This is Cornwall --
Are the symbols @ and # part of your everyday life? No? Then you are missing out on the social media explosion in the farming and rural communities!
If anyone had suggested to me a year ago that in the summer of 2013 I would spend a day talking about social media (mainly Twitter) with farmers, equestrian specialists, agri-consultants, banks and the NFU I would have politely suggested that they needed to lie down in a darkened room! But that is exactly what I did when I joined the "Twitter in the Farmyard" day recently.
Sponsored by BIAC (British Institute of Agricultural Consultants), this was the brainwave of Simon Haley and Jill Scrivener of Reading Agricultural – or @halo42 and @jillScrivener as we know them – and the #agrichatuk team. Yes it's those funny symbols again.
Themost familiar social media platforms are probably Facebook and LinkedIn (often referred to as a business Facebook) but it is Twitter which has caught the eye and energy of the agricultural sector. Through Twitter you can "listen" to conversations between users, let everyone know what interests you and find groups which are specific to your work and your interests. You can even see the news as it breaks.
You will find conversations about TB and the badger cull, blackgrass, equipment, HS2, point to points, Formula 1, milking, lambing, world news headlines, traffic updates, the harvest and of course the weather. Professional bodies including the CLA, NFU, BFREPA, Tenant Farmers Association (TFA), Agricultural Law Association (ALA) and DEFRA all have Twitter accounts.
Twitter works using various symbols – each username begins with '@'. The use of a hashtag '#' in a tweet can help to get your information to a large number of interested users without having to send a text message or email and means that the message also gets to those who you do not know or where you do not have their contact details.
For example, the SOS dairy campaign has been set up and communicated via Twitter using the hashtag #sosdairy. Any Twitter user interested in the movement can search for #sosdairy and read through any tweets which mention it.
Other frequently used hashtags for the agricultural sector include #agrichatuk which is a Thursday night discussion group – each week a topic is chosen and questions discussed with all tweets using #agrichatuk so that you can follow the conversations. There are also #teamdairy, #clubhectare and #paddockposse which are groups of users interested in the various sectors.
Farmers, smallholders and a wide variety of agricultural businesses use Twitter as a way to market their business and also to communicate their value and engage with the wider public. One of the most prominent tweeting farmers is a shepherd in the Lake District known to the world only as @herdyshepherd1.
He wanted to talk about the ancient tradition of rearing and grazing Herdwick sheep on the fells and started tweeting and posting photographs of his flock and the land which they graze.
Herdy Shepherd had followers numbering in the hundreds and then in late March 2013 it snowed. The photographs of the hazardous conditions of the fells in the deep snow and the daily difficulties of getting food to the flock (which then started to lamb) went viral and over approximately seven days the number of followers rose to in excess of 12,000. His sheepdog Floss has her own Twitter fanclub.
I find that using Twitter is both a social and educational tool. I read about the issues facing the farming industry, I read up on legal cases and legislation, I chat to farmers, land agents, accountants, lawyers and friends and I can make my own comments and post information I want to share.
Through all of these channels I can be "introduced" to a diverse community, some of whom I may even meet in real life one day – meeting my virtual friends at Twitter in the Farmyard was an exciting, if slightly surreal, experience but we chatted in real life as we do on Twitter.
But being a lawyer, I will have to include an enthusiasm-dampening word of warning – a Tweet is there in the virtual world for all to see and can never be totally removed even if you delete it.
The law of libel and defamation applies to Tweets (think of Sally Bercow and her Tweet about Lord MacAlpline). So always think before you Tweet. Would you say what you are Tweeting to that person? Would you shout about it in the pub?
Remember, to quote @No1FarmerJake, social media is like toothpaste which has been squeezed from a tube, once it is out you can't put it back.
Alex Robinson a Partner at Lodders an established firm of solicitors based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Henley-in-Arden and Cirencester. This article first appeared at www.farminguk.com Reported by This is 2 hours ago.
