Heather Gorringe - Around the World in 80 Megabytes.

Blogging for Small Business

I am in NYC and yesterday had a conversation with Social Media Enthusiasts (and consultants)  Connie Reece and  Anna Farmery. We were talking about whether or not a small business who only wanted to market locally could benefit from a blog. Here are our conclusions based on running a Fish and Chip shop in the UK:

1: The blog will help your search rankings in google and so if someone wants to know where the nearest or best Fish and Chip shop is when they google it your blog will help get you to the top.

2: If you have particular points that makes your fish and chip shop special your blog is a good way to communicate that added value. For example how fresh is your fish, what oil do you use, where are your potatoes from etc. All these elements are important if you want to communicate why you are in business and share that with your potential customers

3: People move around physically more these days and so in your town the percentage of visitors will probably be higher - your global web presence can access these customers who are looking for that special taste....

4: Your blog is free to set up and run. Provided you have internet access (and if you dont - just get it for the knowledge that is already available online - please) you can set up your blog (which will be your website) free and it takes about 10 minutes to get started.

5: Comments: Encourage your customers to comment on their meal not only to back up your marketing but so that you can find out what is cool (or not) about your product. Ask if in doubt:
Whats the most authentic way of eating your fish and chips - in the paper - on a plate? 
How many calories do we need to run off to offset the meal? !
Which fish is the best? Can I have sustainable fish - should I ask for Pollock?
Which evening is fish and chip night for the family and why..

6: Become a leader in your area. mmmm....a fish and chip shop expert? Why not? If a newspaper or your local radio station wants to talk about fish and chips - where do you think they will start...its google. If you are there and have an authentic voice it will be you they interview.

7: Warning: If you are not operating with good business practises, one where you are willing to share your values and be transparent - best not to talk about it... The only problem with that is that your customers have full access to the web and it may very well be they are already spreading the word about your shop.

Best fish and chips I have ever had? Harveys Fish Bar in Looe in Cornwall. What about you?

On tour again

Yippeeee - one Nuffield Scholar back on the road again. I am in New York City, and really looking forward to two events - Blogher and Blogger Social. I am looking forward to meeting friends that I have met online and new social media enthusiasts. In particular I am looking to hear about any experiences of how rural organisations and communities are using social media to benefit their members.

In the UK as the farming community has declined in numbers a lot of the member organisations are finding it difficult to keep going and their websites do not deliver. Many farmers have yet to see the relevance to their business of web based communication...

and yet

In The Economist
"More than 90% of marketing departments will launch a social media campaign such as a blog in 2008,according to Lewis PR, a United State based global agency. By 2009 two thirds of marketers will set aside up to 25% of their budgets for online social media."

Not one to ignore me thinks.....

Social Media Experiment Number TWO!

We're having lots of fun making the World's first "Social Media" mail order catalogue. If you would like more details you can check out my blog here: www.heathergorringe.com.

and so we move on....

This is lots of fun. Folk from around the world playing a part in our catalogue, our reviews, our product development...

Well....step two

We are now looking for some new designs and slogans for our Wiggly T-Shirts. Something a little bit quirky, maybe a little bit irreverent and definitely fun! Facebook Groupy April has set us on our way and there is a great idea from Pete Galley for a Ricardo poster too but we need MORE!

Can you help us with a witty slogan or design? If so, why not enter it for our Design us a T-Shirt Competition and you could see it on a T-Shirt near you soon.

Each design we use will be attributed to its designer, who will also receive £150 worth of Wiggly Vouchers to spend as they wish. The competiton is open to absolutely any age group.

Your topic should be something appropriate for Wiggly Wigglers, but that doesn't mean you are limited to worms.... certainly not!

You may want to bear in mind the late, great Anita Roddick's advice about T-Shirts for women from episode 56 of the Wiggly Podcast: "any great graphic that goes on the front, in terms of where women's breasts are, just isn't going to work - but it's cool to put it on the back."

Pammie, one of our latest Wiggly Team Members, is waiting to hear from you with your ideas. If you would like to take part, you need to email your entry to pam@wigglywigglers.co.uk by Friday 14th December. If your entry can't be sent in a digital format please post it to:
Pam Parry, Wiggly Wigglers, Lower Blakemere Farm, Blakemere, Herefordshire HR2 9PX

Have YOUR say in PRINT

This is your chance to have your say! ~And for me to experiment with all the things I learnt in the US of A with regard to Social Media and Podchef and Pigs!

As you may well of noticed that old Wiggly company is pretty keen on Social Media, and Blogging, and Podcasting, and Twittering, and wotnotiness.

Well, - me dears this ol farm in rural Herefordshire now wants to be the first to put together a conventional paper catalogue using Social Media!

