12 pages, Notable differences have been observed in how society perceives and understands the agricultural industry. Consumers today are concerned with how their food is raised and produced, and drastic changes in how information is gathered regarding those subjects have occurred due to the rapid development of digital media. As a result, the agricultural industry has fallen behind in ensuring accurate information is shared about the daily work done to feed the world. A form of digital media that has infiltrated the daily lives of society is social media (SM). This study sought to evaluate the impact established agricultural social media influencers (SMIs) on Instagram can have on changing participants' perceived knowledge regarding several agricultural topics. Participants were recruited through the platform Prolific and were asked to complete an anonymous Qualtrics survey. Survey questions were asked before and after participants were shown example images of agricultural SMIs. Data collected were analyzed utilizing IBM SPSS (Version 28) to compare pre-image and post-image results to determine the contents' impact on participants' perceived knowledge of subjects relating to agriculture. Results indicated significant differences between the pre-image and post-image perceived knowledge results and between different forms of reported engagement willingness.
23 pages, Cotton is the most significant natural fiber in the world and an important part of the global economy. Yet, the cotton industry faces several challenges in securing its place in the global fiber market share, reaching new consumers, and maintaining relationships with current consumers. Furthermore, the cotton industry has a unique opportunity to share evidence-based information with followers through its product marketing on social media. The study described herein used content analysis to explore Instagram content on the @discovercotton profile. Content included categories of promoted products (i.e. women, men, children, or home); comments, posts, and caption stimuli; and most frequently used word, hashtag, and retail partner stimuli. We analyzed 434 Instagram stimuli (244 single photos, 142 carousels, and 48 videos) from March 2, 2021, to March 2, 2023. Across all stimuli, there were 110,143 likes and 5,799 comments with total response (engagement: likes and comments) reaching 115,942. We found that women’s products were promoted most often followed by men, home, and children—only 8.48% of stimuli depicted cotton, a cotton plant, or the seal of cotton. We identified six major themes in caption stimuli on @discovercotton: qualities of cotton, style, sustainability, check the label, women, and cotton production. Cotton was the most frequently used word stimuli in captions, and cotton as a fabric was the most promoted theme.
Online from publisher via subscription., Instagram-ready installations often frame the desert as austere. What are the alternative ways of looking at the land? Author invites engaging with the reality of the desert rather than the cartoon of it.
Online from publication. 4 pages., Suggestions from a New York City-based exotic fruit influencer and leadership developer Angela Scarfia in leading an online workshop about marketing produce brands and companies on social media.
5 pages, via Online journal, The social media service Instagram is a popular public platform, but often underused tool to reach new demographics, reduce barriers, and perpetuate science-based information in extension. In the U.S. Intermountain West, Instagram was the top-rated platform for sharing information by predominantly new and female farmers. This article provides recommendations on key behaviors, goal setting, and quantifying impact on Instagram for extension programming. Accounts should target one niche or market, a consistent and personal voice, and regular communication (new content at least three times weekly). Unique and productive connections between extension personnel, community leaders, farmers, students, and public influencers expands programming. Tracking program accounts, including the number of followers and engagement rates, can assess program impacts and target market needs.
Via online issue. 2 pages., Introduction and description of Golden ARC Award in social media for the Moo Lab entry submitted by Midwest Dairy and FLM Harvest.
11 pages., Via online journal article, OBJECTIVES: To examine the impact of social media influencer marketing of foods (healthy and unhealthy) on children’s food intake.
METHODS: In a between-subjects design, 176 children (9–11 years, mean 10.5 ± 0.7 years) were randomly assigned to view mock Instagram profiles of 2 popular YouTube video bloggers (influencers). Profiles featured images of the influencers with unhealthy snacks (participants: n = 58), healthy snacks (n = 59), or nonfood products (n = 59). Subsequently, participants’ ad libitum intake of unhealthy snacks, healthy snacks, and overall intake (combined intake of healthy and unhealthy snacks) were measured.
RESULTS: Children who viewed influencers with unhealthy snacks had significantly increased overall intake (448.3 kilocalories [kcals]; P = .001), and significantly increased intake of unhealthy snacks specifically (388.8 kcals; P = .001), compared with children who viewed influencers with nonfood products (357.1 and 292.2 kcals, respectively). Viewing influencers with healthy snacks did not significantly affect intake.
CONCLUSIONS: Popular social media influencer promotion of food affects children’s food intake. Influencer marketing of unhealthy foods increased children’s immediate food intake, whereas the equivalent marketing of healthy foods had no effect. Increasing the promotion of healthy foods on social media may not be an effective strategy to encourage healthy dietary behaviors in children. More research is needed to understand the impact of digital food marketing and inform appropriate policy action.
An accompanying paper of the same title represents an earlier version of the journal article, including the Figure 1 and Reference list not included in the html version of the journal article., Via online., Information technology has developed rapidly, particularly in the area of social media. Almost all groups in society now use social media in their day to day activities, and one group that has been greatly impacted is young farmers. Before this era, farmers had difficulty accessing information. This study aims to find out what benefits are obtained and obstacles encountered by the use of social media in farming activities by the young farmers. This paper is descriptive explorative by using a qualitative approach. The data collection technique itself uses in-depth interviews, observations, literature studies, and documentation. The research location was in Bulukerto Village, Bumiaji Sub-District, Batu City which was carried out from November to December, 2017. The informants were chosen because they already used new media to support their farming activities. The result is the use of social media in the agricultural sector is widely used by young farmers in order to increase revenue and to seek information. Even so, there are still a number of problems faced by young farmers when utilizing social media, namely those interested in buying and selling online for agricultural products are not as high as other products and about the trust. The advice that can be given is farmers must post photos of products on Instagram with good pictures and caption. They also can tag others to reshare and spread the product information.
