Even as we were being attacked (AgWired was by spammers) last night the show went on. That is the Blog Business Success Radio show on Blog Talk Radio.

We had a nice hour long conversation which you can still listen to if you missed it live. We talked about agricultural communications, Talking News Releases, blogging, podcasting and all from the perspective of how these new communications tools can be used for business purposes.

So, if you have time feel free to listen in.

Well, Wayne’s a podcaster too and on something called Blog Talk Radio. Tonight at 8pm (Eastern) I’ll be his guest on his program “Blog Business Success Radio.” You can listen in live or use these instructions from Wayne if you can’t:

If you miss this very informative show, it will be available for download as a podcast for iPod, iTunes, and MP3 players; or play it right on your computer. To download this, or any other of my guest interviews, go to the Blog Business Success host page and click on Archived Segments. Once there, click on the podcast icon at the end of the episode description, to download the show free of charge for your listening enjoyment. You can also subscribe to the show feed.

Let’s talk with Chuck Zimmerman about podcasting and talking press releases and how they can take your media relations to the next level, on Blog Business Success Radio.

You can hear a full interview with CBB Vice Chairman Jay O’Brien here. (2.2MB MP3)

“This is a huge step up for us from a competitive standpoint because Rahal Letterman has such an excellent track record,” Dana said. “My teammates will be Buddy Rice, who won the Indy 500 in 2004, and, of course, Danica Patrick, who was Rookie of the Year last year.” Rahal Letterman Racing is co-owned by 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal and television talk show host and comedian David Letterman.

Team Ethanol is sponsored by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council. Executive Director Tom Slunecka said they could not be more thrilled with the switch to one of the best and well-known IRL teams. “The Rahal Letterman team, having produced Indy car winners and having the sensation in race car and sports media Danica Patrick, is just a fabulous way for ethanol to get its name out to that many more people.” (Full Release)

You can hear the actual press conference annoucement here.

According to Tom Slunecka (suh-Len-icka), EPIC executive director, the promotion first started by giving ethanol information to key leaders within the city, such as mechanics, auto dealers, politicians and community leaders. The information explained why ethanol is important to the city and how it would work in their automobiles and how it would clean the air. “This program was far more than just an advertising campaign, it was an integral part of the thought process within that town about how to maximize their economics from a regional basis as well as how to help their air quality there within their city.” (:16 ) ( epic-wichita-slunecka-cut3 (Full Release) (Word Doc)

Columbia, MO (AgNewsWire) News that Japan is reopening its market for U.S. beef products is good for Missouri beef producers, according to Missouri Beef Industry Council Executive Director Steve Taylor. “With the full export market available to us, there’s an additional 50 to 75 dollars per head added to the value of a carcass, so that translates back to Missouri producers. It does put money on to the value of the cattle that they sell here.” (Full Release)

This is a Talking News Release so you can download the full release which contains the audio links if you want to listen.

ZimmComm, the owner & operator of AgWired, announces a new service called AgNewsWire. We wanted to answer the question, why isn’t there a newswire service for “us.” Now there is. So what is it?

AgNewsWire is a news release production/distribution service for the agribusiness industry and a resource for agricultural editors in all forms of media, including broadcast, print and internet. This means we push your release out to agricultural journalists of all types (radio, print, internet and direct-to-farmer). Additionally, with the creation of the website, journalists can subscribe to the RSS Feed which includes all releases we distribute.

One of the most exciting things about AgNewsWire is our exclusive agreement with Quickfarm , the premier website developer and content provider for farmer cooperatives nationally. Beginning December 1, we post your release to the Quickfarm network of 425 cooperative websites nationally that have over 2,000 locations. Just last month their network had 100,000 unique farmer visitors and 2 million page views. That’s getting your message directly in front of your customer.

QuickFarm Vice President of Sales & Operations Matt Walsh approached ZimmComm with the idea of providing new content for their websites. “We have a lot of traffic out there on the internet. We see close to 2 million page views a month. Those page views are made up by roughly 100,000 unique visitors every month and we want to make sure those people are getting the best possible content that we can find. So, going to ZimmComm was a no-brainer for us because of their established multimedia release service. That service provides excellent content for our website customers and in turn for their customers, the American farmer.”