Are the symbols @ and # part of your everyday life? No? Then you are missing out on the social media explosion in the farming and rural communities!
If anyone had suggested to me a year ago that in the summer of 2013 I would spend a day talking about social media (mainly Twitter) with farmers, equestrian specialists, agri-consultants, banks and the NFU I would have politely suggested that they needed to lie down in a darkened room! But that is exactly what I did when I joined the "Twitter in the Farmyard" day recently.
Sponsored by BIAC (British Institute of Agricultural Consultants), this was the brainwave of Simon Haley and Jill Scrivener of Reading Agricultural – or @halo42 and @jillScrivener as we know them – and the #agrichatuk team. Yes it's those funny symbols again.
Themost familiar social media platforms are probably Facebook and LinkedIn (often referred to as a business Facebook) but it is Twitter which has caught the eye and energy of the agricultural sector. Through Twitter you can "listen" to conversations between users, let everyone know what interests you and find groups which are specific to your work and your interests. You can even see the news as it breaks.
You will find conversations about TB and the badger cull, blackgrass, equipment, HS2, point to points, Formula 1, milking, lambing, world news headlines, traffic updates, the harvest and of course the weather. Professional bodies including the CLA, NFU, BFREPA, Tenant Farmers Association (TFA), Agricultural Law Association (ALA) and DEFRA all have Twitter accounts.
Twitter works using various symbols – each username begins with '@'. The use of a hashtag '#' in a tweet can help to get your information to a large number of interested users without having to send a text message or email and means that the message also gets to those who you do not know or where you do not have their contact details.
For example, the SOS dairy campaign has been set up and communicated via Twitter using the hashtag #sosdairy. Any Twitter user interested in the movement can search for #sosdairy and read through any tweets which mention it.
Other frequently used hashtags for the agricultural sector include #agrichatuk which is a Thursday night discussion group – each week a topic is chosen and questions discussed with all tweets using #agrichatuk so that you can follow the conversations. There are also #teamdairy, #clubhectare and #paddockposse which are groups of users interested in the various sectors.
Farmers, smallholders and a wide variety of agricultural businesses use Twitter as a way to market their business and also to communicate their value and engage with the wider public. One of the most prominent tweeting farmers is a shepherd in the Lake District known to the world only as @herdyshepherd1.
He wanted to talk about the ancient tradition of rearing and grazing Herdwick sheep on the fells and started tweeting and posting photographs of his flock and the land which they graze.
Herdy Shepherd had followers numbering in the hundreds and then in late March 2013 it snowed. The photographs of the hazardous conditions of the fells in the deep snow and the daily difficulties of getting food to the flock (which then started to lamb) went viral and over approximately seven days the number of followers rose to in excess of 12,000. His sheepdog Floss has her own Twitter fanclub.
I find that using Twitter is both a social and educational tool. I read about the issues facing the farming industry, I read up on legal cases and legislation, I chat to farmers, land agents, accountants, lawyers and friends and I can make my own comments and post information I want to share.
Through all of these channels I can be "introduced" to a diverse community, some of whom I may even meet in real life one day – meeting my virtual friends at Twitter in the Farmyard was an exciting, if slightly surreal, experience but we chatted in real life as we do on Twitter.
But being a lawyer, I will have to include an enthusiasm-dampening word of warning – a Tweet is there in the virtual world for all to see and can never be totally removed even if you delete it.
The law of libel and defamation applies to Tweets (think of Sally Bercow and her Tweet about Lord MacAlpline). So always think before you Tweet. Would you say what you are Tweeting to that person? Would you shout about it in the pub?
Remember, to quote @No1FarmerJake, social media is like toothpaste which has been squeezed from a tube, once it is out you can't put it back.
Alex Robinson a Partner at Lodders an established firm of solicitors based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Henley-in-Arden and Cirencester. This article first appeared at www.farminguk.com Reported by This is 2 hours ago.