Pilar, Ladislav (author), Kvasnickova, Lucie (author), Gresham, George (author), Polakova, Jana (author), Rojik, Stanislav (author), and Petkov, Rosen (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2018-09-30
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 7 Document Number: D10283
via online journal, The amount of European farm acreage devoted to organic foods has been increasing each year over the past three decades, as farmers strive to meet consumer demand for these products. To understand what factors drive this demand, researchers have focused on the end customers' perception of organic food and their motivations to purchase it. The standard research methods are questionnaires and literature review; however, these tend to be expensive, time consuming, or involve work with secondary data. This paper compares 14 studies carried out using standard research methods with the results of a social network analysis based on 344,231 posts by 73,380 Instagram users. The result of the comparison shows that in the case of organic food, the characteristic of "healthy" is the most important one to customers, both based on questionnaire surveys and the social network analysis. Moreover, based on these two analyses, 4 key areas can be identified as factors that are important to customers buying organic food: (1) health consciousness, (2) ecological motives, (3) tasty and (4) hedonism. As the results indicate, social network analysis can be considered a method with a high potential for gaining a greater insight into customers' perceptions.
Stearns, Stacey (author / University of Connecticut)
Format:
Presentation
Publication Date:
2018-08
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 199 Document Number: D09901
Notes:
Presentation at the Association of Communication Excellence (ACE) conference during the Agricultural Media Summit, Scottsdale, Arizona, August 4-8, 2018. 18 pages.
The article reports findings of a media-use survey conducted among agricultural communicators attending a meeting of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting. A majority of respondents reported using a variety of social media for work, with smartphones being the most common device used. Among other recommendations, authors suggested that respondents should continue to use Facebook and Twitter to engage their stakeholder groups in conversations about agriculture. The survey identified stakeholder groups of the communicator respondents.
Social media networks are increasing in popularity and have been integrated into many aspects of daily life. Analysis of the ways in which individuals use social media is important for understanding social, cultural, and environmental issues. This study examines experiences of farmers’ market customers through their self- expression on social networks. Contributions to the Instagram social network based on the #farmersmarket hashtag were gathered on a single day, yielding 19,398 contributions created by 13,862 users. Six major linked hashtags were identified (#Organic, #Fresh, #Food, #Local, #Vegan, and #Healthy), providing key indicators of the characteristics of farmers’ markets that are valued by customers. Four customer segments were identified: Product Oriented, Emotional Oriented, Social Oriented, and Product-Social Oriented, with strong interconnections identified between these communities. The results of this study provide insights into consumer values and behaviors in the farmers’ market context and will be of practical use for future marketing and management.
Pilař, Ladislav (author), Stanislavská, Lucie Kvasničková (author), Rojík, Stanislav (author), Kvasnička, Roman (author), Poláková, Jana (author), and Gresham, George (author)
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2018
Published:
United Arab Emirates University
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 34 Document Number: D10681
9 pages., via online journal., In recent years, organic food production has been rising dramatically both in the EU and the USA. Previous research on consumer perception of organic food has mainly employed questionnaire survey methods. However, in the current age of the social network phenomenon,social media could prove to be a rich source of data. Increasingly, consumers are using social networks to share personal attitudes and experiences. This shared content could inform us about consumer opinions. Social network analysis and related sentiment analysis could allow identification of consumers’ experience and feelings about organic food. We investigated the perception of organic food using
1,325,435 Instagram interactions by 313,883 users worldwide. The data were recorded between July 4, 2016, and April 19, 2017. We identified three major hashtag areas (healthy, vegan, and clean food). The sentiment analysis revealed three dominant areas related to the #organicfood hashtag (feelings, taste, and appearance). Cluster analysis extracted four areas, as follows: Healthy living, Vegetarian, vegan, and raw diets, Clean eating, and Active healthy living. The mentioned communities are significant and useful at identification of customers values for farmers organic food product management and marketing communication in terms of product positioning.
16 pages, via online journal article, This study examined the online content of interdisciplinary agricultural center webpages. Content modification dates, mission statements, and content were determined through a content analysis. Many of the websites did not mention a modification date for the content, while many websites had outdated content mostly older than six months. More than two-thirds of the websites provided PDFs that visitor could download to learn more about topics, by many of the websites lacked any media element that was being coded. Additionally, many websites did not use multiple forms of media. More than half of the websites were coded as lacking any social media content or plugins, but out of the websites that did include social media content, Facebook was the most prevalent. The commonalities between the center’s mission displayed on the website and the content theme were analyzed and chi-square tests provided the degree of association. A significant association existed and an alignment between communication strategies and missions of the centers was concluded, which is important when organizations communicate about agricultural science as indicated by previous literature. It is recommended that centers communicate via their websites in a timely manner and allow modification times to be seen to viewers to show their information is up-to-date. Website media content should also be diversified and communicators of these centers should explore the unique communication opportunities provided by social media. Future research should explore the target audience of interdisciplinary agricultural centers and should analyze the messages centers are using to communicate with those audiences.
Kayser, Maike (author), Kroger, Rhena (author), and Theuvsen, Ludwig (author)
Format:
Poster
Publication Date:
2014-05
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 190 Document Number: D02715
Notes:
Poster presented at the 2014 AAEA/EAAE/CAES joint symposium, Social networks, social media and the economics of food, Montreal, Canada, May 29-30, 2014. 3 pages.
