MidAtlantic Women in Agriculture: How to Stay
“Connected”Shannon Dill
Jennifer Rhodes
Victoria Corcoran
Extension Educator, AGNR
University of Maryland Extension
Background
Annual Women in Agriculture Conference (MD, DE, NJ, VA) – 175 annually
Annie’s Project since 2008 (MD, DE 2010, VA 2015) – 514 graduated
Women in Ag website www.extension.umd.edu/womeninag
Annie’s Project website www.extension.umd.edu/annies-project
How do we stay connected to the participants?
Provide opportunities to engage, educate and empower women in agriculture to make informed
decisions for their business and profession.
2011Joined Facebook
2013Joined Twitter, Pinterest and electronic newsletters
2014Instituted Wednesday Webinars twice a month
Newsletter
Webinar
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
527
241
496
88
79
Number of Users - 2014
Social Media
www.facebook.com/midatlanticwomeninagricultureMost popular and active
@midatlanticWIA post under #womeninagUse this mostly during events and activities
www.pinterest.com/womeninagmaBuilt some boards around agriculture and family
projects
Best Practices: Social Media
o Being social means, being social!
o Answer questions and comment on posts
o Post regularly
o Photos, especially photos taken at events and allow tagging
o Boost important posts
o Ask team members to invite, like and share
o Find balance and manage time
o Try multiple forms of social media, and varying times of the day
o Short and sweet posts may hit the spot
o During an event, create a tag!
Boosted Post
Facebook is getting more difficult to reach out
Users and admins should like posts or those pages will get buried
Only boosted 2 posts so far for major events coming up
Wednesday Webinars
Second and fourth Wednesday of the month at noon
Utilize adobe connect
Record presentations and post online for viewing
Market through list serv, extension site, extension.org, social media
What day is
it?
Best Practices: Webinars
o Do a dry run
o Test equipment and ensure good audio
o Arrive early and start on time
o Use connected technology and don’t depend on wireless signals
o Record the webinar for later viewing
o Use poll questions to engage your audience
o Include a group chat and ability to download documents
o Have a webinar assistant for introductions and to manage chat pod
o Ask and answer questions. Be engaging
o Expect less than half to show up
Utilize mail chimp instead of PDF
Quarterly newsletter to all participants
Include articles of interest, activities and event posting
Best Practices: Electronic Newsletters & Blasts
Send less content more often
Allow online sign up and add to distribution lists
Check out the statistics-open rate, click rates and bounce backs
Mobile optimized
Use color and graphics
Use weblinks to send users to page content
Use section headings and story titles
Results
Activity results in 2014 include 18 webinars with 241 registrants on a variety of topics in farm and risk management.
Social media efforts are growing.
To date there are 606 Facebook likes, 669 total reach, 47 people engaged.
Twitter includes 88 followers and posts to #womeninag.
There are 27 Pinterest boards, 241 pins, 86 followers.
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