Better Together - Farming

#AgriChatWorld

Don't worry, this isn't another blog about the merits or otherwise of being a United Kingdom!!

"Better Together" is my observation about linking farmers across the globe, via social media.

Social media, be it Twitter, Facebook or any of the many other formats, is all about Networking. And Networking is a very formal way of saying 'having a conversation'.

With our AgriChatUK weekly Twitter discussions we quickly found that our farming audience across the UK, and beyond, were a very sociable bunch who were keen to chat to each other.

And that's the rub. Social media now enables us to talk to whoever, wherever, on whatever. What you quickly discover is that we all share a very similar workplace. The goals, aspirations, problems and successes we have in the UK are shared all around the globe.

This was brought home last year with the first ever #AgriChatWorld, 16th October 2013.

AgriChatUK hosted the evening, aided by seven other farming chat groups.

We had around 700 people tweeting just over 3,600 messages in an hour and a half.

From 17 different countries we had tweets on the theme for the night of 'World Farming'.

You can read an archive here.

What we found was that weather and prices were the biggest common factors that farmers around the World had to face on a daily basis.

#AgriChatWorld last year was inspired by World Food Day, #WFD2013.

World Food Day was first held on the 16th October 1981 by the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

The 16th of October was picked for World Food Day as that was the date in 1945 that the FAO was founded.

Move on twelve months and we have the second #AgriChatWorld discussion.

The theme of World Food Day 2014, is 'Family Farming', which will therefore be our theme for the night.

Under the hashtag #AgriChatWorld, and this year hosted by @EUFoodchat, we hope to have even more people join in compared to last year. Of the more than 570 million farms in the world, over 500 million are family owned, so family farming has an important part to play in the future of food security.
We are also asking for pictures to be tweeted with the hashtag #WorldFarmPics.

The same farming Twitter groups have reunited this year to support #AgriChatWorld.

@EUFoodchat (EU), @AgriChatUK (UK), @agchat (USA), @agrichatNL (Netherlands), @AgchatOZ (Australia), @AgchatDE (Germany), @AgchatIRL (Ireland) and @AgchatNZ1 (New Zealand)

The time for AgriChatWorld is 8-9:30pm BST, 9-10:30pm CET, and for the rest of the World you can click here for your time/day. It's all being done live around the globe!!

If you are reading this before the event, I hope you can join us, and join in!!. Just search on #AgriChatWorld

If you are reading this afterwards we will hopefully once again have an archive of the tweets, in which case I will link to them below :-)

The results are in: 1538 Tweets from 231 followers.

You can read an archive of all the tweets here, c/o AgriChatUK host @edmogFW
EUFoodChat have collected together a Pinterest board of all the #WorldFarmPics here.

#EnviroChatUK

 

'This week #AgriChatUK is #EnviroChatUK'

Get ready to see that once a month on your Farming twitter timelines, around the third Thursday of the month.

Why?, because @AgriChatUK is pleased to announce the launch of @EnviroChatUK

Our very first #EnviroChatUK will be on Thursday the 21st August 2014, 8-10pm as usual.

I'll leave it to our new co-host to explain:

Mini-blog, from Oliver Dowding.

 

AgriChatUK has proved an amazingly successful Twitter forum. Every week, it attracts dynamic and inspiring people to debate key issues affecting both themselves and the wider agricultural industry.

 

Nothing is static, and therefore to create diversity and maintain widespread interest, hopefully attracting a new segment of followers, every third Thursday in the month #AgriChatUK will now be #EnviroChatUK. This will allow debate on key issues which crossover between agriculture and the environment. It will also seek to cover the sustainability of food production and consumption. None of these topics are separate, all being integrated within the food chain.

 

@EnviroChatUK nights will be hosted by existing @AgriChatUK host Charles @FarmInKent and new host Oliver @OliverDowding

 

The EnviroChatUK debates are for everybody within the food chain. They will be conducted in the same considerate manner that AgriChatUK has evolved. We want reasoned thought, useful ideas, pertinent links, and above all, something for everybody to take away and enhance their work within the field known as “the environment”. Whether we are farmers, those working within the wider industry, agri-politicians or just ordinary politicians, consumers or consumer organisations, environmental groups, or whoever, the debate needs to result in only one winner – “the environment”.

Twitter #Hashtags - A Guide to their use.

Hashtags are a very useful tool to make Twitter much easier and less time consuming to use.

- What is a hashtag?

In a Twitter message if you see a phrase preceded with the # symbol, it's called a hashtag. A hashtag should only contain letters of the alphabet and numbers, no symbols or spaces please.
Hashtags are not case sensitive, so #agrichatuk #AgriChatUK or even #AGRICHATUK are all allowed. However using mixed capitals can make the tag easier to read, like #FarmPics.
It is useful if hashtags are short, as this leaves more room for the rest of your tweet. A hashtag can go anywhere in a tweet, start, middle or at the end.
You can use more than one hashtag in a tweet, but more than two gets messy.

- Why do people use hashtags?

There are mainly two reasons for adding a hashtag.
Firstly you can add them like a bookmark, to flag up your tweet as being associated with a particular subject. This is the most common use.
Secondly a minor use is to add your emotion or humour, such as #frustrated, #thrilled or #GotItWrongAgain.
And then there is #ff, which you may see on a Friday. More on this later.

- How do I find tweets containing hashtags?

The key here is to search on the hashtag you are interested in.
Twitter has a built in search facility, however if you search on car for example it will find the latest tweets containing car, card and carpet, plus many other variations.
A hashtags search helps to cut down on the extra 'finds', as it only searches text beginning with a #, which are usually specific posts, not random jottings.
If I search on #M20, it finds all the latest traffic reports from fellow Twitter users about the M20 motorway near where I live. Great for up to the minute traffic reports, plus advanced warnings of road repairs by the Highway Authority.

- How can I benefit from other peoples hashtags?

By searching on a hashtag you can find tweets about subjects that interest you. You can then follow the ongoing tweets about that subject, without having to follow all the people posting on that subject.
That's the key to #AgriChatUK, the UK farming chat. By searching on the hashtag you will see the questions from the Host poster, Q1 Q2 etc, and all the replies by those taking part. If you post your reply and add the hashtag, everyone else will see your reply, whether they follow you or not.
Another benefit from hashtags is that they are a good way to find people to follow. If you search on #AgriChatUK you will find tweets from others with an interest in UK farming, the sort of people you might want to follow.

- What hashtags can I use.

The simple answer is anything you like. Although there are websites with lists of regularly used hashtags, you are free to make them up as you go along. If you want to make a comment on a subject and you want it to be seen widely, try searching on a hashtag first which you think might be appropriate. If it's already being used, then that will help get to get your tweet seen.
At times you will find hashtags being suggested as an aid to group together tweets. This happened at the 2012 NFU conference for example, where the hashtag #NFU12 was on the front of the delegates paperwork.
If you watch 'Question Time' on the BBC, you will see #BBCQT flashed up on the screen at the start of the programme.

- What is the hashtag #ff that I see every Friday used for?

This is a bit of fun that started a few years ago. FF stands for Follow Friday.
People will do tweets with the twitter @ names of people they would like to suggest that other people follow. This may be because they feel that person writes interesting tweets, or it may be that person is new to Twitter and could do with a few more followers to encourage them. They add #ff to signpost the reason for all the @ names in their tweet.
This is one case where it is not a good idea to search on a hashtag, as #ff will result in a random group of suggestions from people all over the world that have no connection to you or any subject you are interested in.

I hope this blog makes the use of Twitter hashtags a bit more user friendly for you.

Charles.
@FarmInKent