Kendal Frazier with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is on the road this year meeting with beef cattle organizations around the country to help them take an objective look at the challenges and opportunities facing their industry. Last week, Kendal spent a day with the board members and staff of the Missouri Beef Industry Council (MBIC).

Not surprisingly, the top threat identified by the beef producers was animal activism, specifically HSUS. To fight that threat, they decided that the number one opportunity for the industry to tell its story is NEW MEDIA.

Kendal says there are two ways the industry can use new media tools such as blogging, podcasting, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. “Number one is to deliver a proactive message through a different channel. The other way is to correct misinformation that is out there. We have to be participating on the Internet and we can do that on both a proactive and a reactive basis,” Kendal said.

The Missouri Beef Industry Council was the first state agricultural organization to use new media, because they were one of ZimmComm’s very first clients five years ago. We helped them build a blog, MissouriBeefCouncil.com, which is in the process of now getting a facelift and some new direction because they discovered that a significant segment of their visitors are consumers, not producers. They were also the first to have a podcast, which grew out of their weekly farm broadcaster interviews that ZimmComm began conducting and distributing five years ago. MBIC Executive Director John Kleiboeker told me this week that other state beef councils are now looking to them to move forward in the new media world. As of today, MBIC now has its own Twitter feed as well!

Here is this week’s Missouri Beef Checkoff Chat podcast, which features an interview with Kendal:
mbic-report-5-13-09.mp3