AgNewsWire will distribute traditional text-only releases as well as our patented Talking News Releases. We can also guarantee search engine inclusion through our relationship with PR Web. Let AgNewsWire be your one-stop-shop for news release distribution.

That’s our big news for the week. Now it’s on to blogging the NAMA Agribusiness Forum and NAFB convention. Maybe I’ll see you in Kansas City.

MFA Health Track manager Mike John says the pending opening of the Japanese market has already created a demand for QSA certified cattle because it takes about 180 days to finish those animals. “The feed yards are willing to start filling the pipeline so they’ll have product when the market does open. So it will bring more buyers to Missouri because of the large number of feeder cattle that we have.” Full Release

“Part of it is that they’re – well, cheap. And I can feed distiller’s products with the corn stalks and end up with a decent ration and still be cheaper than going out and buying some higher quality hay.” Full Release

This is the third in a series of releases that Vermeer has distributed on this subject.

“What our results showed was that in 90 percent of the counties that we sent sticky traps into farmers did capture the western corn rootworm beetle on these sticky traps,” said Dave Rhylander, Director of Traits for Monsanto. “And so that tells us this bug continues to move east, and to the west and to the south, and that it’s now expanded further than anybody had anticipated.” Full Release

Corn growers who have been fighting corn rootworms can now protect their corn with the Herculex® RW Rootworm Protection trait in 2006.

Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., and Dow AgroSciences LLC, the trait’s developers, recently received confirmation that Herculex RW has received full food and feed approvals within the United States. Kyle Whitaker, New Product Launch Manager for Pioneer Hi-Bred, says Herculex RW will give corn growers expanded options for in-the-seed protection against corn rootworm. Full Release

“Look for commentary, pictures, audio and much more on World Dairy Diary before, during and after the Expo,” said blog manager Chuck Zimmerman of ZimmComm, Marketing and Communications. “I’ll be there for the entire event, covering all aspects of the expo.” Full Release

Holstein Association Communications Manager, Lisa Perrin says they are excited to be featuring their own members as part of the exhibit this year to tell their own stories. Full Release

You can download the release here: MBIC Food Safety Release (Word doc)

“The QSA program is a tool that USDA has provided to the industry to comply with the beef export verification program. And this particular QSA will involve source and age of feeder cattle. So the system that is in place has to be designed such that it gives USDA confidence in proclaiming that they guarantee that the animals are so source and age verified.”

Download Full Release

You can download the release here: MBIC Food Safety Release (Word doc)

You can see the release here (Word doc).

“World Dairy Diary” is what has become known as a web log, or blog,” Zimmerman said. “Since a blog is just simply a website that is easy to update, it is getting more popular as a communications tool to provide information, pictures, audio and even video on an immediate basis.” (full release) Word document

For more information contact me! That’s Chuck Zimmerman.

“The survey came back in 92, almost 93 percent confidence in the product. And that comes from our efforts to make sure that they are a well-informed consumer.” (Full Release)

For more information contact Steve Taylor.

“We talked about cattle performance, we talked about tracking value in the feed lots, and we talked about the national ID and BSE testing updates.” ( mfa-wessler-cut-1) (:08) (Full Release)

For more information contact Chuck Lay.

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (August 2, 2005) – The dangerously dry conditions across much of the Midwestern Corn Belt this summer are taking their toll on what was expected to be a record crop causing development problems as well as increased insect pressure.
Monsanto Corn Technical Manager Dr. Rob Ihrig (EYE-rig) says corn is in the middle of its most critical development period right now.
“Corn is a tremendous utilizer of water and the crop really becomes stressed later in the season as it attempts to fill the ear so the water demand is much, much higher. The challenge that this crop is under is that there’s no water for it to really remain healthy and there’s very little water available to produce the sugars and photosynthate necessary to fill the ear.” ( monsanto-ihrig-cut1) (:26) (Full Release)

For more information contact Lisa Cassady or Lee Quarles.