What does that all mean? We want YOU to get involved, write articles, send in photos and drawings, design product if you are in the mood, and we will use these articles and items in our catalogue and on our website.

Whats in it for me? I hear you cry.

Well, one thing is for sure, you must write whatever you like and I certainly wont want to sway that by any attempt at the old bribery...(!) On the other hand I most definitely will not let any contribution used go by without a good old thank you, and a plug for your cause or your blog or whatever it is you want to promote to our 160k readers. I think this is quite an exciting project and so will be wheeling in the full force of the Wiggly media promotion campaign to enthuse about your contributions from all over the world to help to change the way we garden!

If that sounds fair enough to you here is what I am looking for:

1: Perhaps you have experience of a product that Wiggly Wigglers is selling or could sell (our next catalogue aims at The Farmer in You so extends our growing and harvesting range). Can you review that product? Have you got a piccy of you using it?

2: Maybe you would like to write a "How To" For example we would love a "How to Make your own bird seed fat feed" or similar. What about a "How to make a Christmas wreath using native hedging"?

3: Spread this news. Could you blog this idea, or share this with your facebook friends to see if other folk are enthusiastic about making the first ever collaberative Wiggly catalogue, and have some relevant musing to share to encourage folk to find "The Farmer in THEM!!

If you would like anymore guidance - think the idea is a corker, or a rubbish one, let me know what you think. I'll put this up on the facebook discussion section, or you can message me, or email me heather@wigglywigglers.co.

uk. I dont suppose we'll be able to use every single contribution but we will be doing our best.

Wiggle ON dear groupy

Heather

PS AH HA
The catch:
The deadline for this project is Friday 30th November (sharp intake of breath is audible). Think about it - if I gave you a deadline of next July you'd start the last week in June....you would...you know you would....

Cherie and the Cheriecast

One of the highlights of my life, let alone my Nuffield Scholarship was staying with Cherie in Michigan.
Cherie started her own podcast after her husband was killed last year, the podcast takes a frank look at how life changes after losing a spouse, working when one should be retired, dealing with aging parents and a host of other subjects people face on a daily basis. Its aim is to reach out for people and help people cope and share the experiences. The Cherie life story is pretty traumatic on times but her strength of character is a complete inspiration, along with her sense of humour, and her faith.

After Bob was killed when his truck was hit by a train, Cherie had to continue running the grocery delivery business. However, this is no ordinary veggie box scheme, or mobile grocer. Cherie and Bob built probably the most niche market you can think of in produce.

Cherie supplies produce to the Amish community in Northern Indiana. This business supplies the Amish community exclusively rather than the non Amish. Here is a profile of her niche customer base.

• The Amish appreciate good food and fresh produce rather than the processed food in the supermarket
• The average order value of a drop to an Amish family is probably quadruple what you would expect to deliver on a veggie van here in the UK because they have the skills and enthusiasm (and time) to "can" product - to us in the UK they preserve peaches and make sauces and jams in jars. This saves them a lot of money, in fact we had to source frozen fruit and it was 12 times more expensive than the fresh when it was in season!
• The climate means that the growing season is limited and so extra produce has to be bought in from somewhere and as The Amish rely on horses and a horse practically can only travel a two way 30 mile round trip in a day it makes sense to rely on a delivery van.

Cherie has built her business on personal relationships with folks in a naturally private community. Her enthusiasm is contagious, and the customers have ended up being completely supportive to her on a personal level since Bob died and been patient and adaptable.

Cherie's marketing meets her customers' needs. She provides a simple list and will source product specially. She is welcoming and friendly, efficient and offers advice on what fruit to use for what use. I loved being on the van and the Amish folk were so welcoming.

More about the Amish shortly but in the meantime listen to Cherie telling the World on her podcast how she cleaned the house ready for me to stay !!!! By the way it was immaculate Cherie, I thank you!

Defining farming

I'm home.

And reflecting on a very diverse trip (with many more details to come). I've been thinking about the decline in the number of farmers and our attitude to farming and farmers.

According to Wikipedia this is the definition of Agriculture.


Agriculture (from Agri Latin for ager ("a field"), and culture, from the Latin cultura "cultivation" in the strict sense of "tillage of the soil". A literal reading of the English word yields "tillage of the soil of a field".) is the production of food, feed, fiber and other goods by the systematic raising of domesticated plants and animals.

Note no mention of how large the farm has to be, or indeed the profitability. It turns out with the right attitude to our farms, our gardens, our yards or our window boxes we can all be farmers.

Now we're farming!

Did you know farmers are trendy in Boston?

Now this is Podchef on Podchef Island in his new French wellies delivered from Herefordshire..,
I'm not sure that Podchef is in fact trendy but it would appear that Bostonians would think so.

