Almost all rely on a great photo to draw attention and all serve a purpose. “Fish where your fish are,” advised Ward. Other options can include WeChat and Weibo, Chinese platforms which are also becoming popular. Snapchat was an up and comer but it has earned an reputation as a sexting app and there is a lot of distrust surrounding it, said Ward. “People go for the fun filters but in terms of engaging people, it’s a harder one. The return is more challenging on Snapchat. “However, everything is constantly changing,” qualified Ward. “Snapchat could come up with a new offering that makes it the big heavy.” hen there are the blogs, vlogs and podcasts. “Social media really is a huge umbrella term. I like to think of it as contact, communication and media consumption,” said Berry. “And no, you don’t have to use them all!” she said, allowing the inexperienced user to give a sigh of relief. For instance, if you want to connect with friends and family, you likely would not use LinkedIn which is about professional contact and “not a place where you share funny pictures of your cat.” Each platform has its own predictive algorithm, a coding that predicts what you want to see based on past behaviour. It’s similar to retargeting. Click on a link for cameras and you will soon find camera-related advertisements sprinkled on your pages. In terms of your own personal pages, you can monitor success simply by looking at what posts have
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performed and which have not. If a post doesn’t engage the audience, change it. Each platform has an analytics section you can check to see who is looking at your posts. Once you established the who and the where, the next questions to ask are “why”and “what”. Why are you posting and what motivates people to share your posts? Of the moms Foodland Ontario is trying to reach, Ward’s research indicates 74 per cent of them will share content that informs or educates others while 58 per cent will share if it makes someone smile. Others share because a post has an interesting point of view, is entertaining or reminds people to focus on the positive. What do they share? Of those polled, 61 per cent of moms will share funny stories that make people laugh, 58 per cent share parenting tips and 52 per cent share coupons, deals and contests. Only 19 per cent said a business brand is engaging. What this should tell people wanting to post about their business is that your posts need to be engaging. “If you write it and you are bored, your followers will be too,” said Ward. Posts need to be intentional and specific to your audience. “What a mom finds compelling is different than college or highschool kids,” explained Ward. rain Farmers of Ontario has two main branches, explained Berry. One is to reach farmers and the agriculture community and for this, they rely on Twitter using the hashtag #OntAg to share research papers, good articles,
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pricing and to promote podcasts. “We also have a robust website for information” said Berry. The consumer face of GFO is the “Good in Every Grain” brand which Berry promotes on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. “We looked at where our audience – youth and parents – were and those were the sites they were on,” said Berry. erhaps the most important point is that social interaction needs to be authentic. “Choose authenticity over gratuitousness every time,” said Ward. Foodland Ontario has professional photographs taken of its recipes which are used to promote Ontario food. “But when I post a picture of a recipe I made in my old crockpot, it gets more traffic than the staged photo everytime,” said Ward. “Probably because the viewers also have an old crockpot and want to make it too.” So “how” can rural entrepreneurs engage and attract attention? “Well, video killed the radio star,” said Ward, using a song title. “Anything moving will outperform
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Bulk Nut Trees Bundles of 25 bare-root shrubs: Hazelnut & Elderberry $12/tree Nut Pine $6/tree (6” plugs) Chestnut - sold out for 2019 -
Seedling hybrid hazels and chestnuts. Robust, 20-year field-tested gene pool: blight resistant, hardy (Zone 4), early producing, good nut size, adapted to no-spray. Great prices, great genetics.
And many more rare edible perennials!
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