Social Media Time Management for Farmers and Ranchers

Guest Post by Becky McCray

How you spend your time tells everyone what is important to you. When you are your own boss, and maybe even the only one in the outfit, no one Time managementtells you when to or how to focus on the most important things. Focus is a do-it-yourself project.

It takes time to develop this skill. It takes all alone, no interruption time. An hour a week would make a huge difference. But an hour a week sounds hard, when you already are working 50 to 60 hours a week, like many farmers and ranchers.

Where can you find the time? Pick one day per week, and

  • Use your lunch break,
  • Use your windshield time in the tractor or pickup
  • Hire or bribe someone to stand in for you for an hour, or
  • Give up an hour of evening TV or internet

How do you spend the time? Here are five tasks you can work on during your precious focus time.

  1. Set a clear vision. Know what results you want from your operation. How so you want it to look in 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years?
  2. Pick one skill to improve. What’s one thing, that if you were better at it, would definitely improve your bottom line? Spend your hour reading and studying. Not surfing the internet looking for something about it. Do the surfing and searching in advance. Spend your focus hour studying.
  3. Take a hard look at the numbers. Most farms and ranches keep good numbers, but seldom review them. Take this time to ask those hard questions.
  4. Decide which tasks you should do personally, which you can delegate. What do you do that uses your unique talents and assets? These are the ones for you to keep and focus on. Delegate some of the other tasks. It takes time to set up effective delegation. If you have other people in your operation, invest the time to make it possible for them to take on more of the “other” tasks.
  5. Stop doing some tasks. Spend some of your thinking time to make some careful choices. Ask, “what would happen if I just didn’t do this?” Think through the consequences, and give up some things.

If what’s important to you is revealed by your calendar, then isn’t improving your operation’s business worth on hour of focused time per week?

Becky McCray shares more lessons useful for rural business in the new book, Small Town Rules, written with Chicago entrepreneur Barry Moltz. Becky McCrayShe also owns a liquor store and cattle ranch in Northwest Oklahoma, and is a recognized expert in small business and social media. She publishes the popular website Small Biz Survival, on small town business, and she and Sheila Scarborough co-founded Tourism Currents to teach tourism professionals new ways of marketing their destination. Her professional life is clearly an example of Small Town Rule #3: Multiply Your Lines of Income. 

Filed Under: Guest Perspective, Social Media Tips Tagged With: , ,
March 4, 2013 By

Tipping Isn’t Just for Cows: 5 Beginner AgBlogging Tips

1.) Determine your goals: Like most endeavors a road map to your destination will increase your chance of arrival. Just as a map helps us travel, a list of goals will help your blog become successful. On paper, brainstorm a list of accomplishments for

Photo credit: IQMatrix.com

Photo credit: IQMatrix.com

your blog. Then choose three achievable goals, set a date for completion and begin your journey. Remember to hold yourself accountable for these goals by reassessing your blog on those completion dates.

2.) Link to other blogs: The world wide web is just that. A web of conversations. Conversations which rely on hyperlinks to keep everyone connected and the conversation functioning. They are beneficial to the blogger because the recipient blog will likely see that you’ve linked to them and out of curiosity check out your blog. They may even providing you with a fresh channel of readership by linking to your blog.

3.) Comment, comment, comment: As you comment on other people’s blogs remember that you are increasing your blog’s visibility. This occurs by driving traffic to your blog and increasing your search engine ranking.

4.) Be unique: Re-visit your blogging goals. Most likely you are blogging to help connect people from the gate to the plate. So are many others. What will set you apart from the rest? If you have another hobby, be sure to introduce your readers. For instance, you may be a scrap booking farm mom, a fisherman farm dude or a bike racing, dairyman. Employing your past times will also increases the chances of creating a solid connection with your reader. Your reader will appreciate the higher value of your blog and become a loyal visitor.

5.) Be conversational: At times you may feel stumped and in a writing slump. Its happens easily and to many more people than you think. A great exercise is finding a quiet place to sit. Then begin breathing in and out ten times. Next, imagine yourself sitting down at the kitchen table with a friend over coffee. Think about how the conversation may begin to roll. Concentrate on conversing, not lecturing or teaching. As you consider what is being said begin to outline your upcoming post in your mind. Once you’ve collected your thoughts, you should hopefully find a renewed energy to write.

We are always looking for great ways we can help new bloggers. What are some of your best tips?

Filed Under: Social Media Tips Tagged With: ,
February 8, 2013 By

Pinterest Part 2: Are you a lettuce farmer or an apple grower?

