Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
tomers who no longer want to participate; others allow shareholders to sell their share to an-
other family. The terms of these shares vary by farm. There may be times of year when your
animals are not producing milk; you need to make this clear to the customers.
CASE STUDY: ONLINE MARKETING
Ulla Kjarval
Co-founder: Sheepdog Print and Design
Many farmers have discovered that the Internet is a powerful marketing tool that allows them
to reach a broad number of people while spending little money. These farmers are using so-
cial media sites as a way to connect with customers and to spread the word about their
products. These sites are free and usually only require an e-mail address to join. Ulla Kjarval
is a social media consultant who grew up on a grass-fed cattle farm in Meredith, New York,
at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. Her passion is not just the production of healthy
food, but the preparation. She writes a food blog,
ht-
tp://goldilocksfindsmanhattan.blogspot.com
,
and with her sister Melkorka, cofounded
Sheepdog Print and Design (
http://sheepdogpd.com
), which offers Web design and photo-
graphy and often works with farmers. Kjarval said these online marketing tools are cheap in
that they do not cost money, but they do require a considerable time commitment. The bene-
fit is each farmer can connect to potential customers and tell them about the parts of farming
that are important to them.
“Everyone got into farming for different reasons, and everyone farms slightly differently,”
Kjarval said. “Talking about how you raise the animals, what kind of breed you have, all
these things that seem really inane to a farmer are fascinating to someone who is not a
farmer and a potential customer.”
Kjarval provided the following ways you can use social media to promote your farm's
products.
BLOGS
A blog is a kind of online journal (the term blog is a shortened form of the words “Web log”).
Writers of blogs write short entries as frequently as several times a day or once every few
months. A blog would feature a series of articles, displayed in order from newest to oldest.
Two popular blog sites you can choose to host your blog are Blogger (
www.blogger.com
)
and Blog.com (
www.blog.com
)
. Each farmer could tailor a blog to talk about his or her own
interests. For example, if your passion is treating animals humanely, you can talk about that;
or if you are more interested in the environmental benefits, that could be your focus. Some
blogs are dedicated to cooking grass-fed products, rather than the growing. Or, you even
