Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
pages. You can upload images to Flickr from your computer or from your cell phone. Once
they are uploaded, you can post them on other sites or e-mail them. Flickr asks you to cat-
egorize your photos so that they can be found if users are searching for a particular topic,
such as “cows” or “grass-fed cows.” Yahoo! owns Flickr, so to create an account for the site
you also need a Yahoo! account. Farmers could use it to post pictures from their farm or
even provide slideshows that serve as a tour of the farm.
E-MAIL
Another simple way to increase sales is to collect e-mail addresses from everyone who buys
from you. By doing this, you can reach out to potential customers the next time you have
goods for sale. You might even let customers reserve what they want before it is ready.
New farmers could benefit from maintaining an online presence in ways other than market-
ing, Kjarval said. You will be able to stay in touch with farmers all over the country, and many
of these farmers will be willing to share advice and support. YouTube has videos demon-
strating many farming tasks that you may not be familiar with. As an example, Kjarval said
she knows a new goat farmer who watched video of a goat birth before his own animals de-
livered. There is even a nonprofit group, the AgChat Foundation, which helps farmers use
social media to reach customers and other farmers. You can use Twitter to participate or see
this conversation by searching for #AgChat.
