
• Your overall body of work matters more than a single post to attract clicks and views.
• Chipotle and Panera. Subway. Earl’s. While it may be popular to boycott the latest changes in food and ag retail, consider whether you’re writing about a hot topic for people within your own community or to reach outside those circles.
• Cliques and divisions exist in agriculture advocacy and social media. We shouldn’t deny that – we have our own haters, but that doesn’t mean we have to continue contributing to that trend.

What is the future of agvocacy and where do we have opportunities to improve?

Carrie: People will rise and fall in the agvocacy movements. We’ll see new voices, but we hope that’s for the right reasons. Celebrity status isn’t what agvocacy is meant to be. Much of the change we’ve seen over the past eight years in our efforts can be boiled down to online maturity.

Ryan: If you want to be a leader, be open to different and be willing to listen. Know how to approach others on hot topics and how to facilitate a productive conversation. In-fighting within our own communities is holding agvocacy efforts back and we need to figure out how to address that problem.

Thanks to our sponsors (if we had sponsors) – Spotted Cow Beer from New Glarus Brewing for the hydration and to Crawfish Junction for the location for the discussion.

Be sure to hop on over to Carrie’s Blog, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to connect with her. If you’re interested in helping your business learn more about involving social advocates in your outreach and marketing strategies, or if you’re an advocate looking to get involved, check out GROW Influencer Group.

I hope you enjoy this episode of the Agriculture Proud podcast. Check out all my episodes at BeefRunner.com/podcast.

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