Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Church View Farm on Facebook

Church View Farm is now on Facebook.  The motivation for it came from web consultant Small Farm Central and Three Springs Farms in Aspers, PA where a dynamic 22 year old farm manager has brought their farm into the future.  I also figured that if Facebook is good enough for Bill Gates, then there must certainly be something to it.   On Facebook, (www.facebook.com) just search for "Church View Farm" and you'll find our page.  Its another way for us to keep in touch with everyone throughout the season.  Its a good way to publish a message, photo or video, and get it out to everyone very quickly.  And as the chart shows, all of these tools now coexist online.  If you become a "fan" of Church View Farm, you'll get notified about events and updates.   Our "fans" will likely get offered some discounts.  No one is really sure where on line social media may be going.  Just like no one is really sure about where something like alternative energy or biofuels may be going. Social media certainly exists now, for example if you are in a book club, a garden club, a study group, an alumni group,  or a church class, you are doing social media, whether you realized it or not.   If you have ever given someone an article to read or told then about a good book or movie, you are doing social media.  When farmers/growers and customers do social media, its a real opportunity to collaborate and learn from each other.   Custom growing is perfectly suited to this. For ex, we are growing sorrel, tuscan kale, purslane, specialty greens and other items based upon customer request.  Doing this interaction on line say via Facebook will lead to more inquiries on line and more custom growing.  We'll be planting and growing things next year that we are not even the least bit aware of today.  On line, it all just happens a lot faster.   Instead of growing things, and taking them to market hoping they will get sold,  we can instead grow things that are in effect already sold, because we have already connected via a messaging system like Facebook.  Solving supply/demand mismatch is the key to success.  You see this in commerce all the time, and organizations that don't master it can not succeed.  (Think Circuit City)  These social media tools can solve this by helping communicate in advance.  5 years ago, no one really knew where Google was going either.   Its all being created on the move.  Now your Senator is doing Twitter updates and your President is taking your questions on line.  Who ever would have thought?  

1 comment:

Simon Huntley said...

Good luck in your social media experiment. I am interested to see what discounts you will offer to your "fans" and "friends."

The Internet simply allows us to communicate faster, more efficiently, and cheaply. It is up to us to figure out what tools will actually work for each individual situation.

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