You can download the release here: MBIC Release

This is kind of an adaptation of our Talking News Releases. We interview the grower and edit the sound bites. I upload them to our server. Then I create a document that contains the questions, followed by a hyperlink to those mp3 sound files on our server. The broadcaster is emailed the document. Then they can download the audio files and he/she’s got a ready made “live” interview to walk into the studio and record!

I’m sure these are tied into a paid advertising schedule. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. The broadcaster has the flexibility to work with the material we provide to suit their format. They can edit the sound bites further if they need to for example.

Here’s a couple examples of what I’m talking about. Without posting a full document (there’s lots of them from multiple states) the broadcaster will get something like this:

What is the outlook for corn rootworm pressure this year, and why is it important for growers to conduct root digs to assess root damage? monsanto-obermeyer-rootdig-cut1

That’s with Dr. John Obermeyer, an entomologist with Perdue University.

Another example would be:

How does your YieldGard Plus corn look at mid-season, and what are your expectations of how it will yield at harvest?
monsanto-russell-cut6

That’s Joe Russell, a grower from Muncie, Indiana. Each interview and document has multiple Q&A which the broadcaster then turns into a “local” report for their listeners.

So you see, there’s lots of creative ways you can work with ZimmComm! Let us be your audio experts and we can help you prepare and distribute information to broadcasters more efficiently and easily for you and them.

. . . Heartland Hybrid’s President, Jay Asplin, agrees that the agreement will be a great benefit for farmers. “We really believe the acquisition of Heartland Hybrids by Landec Ag is only going to enhance our ability to bring greater value to our customers. By combining both of our brands together, both of our companies, under the Landec Ag ownership, we’re really going to strengthen our ability to bring farmers across the country the opportunity to buy seed at a great value.” (full release)

For more information contact Bill Gass, Vice President of Marketing, (574) 583-2741 ext.107.

For more information contact Greg Ehm.

Chapter 2

Why didn’t anyone use my release right away? How do reporters decide to use my release? When will they use my release? Did they use the audio I sent?

In the first chapter I wrote about the news value of a release, which is the most important aspect of a release. I’m finding that a lot of public relations people don’t understand how a release is used by the reporter though. Many assume that the release is used immediately or not at all. They don’t realize that unless the story is time sensitive it can often be archived for future use. I’ve seen releases used months after they were received. I’ve done it myself!

Even a well written release that has a news angle to it (we don’t want written commercials!) won’t get used immediately unless the reporter has room in their publication or program and needs to fill space or time. These releases may often be placed in a folder or file for use when the reporter needs some “news.”

Many reporters I know won’t just cut and paste the release either. They will often re-write it to fit their style and medium. The end result may not even resemble the original release. Then it’s even harder to know if the release was used.

Most releases contain quotes from company representatives like the CEO or a technician and reporters often like to call a local contact for a quote, especially radio reporters. When this happens it also makes it hard to tell if they used the release you sent out. They may get a local customer or representative to say the very same thing but then they make the story more interesting to their listeners while feeling more in control of the news. . . (full article)

Jim Heinle (Hine-lee), president of Global Animal Management, says that the survey shows that consumer cofidence would increase significantly with the implementation of a national animal identification system. Nearly 55 percent of those polled said their confidence would then be high, and those who said their confidence will remain low declined to less than 4 percent. (Full Release)

For more information contact Julie Lux, (908) 298-4774.

So, if you want to subscribe to ZimmComm’s Talking News Releases then point your news aggregator to the XML image (). You can also just paste the feed URL into your news aggregator subscribe box. It’s http://www.zimmcomm.biz/tnr/tnr-rss.xml.

Then whenever we post a new release to that feed you’ll automatically get it! If you’re looking for content for your own website or newsletter you might want to consider subscribing. These are publicly distributed news releases which we prepare and send to radio reporters. They contain links to audio files, usually of the people quoted in the release.