I recently began reading “The Impact Equation” by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith and found it interesting that within the first page of the book, they refer to farming. They use the growth of a head of
applelettuce versus an apple tree as an example for social media. Its an accurate description of what we should be doing to succeed in social media. A lettuce head begins as seeds which ripen over a short period of time and are then cut to be used right away. Whereas, if you tend to an apple tree over a long period of time you will continue to reap the benefits year after year.
The same concept can be specifically applied to the use of Pinterest. Its a sensational tool that if began on the right foundation & tended over time will reap wholesome, sweet results. Those results are born in the shape of influence. Now that you’ve been pinning like a mad person, you might wonder if people are paying attention to your pins. Lucky for you there are a number of options for measuring your influence on Pinterest:
  • Curlate (provides insight into viral trends)
  • Pinerly (measures clicks and reach)
  • Repinly (shows you trending pins)
  • Pinfluencer (free 21-day trial available-provides assistance with managing contests)
  • PinReach (previously called PinClout, provides profiles that might be of pinterest to you and at this time is free and my personal favorite)
With insight into what types of content are most popular, you can determine which boards are in need of growth & focus. This varies depending on your social media goals. Like you, one of my pillar goals is to educate people about farming and ranching. However, what I’ve found through PinReach is that my ‘learn about your food and farming’ board needs some work.
How can we grow our weakest boards? There are several theories behind board growth. Almost first and foremost you should consider installing a Pinterest ‘follow me’ button or a plug-in on your blog, providing an easy way for others to pin from your blog. Another way which holds merit is by building those pins yourself. For example, I can populate my ‘learn about your food and farming’ board with farm stories and blog posts which contain visually, appealing photos. If appropriate, these posts can also be cross-pinned onto some of the more popular boards, creating a draw to the weaker board. Of course, we also need tend to all of our boards so that they continue to grow and branch to as many followers as possible. As those branches flourish they become intertwined netting additional supporters.
When it comes to Pinterest you need to ask the question, ‘Am I a lettuce farmer or an apple grower?’
~Jenny Schweigert
This is part two in a series of Pinterest posts. If you missed the first part be sure to jump on over to find out why Pinterest is more than Boots & Farmscapes.
Filed Under: Social Media Tips Tagged With: ,
January 22, 2013 By

Resolutions or Goals

Last week ACF held a New Year themed #AgChat. It was invigorating to see so many new and old faces developing plans for 2013. The most interesting trend was the amount of people who were making New Agvocacy GoalsYear’s goals rather than resolutions. In fact, almost 90% of the participants had set goals on their agvocacy road maps.

We are now half-way through the month and are wondering how many have thrown their goals to the wayside?? Ouch. Well, we hope we can help super-charge you into getting back on track. Consider tackling some of these measurable goals:

  • Blog more.: = Blog at least once a week
  • Blog better.: = Create or begin using an editorial calendar
  • Videos: Master YouTube and make more videos = Make one video or vlog per month
  • Engagement: Be more proactive when writing. Use a more sensitive tone. Listen more. = Engage with at least one person a week
  • Feature guest bloggers = Feature two bloggers per month
  • Utilize Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube more. = Pin five times per week, post on Facebook two times per week, spend 15 min. per week ‘liking’ others videos
  • Show more pictures = Publish three photos per blog post
  • Tweet more = Tweet three times per day

Are you up for a challenge?

 

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January 18, 2013 By

iPad Apps I Can’t Farm Without

by Jeff VanderWerff

With more and more AgNerds walking around with Droids, Iphones, and Ipads, people keep asking what apps they should have. Well, here’s the list of apps this AgNerd can’t live without, and remember, I farm both row crops and fruit crops, so these should work no matter your role in agriculture.

Soybean ScoutPro

This app, created in conjunction with Iowa State, will absolutely change your life if you scout your own crops. It’s kissing cousin, Corn Scout Pro, works much the same way. You can take photos, map the field, make all kinds of notes, and email a copy to whomever you like. At $40 bucks for Corn ScoutPro, and $40 for Soybean ScoutPro, they are among the most expensive, but worth every penny if you’re doing any amount of scouting.

JDLink

 

If you run green iron, you simply can’t live without this, especially if you are running a lot of machines. I did some consulting this past year for a large farmer, with multiple sprayers running, and with this app, I could track every movement the guys made. A must have if you’re in the realm of agribusiness and run Deere.

Farm Futures

 

I’m obsessed with the grain markets, and, quite honestly, you should be as well. Hands down, this is the best app I’ve found for tracking the markets, mainly because it shows overnight trading. Ok, so maybe I’m the only guy up at 3am to see what the overnights are doing….

Tank Mix Calc

This is a great app from farmpad, that allows you to enter in the size of your tank, the acres, gallons, products, and rates, and have them come out as a concise, clear recipe that you can save for later use. If you do your own application, you can’t be with this or it’s companion…

MixTank

 

Ever turned a thousand gallons of water and herbicide into a giant vat of cottage cheese because you added crop oil at the wrong time? Ok, maybe that’s just me, but with Roundup showing its age, and the mixes becoming more complicated, this is one tool you can’t be without. MixTank allows you to enter most common ingredients, and it spits out a complete mixing order for you to follow. A must have for custom applicators.

YieldCheck

 

If you’re dad is like mine, he can walk into a field, count the rows on a few ears, and make a dead on yield calculation in his head in under 30 seconds. However if you’re in the realm of the mathematically-challenged, like myself, this app is a life saver. Just input your spacing, number of ears, and the rows and rounds for instant yield estimates.

Honorable mention:

Apps that aren’t on my must-have list, but still worthy:  Google Earth, SpraySelect, Agrian Mobile, agSeedSelect, and AGRIplot

 

 

Jeff VanderWerff is a fourth-generation fruit and grain farmer from Sparta, Michigan. When not watching Netflix in the field, he works to tell the story of agriculture via social media. Check him out on YouTube at www.youtube.com/agsalesman

Filed Under: Social Media Tips Tagged With: ,
October 25, 2012 By
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