A Press Release I Would Welcome

Chuck Zimmerman

Social Media Press ReleaseOkay agrimarketers. Here’s something for you to think about. In today’s new media world, press releases can and should be so much more than they typically are. In fact, press releases should be thought of as information vehicles for essentially everyone (media, customers, members, industry). Here’s a “Social Media Release” template. You can find out all about it on PR SQUARED.

Today’s media person is, or should be, in need of way more than just a few lines of text. We need images, links to websites, audio files (Talking News Release!), video, RSS feeds with updates after the release is sent out, ways to provide feedback. Get the picture? It’s not hard to do. Want to send audio to farm broadcasters? No problem, just email them one of these and have your audio pre-recorded and uploaded for them. Oh, and by the way, why not make that same audio available to farmers? How? Podcast it and post it to your own website and let them find it themselves or use a service that posts it to the web like our AgNewsWire.AgWired.com. You can see the PR SQUARED template in action.

Love it or hate it, what is important is that the banal, unhelpful, cookie-cutter press releases of yore have outlived their pre-Internet usefulness. So, to announce the “Social Media Press Release template” (and to show how it might look in the real world) we also put out what may be the first ever press release to use this next-generation format, via PR Newswire.

If you have trouble figuring out how to set one of these up or what some of the components are, just give me a call and I’ll be happy to fill you in.

Public Relations

Ag Media Summit Tours

Chuck Zimmerman

Ag Media Summit - PortlandBefore you attend my “Agriblogging and Farm Podcasting 101” workshop at the Ag Media Summit in Portland you’re going to want to pick a cool pre-event tour. They’ve got several organized now so it’s time to get that registration in.

You can see the list with information about them here and sign up for them here (pdf files).

Register for AMS here.

Ag Media Summit

Baxter At BioWest

Chuck Zimmerman

Baxter BlackYou know agriculture is a big part of biotechnology when Baxter Black is the keynote speaker at a biotech conference. The BioWest 2006 Conference and Expo is open for registration. They’re expecting more than 750 participants at this year’s event, August 23-24, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.

They actually call Baxter a headliner! You can find the complete BioWest 2006 program schedule here.

Biotech

Mexico Seeks Negotiation to Exclude Beans from NAFTA

Chuck Zimmerman

Harry SiemensWhen Mexican President Vicente Fox told farmers and farmer organizations recently in Mexico there is a serious effort to negotiate with the United States and Canada to exclude beans from complete trade liberalization in 2008, Pulse Canada officials took notice.

“We figured something like this would probably come along,” said Pulse Canada Chair, Jack Froese from his farm in Winkler, Man. “We’ve been working extremely hard, should something like this be put in place, that we get equal access with the Americans. If the Mexicans make a deal with the Americans for a certain amount, we want to at least have equal opportunity meaning the same numbers as the Americans.” Read More

International

New National Mango Board Members

Chuck Zimmerman

National Mango BoardI almost missed this. It’s good to comb through the inbox you know.

Agriculture Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner today (last week) announced two appointments to the 20-member National Mango Board. The appointees were nominated by the board to fill the wholesaler/retailer positions. The new members are: Lawrence A. Kern, Irwindale, Calif.; and Ronald G. McCormick, Bentonville, Ark. Their initial term of office begins immediately and ends on Dec. 31, 2007.

Ag Groups, USDA

New Logo For Mycogen Seeds

Chuck Zimmerman

Mycogen SeedsHere’s the new logo for Mycogen Seeds. It’s their way of showing the close “alignment” with Dow AgroSciences.

“One of the primary drivers for this decision is our business strategy to align with the ag chem business, making our product portfolio one of the most diverse and balanced in the industry,” Doug Vail, Sales & Marketing Leader, Mycogen Seeds, says. The new logo will also help Mycogen Seeds accomplish its goals of increased name recognition and awareness. The logo prominently features the Mycogen Seeds name in red and uses graphic elements of the Dow AgroSciences product trade dress, such as the furrows, which support the company’s alignment strategy with the northern crops markets.

Agribusiness

Industry Leader Eileen Shay

Chuck Zimmerman

Eileen ShayEileen Shay is now a leader. Actually as senior account executive for The Packer I’d guess she already was one. But now she’s graduated from United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association’s Produce Industry Leadership Program. She was one of 12 distinguished leaders from the produce industry to be part of the 2005-2006 class, and the first person from The Packer to participate.

In addition to expert advice and hands-on training, participants in the Produce Industry Leadership Program advance their knowledge and expertise in the field through trips, customized facility tours and expert-guided workshops based on the program’s four core goals: leadership development, business relationships, government and public affairs, and media and public communications. Read More

Ag Groups, Publication

Loehr Joins Bader Rutter

Chuck Zimmerman

Jill LoehrBader Rutter announces the addition of Jill Loehr to the agency as an account supervisor.

Prior to joining the agency, Loehr was a senior account executive for Rhea & Kaiser Marketing Communications in Naperville, Ill. A native of Albert City, Iowa, Loehr attended Iowa State University and earned both a bachelor of science degree in public service and administration in agriculture and a bachelor of arts degree in journalism and mass communications.

Agencies

Reaching Farmers By Mobile Phone

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast71 - Reach Farmers By PhoneThis week it’s time to talk about the phone, mobile phones to be precise. What better way to deliver information to farmers? Lots, you think? Think again. At least I think you will after you listen to this week’s ZimmCast.

In this week’s program you’ll hear from the recent NAMA convention keynote futurist to prep you for my interview with someone I think you’ll be hearing more from in the, uh, future.

Commodity UpdateJoel Jaeger, is the founder of Commodity Update. This is a new service that delivers markets and other information directly to a farmer’s mobile phone. As you’ll hear him describe, the farmer determines what markets and when he/she wants to get them. They can be delivered automatically or on demand.

I’m going to subscribe myself today and report back to you sometime in the future (can’t stop using that word). So let’s get to it. You can listen here: Listen To ZimmCastZimmCast 71 (10 min MP3)

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also subscribe in iTunes.

Audio, Farming, ZimmCast

IFAJ 2009 Logo

Chuck Zimmerman

IFAJ 20092009 seems like a long way off doesn’t it? But this logo isn’t a mistake. That’s because we’re already promoting the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress which will be held in Ft. Worth, TX in 2009. If your company, agency or organization would like to be involved and help out in any way, now’s the time to let the committee know. We’ll have ag journalists from all over the world here. The meeting will take place in conjunction with the Ag Media Summit that year. Just email me with your interest and I’ll pass it along to the rest of the committee.

Special thanks go out to Kiersten McCarty and friends at Osborn & Barr for the logo.

If you don’t know much about IFAJ you can scroll through all my posts from last year’s Congress using the IFAJ category coverage or keep an eye out here for my coverage of this year’s Congress in Norway in just a couple months.

IFAJ