The clothes of choice in Boston are either a Red Soxs outfit......

OR.....

Brogues, cords, farmery shirt, tweed jacket and a cap!

Mind you those sophisticated chappies managed to look seriously cool, and I can tell you farming folk want to know how.

This one even has the wellies!

• Never iron your shirt - a crinkly look is cool.
• Wear old "vintage" cords (shouldn't be a problem)
• Roll your shirt sleeves up and if possible add your Grandpa's tweed waistcoat.

It looked cool - go Podchef go. This is before he got carried away and produced mutton chops - not made of sheep but to do with facial hair!

Social Media in Action

<a href="http://heathergorringe.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/10/29/img_1077.jpg"><img alt="Img_1077" title="Img_1077" src="http://heathergorringe.typepad.com/heather_gorringe/images/2007/10/29/img_1077.jpg" width="400" height="300" border="0" style="float: left; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" /></a>

As you may have picked up my scholarship is a tad different to the norm in terms of Nuffield Scholarship Topics, and so I have been making a conscious effort to gain my contacts and places to see and stay at through social media.

So far just about all my connections and visits have been based around a web and social media connection - but what becomes interesting is the knock on effect of those connections in terms of information spread. So far I have been in over 20 of other people's blog posts, have been interviewed for 4 other podcasts, and appeared in 2 live streaming videos and 4 web videos....

And the moral of the story - news spreads using Social Media. I will link to all these podcasts and videos shortly.

In the meantime loyal podcast listener sent me these corking red neck rules for weddings. As Jodie from Wiggly Wigglers is getting ready for her wedding next week I thought I would share the rules for all you farmers out there.

Top wedding tips for farmers - from farmers.

1.        Livestock, usually, is a poor choice for a wedding gift.
2.        Kissing the bride for more than 5 seconds may get you shot.
3.        For the groom, at least, rent a tux. A leisure suit with a cummerbund and a clean bowling shirt can create too sporty an appearance.

You'll be pleased to read I have bought Farmer Phil a new outfit from Crew today in Boston to smarten him up a bit.

Packing a Big Punch for a Small Farm.

"If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been to bed with a mosquito." Betty Reese

City Farmer in Vancouver is not large by any means. In terms of land there are just a few acres, and in terms of people Michael, Marie and Sharon run the non profit enterprise.

However what farm do you know that not only teaches local authorities about composting and small scale farming and gardening, but has literally hundreds of school visits and talks?

Thats great granted,  but what other farm do you know that has a webcam that updates with a new photo online every hour? That has produced podcasts, and videoblogs for many years and actually connects on a worldwide scale. Michael told me that he has had contacts and people watching his videos worldwide. What a great case study - local action, global inspiration.

Watch what happened when I got there on my scholarship! The band are called the Regal Trio!

Farming, unspoken words and Handbrakes....

A neighbouring farmer came round for a cup of tea sometime ago now, and he was having trouble filling in yet another 40 page Defra form for something or other.

He said to me:

"What do they (the government) want of me? I look after my stock, I dont use any pesticides, I use a tiny bit of fertiliser, look after my hedges and keep the footpaths open. What else do they want? I feel like a criminal before I've even started! I dont know how to fill out this form without "them" suspecting that I am doing something wrong!"

I checked out the form and felt like a criminal myself once I'd read all the questions.

I was thinking about this and of course its about trust. As the connection between food and the farm disintegrated and the problems that occur like BSE, TB and Foot and Mouth continue to dominate the press there is mistrust on both sides. The government's reaction is to legislate and clamp down.

It reminds me of my schooldays when we all had to stay in at dinner break  - just one naughty child, and the whole school suffered! As farmers, the natural reaction is to shy away from it all, in despair.

The problem with this is that as we shy away and become quieter and quieter, more misunderstanding and confusion and mistrust builds up. Often the words we leave unsaid are more powerful than the words we actually speak.

And on that note the latest car I have rented in the USA has no handbrake.... no mention of a handbrake.... nothing.

I put the car into park mode and got a stone to go under the back wheel. I dont trust that car....

Turns out the "handbrake" was a pedal on the floor!!!!

Now how was I supposed to know that in the dark me dears? Does that mean its still a handbrake or is it now a footbrake? If its a footbrake - whats that other brake on the floor called. Nope a car without a handbrake and no mention of the problem.... I dont trust that one at all.

Lets talk eh? Keep everything as clear as possible, chat about the things we love about our farms, our community, our culture. And for that car manufacturer if you must put the handbrake on the floor would you please write a notice where the handbrake normally is to let me know!

PS: The picture is a puzzled camel, and I was puzzled to find a camel on an island near Podchef Island in Washington State. Almost as puzzled as finding the car's handbrake on the floor...More about Podchef and Podchef Island to come