At New Holland we’re dedicated to continuing this tradition, and we’ve launched our Field Smart campaign to celebrate not only our approach to delivering new innovations to the marketplace, but the farmers that put this technology to use.

Listen to this week’s ZimmCast here: The New Holland Field Smart Blog

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsors, GROWMARK, locally owned, globally strong and Monsanto, Roundup Ready Plus, for their support.

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired. Subscribe so you can listen when and where you want. Just go to our Subscribe page.

Shelly was here to speak on “Closing the Trust Gap,” and her comments on how individuals and companies can accomplish this are spot on. I fully agree with her idea that you used to spend money on media and then you got business. Today you spend time on media and you get business. Now, that media is yourself and/or social media (mobile website, blog, podcasts, social networking, etc.). Of course time is money but to utilize these tools properly you have to invest time and give it time to develop. She also made a point of saying how big a mistake it is to think you can hire the company president’s just out of college daughter to run your social media accounts. If you think about that hard enough for a minute you’ll understand why. However, it happens and it is a setup for potential disaster.

You can hear an excerpt of Shelly’s comments here: Shelly Kramer Talks Blogging

2012 Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album

Thanks to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and United Soybean Board for their sponsorship of our coverage of this year’s Summit.

We are looking forward to your comments. To tune into this blog just follow us on Twitter or Facebook and keep on coming back once in a while. You will find new blog posts every three to four weeks.

We meet so many fascinating people every day. And each one has a story to tell. In our new blog, we want to share some of these stories, especially those that may lead to a good discussion.

Visit our website www.agro.basf.com or go directly to www.farmperspectives.com to find out more about our new blog “Farm Perspectives”.

Be sure to check out the UM students in collaboration with PROpenMic on our main page, Facebook and Twitter (@PROpenMic)!

Entries must be received no later than 11:59 PM EST Tuesday March 27th, 2012.
Voting opens at 12:00 PM Wednesday March 28th, 2012.
Voting closes at 12:00 PM Tuesday April 10th, 2012. Winners will be contacted at that time.
Alltech reserves the right to reject posts.
Winners must attend Alltech’s 2012 Symposium to receive $500 for travel and lodging.

Thanks to Podcasting News for the heads up.

Since Sunday, October 16 is World Food Day, the folks at Blog Action Day decided to make food their topic. AgWired is signed up. Maybe you should too.

For 2011, our Blog Action Day coincides with World Food Day, so our topic of discussion for this year will be food. Take the first step now and sign-up your blog to Blog Action Day and then look at our suggested topics for some food flavoured inspiration to discuss.



World Food Day, October 16th, is a worldwide event designed to increase awareness, understanding and informed, year-around action to alleviate hunger.

However, he still blogs and it’s really because of his personal passion for agriculture. I introduced him to the word, “agvocate” and he like it! I think you’ll enjoy hearing him talk about why he blogs and what it means to him personally and professionally.

You can listen to my interview with Adrian here: Adrian Krebs Interview

Our on-farm dinner included fresh picked and boiled sweet corn. It is definitely some of the best I’ve ever eaten. Having more than one ear was desert for me! There are plenty more photos in my photo album from our trip to the farm this evening.

2011 IFAJ Congress Photo Album

Seametrics is a “water flow measurement company that helps farmers, manufacturers, and municipalities to reduce water use and save money.”

Thank you Seametrics. We’ll keep trying to earn it!

Tractor Parts Talk blog topics to date have covered the effect of heavy spring rains on the 2011 growing season, tractor part tips on air filter maintenance, a refresher on farm safety, and the importance of agriculture in creating jobs, stimulating the economy, housing wildlife and improving the environment. At tractorpartstalk.com, visitors can also find and purchase tractor parts through tractorpartmart.com to keep their equipment running in the field and connect with a local parts dealer in TISCO’s extensive dealer network.

Find TISCO on Facebook and Twitter too.

The Iowa Corn Growers have done something about this. Last week they hosted a group of “guest bloggers” to Iowa and I met them during Iowa Corn Indy 250 weekend activities. Pictured in the center is food blogger, Allison Loesch along with her husband on the right and Iowa Corn Promotion Board Chair, Dick Gallagher.

I know that many of you want to know how to reach out to and engage consumers more. How about reaching out to those very involved in social media on the consumer side? In this week’s program you will hear Mindy Willamson, Iowa Corn Growers, talk about the group they hosted and from Allison. I think you’ll find what they have to say interesting.

Listen in and learn more about food blogging: Guest Blogging with Iowa Corn Growers

If you’d like to get to know this group of guest bloggers here is how you can find and follow them. Their names are links to their blogs:

• Laurie Johckheer
• Shanda Bauman
• Allison Loesch
• Lisa Grant
• Susan Whetzel
• Tanya Gordon
• Vanessa Druckman

Hopefully they will join #FoodChat which is the Twitter conversation that takes place the third Tuesday of each month from 8-10pm, ET. All other Tuesday’s it is AgChat!

This week’s program ends with some music from Music Alley. It’s called “Food” by Deirdre Flint.

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsor, GROWMARK, locally owned, globally strong, for their support.

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired. Subscribe so you can listen when and where you want. Just go to our Subscribe page.

2. Find a blog buddy, someone to walk you through the first steps on one of the free sites such as Blogger or WordPress. Sites such as these are relatively easy to maneuver, but it may help to enlist a friend or a local teen. Teens today are part of the “millennial generation” and grew up so entrenched in web technology that they can be your seasoned mentor.

