Hey again, it's Jason from Fraser Valley Rose Farm. I've packed up a whole bunch of roses
I'm heading off on a road trip here
Our destination is Quadra Island
And I thought I'd pack up the camera and bring you along not because I'm making a foray into travel vlogging here at all
Although we may see some nice scenery on the BC coast
but rather because I'm going up for a speaking engagement with a Garden Club up there and it brought to mind the topic of
What role?
YouTube Instagram
Speaking engagements and other public relations activities can have in growing your small farm and making yourself successful
Now I have to say I came at this from a slightly different point of view a few years ago
and my mindset has changed an awful lot at first when I saw people doing homesteading or
farming or and doing that through Instagram YouTube and so on I thought well that's not real farming is it and
You know, I have to make the case in point with a popular youtuber
Curtis Stone who I think when I first saw him, he just came off as he had too much of a social media plan
He came into the business knowing what he wanted to do social media wise and that struck me as well
That's not real farming
is it I mean to come in and make your farm almost a prop in what you're doing rather than
Doing the farming itself, and I have to say my my viewpoint on this has changed
180 degrees I look at it now as boy wasn't he smart to think about the social media end of his business
Right as he started building his farm. That's not smart. It's good planning and
You know for me, it's snobby to say. Well that's not real farming. I mean
No farmer goes into the business thinking he wants to learn how to be a plumber
but if you don't learn how to repair your irrigation lines
You're either gonna have to call somebody in to do that or you're gonna have to learn how to do it yourself
Nobody comes into farming thinking I want to get really good at
accounting, but it's something you're gonna have to do as part of your farm business and
You know learning from the beginning making a plan about how you're gonna connect with your community. How are you gonna sell things?
How are you gonna reach out to the world as part of your farm plan right for the beginning?
Is just really really smart planning and it's one way that a small farmer can compete with bigger nurseries or bigger farms
Right out of the gate. So we'll talk more about that
I do have to pack up now because I have a ferry to catch but we'll talk more along the way
So I'm here at the Quadra Island community center and I did my presentation last night it went
Fantastically, although it's a bit harrowing talking in front of 50 people
I guess up for a second hearing and played devil's advocate and say yeah
Why would you go a long way from home and give a gardening club presentation?
Which is clearly uncomfortable takes a lot of time and really there's not even that much money in
It usually garden clubs like these can't afford to do much more than a small honorarium of maybe 150 or 200 dollars
Which certainly doesn't cover the time of travel?
so that
All said I guess one of the reasons I do this is because I'm a true believer
I really do want to talk to garden clubs connect with them and encourage them to
Help to maintain and preserve
Plants of all sorts within the gardening hobby. The other thing I should say is that
this Garden Club did what good garden clubs do to try to make it make sense for a speaker is
They allowed me to sell some plants. So I'll show you the back of my van here was full of plants and
Even though they only paid me somewhere in the range of one hundred and fifty dollars to speak at this event
There was over a thousand dollars worth of plants in the back of my van. So that really made it worth it
Back home now, and I have a little more time to flesh out. I guess what you could call
Engagement marketing activities like this and I have to admit I spent a lot of my time laser
focused on my business here thinking how can I make this make financial sense for me and my family and
So when I do activities like this that take me away from direct farm activities
It gives me a little bit of a gut check
I have to really think about whether it makes sense or not
And the calculation can be pretty tricky when I take a leap of faith
Like I did at Quadra not knowing whether I have the orders in hand and take a couple days off the farm
I know that that's gonna cost me potting time. That's gonna cost me time taking care of my plants preparing things for sale
So I know that there's a cost to it as well
but you know when I've done this in the past and now I have to rule in some of my other social media activities at
First there was no clear case for why Instagram and posting pictures to Instagram?
Could make sense for my business. It was just something I was doing to engage with the general gardening community
Until that is people started showing up at the farmers market wanting to buy the plants. They saw me feature there
Same thing goes for things like Facebook where it has turned out to be a fantastic way of
engaging with the local community and
Promoting things like my local plant sales or plant sale on the farm here. Whereas you could think well, I spent a lot of time
Socializing and talking to people about gardening in general terms that don't seem too self-serving but in the end
Building that kind of rapport with the community ends up working to your advantage
Now I you see I roll in here things like social media
Into the same engagement activities and to my mind they're no different
With Instagram, you may target an audience. That's a little bit younger and a little more female with YouTube
You may target an audience
That's a little more male and a little younger than the average gardening community and with Facebook
You may be seeing a lot of the influencers and early adopters there
but there's nothing that really compares well in my mind to going out to see a local garden club a local bee club a
classroom
And going to those in-person engagements where you can meet people directly and I have to say I've made some really really good connections
They're not only customers who I see later at the farmers market, but even some wholesale
customers who have made enquiries now while buying my roses in larger quantities
Which I wouldn't have had if I hadn't have gone to these in-person engagements
All right, that should wrap up my thoughts on this topic. I hope you enjoyed the road trip out Quadra
I know I did and if you have any questions or comments, please leave those below the video