Find more tips here.

ZimmComm New Media gave the three year old site a face lift that just went live last month. Corn Commentary was developed in 2007 to provide NCGA with an outlet for providing opinions on issues impacting the industry, especially in the areas of environment, food safety, health and energy.

The blog was recently updated with a new design and multiple staff members of NCGA have taken over as primary contributors to the blog, which includes new posts several times a week. The new design also incorporates a Flickr photo album feed, as well as links to social network profiles on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. In addition, there is a live Twitter feed of tweets by Corn Commentators and a featured video built in to the new design. Those Corn Commentators include Ken Colombini, NCGA communications director; Mark Lambert, NCGA senior communications manager; and NCGA communications managers Cathryn Wojcicki, Susan Powers and Janice Tolley Walters.

Check it out and let us know what you think!

Here’s some other summary information that I have edited and highlighted:

Millennials, those ages 18-33, remain more likely to access the internet wirelessly with a laptop or mobile phone. In addition, they still clearly surpass their elders online when it comes to:

* While the youngest generations are still significantly more likely to use social network sites, the fastest growth has come from internet users 74 and older: social network site usage for this oldest cohort has quadrupled since 2008, from 4% to 16%.

Plenty to Think About also recently launched on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

“Syngenta prides itself on the relationships that we, as agronomists, have created with growers all across the country,” said Chris Cook, head of agronomy for Syngenta Seeds. “We hope this new blog will help strengthen and improve those relationships.”

For over a year, USDA has been sharing stories and information on a wide array of topics, from Economic Job Forums and nutrition efforts, to beehives and gardens at USDA facilities. Through an unprecedented collaborative effort behind the scenes at USDA, we’ve been working hard to post blogs about our projects and initiatives, from Agency offices worldwide, and messages from the Secretary and Deputy Secretary. Our goal has always been to feature interesting articles in a more conversational and accessible way that allows for public discussion.

As we start this new project, feel free to offer any suggestions!

One of the questions I received most this week was how to get more traffic for your social media efforts with a blog being the specific channel pointed to. Good question and here are some of my thoughts on that:

1. Write about what you’re passionate and knowledgeable about.
2. Write regularly.
3. Write frequently. I can’t imagine having a blog you don’t post on at least 5x/wk.
4. Write as if you’re having a conversation with someone.
5. Don’t write only about yourself, company or products.
6. Point people to information on your subject they may not have known.
7. Use lots of links to more information, internal and external to your company.
8. Invite comment with questions. Solicit their opinion, questions, ideas.
9. Interact via comments or emails with your audience. Don’t ignore them.
10. Be persistent. Don’t give up. It will take time to develop an audience.
11. Use social networking to point people to your blog posts.

These are just a few ideas. There are more. I would also encourage you to create some objectives up front. How are you going to measure success? Realize that this isn’t about big numbers. This is about engaging your customers or members when and how they want. That will never include everyone. Think of social media as a big online cocktail party. Does everyone at the cocktail party get together in one group to chat? No. They are in many small groups. But those people mingle around and move from group to group. Influence your group and realize your audience will then go join another group and take what they learned from you with them.

The video says there are over 200,000,000 blogs. They’re not dead or no longer relevant. They’re more relevant than ever and I see them as the hub of your social media community. The spokes are Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc.

In developing The Feed Room, the Nutrena® brand commissioned a team of experts in the horse industry to blog and respond to site visitors’ questions, with new posts featured weekly. Featured bloggers will include experts from Cargill’s Nutrena® team and industry experts from outside the company.

Registration is now open for this year’s BlogWorld and New Media Expo. I attended last year and am hoping to do so again this year schedule permitting. If you really want to hone your new media and social networking skills then this is the place to do it. It would be cool to have other ag folks there!

Join us at the World’s Largest New Media event and learn about Content Creation, Distribution and Monetization strategies, step-by-step techniques and bleeding-edge tools from the most successful Bloggers, Podcasters, Social Media Pro’s, Internet TV and Radio Broadcasters, and Podcasters! From the premier educational sessions at the Social Media Business Summit and BlogWorld Conference, to the resource-rich New Media Expo, to Amazing Networking events…it’s One economical trip, One weekend, One Big Show you can’t afford to miss!

Since my Nikon uses compact flash I can now download pics from it to my iPad and edit them with Photogene, upload to Flickr (iPhone version, no iPad version yet) and then add to my post. I’m not using the WordPress app though. It’s not ready yet as I already found out. I’m just logged in via the iPad Safari browser.

Now if I can just figure out an easy way to link to an audio file I’ve edited on here. I’ve got the Caster audio editing app but haven’t figured out how to get that file to a web url. The one added below is the test file I emailed to myself and added from my Mac.

Could Sue (right) and Jamy Johnson look happier over the fact that they’re now blogging for AGCO?

I’m Sue and we’re thrilled to launch AGCO’s blog. Agriculture is a strong community-oriented industry and a perfect fit for social media. Farmers are not competitive, but quick to help each other. I have early memories of lots of neighbors helping build our cattle shed. Today’s Facebook-YouTube-Blogger sites are becoming the modern-day equivalent of helping neighbors. Farmers visiting these sites help extend agriculture knowledge across the worldwide landscape, offering a helping hand of advice, information, pictures, comments, experiences to global neighbors.