This section is under development. Please contact your local OFN support team to let them know areas where you would like to have more support.
The Open Food Network is a global community of people who are running local food enterprises. Some of them are not-for-profit social enterprises run by community groups. Some are private businesses. All of them see the benefit of collaborating to continue to develop a single software system that allows them not only to access the OFN tools that facilitate their business but to use the power of the Network to link up with everyone else who is using OFN so that they can distribute and sell each other's products.
As well as collaborating to grow the OFN software, these enterprises are sharing ideas on managing the enterprises themselves. One example is this review of a community food hub which details its successes and failures as it is set up and grows. This document pulls together several options for community food enterprises and tips for how to set them up. Several OFN countries have a community forum where OFN users can share ideas and advice about managing their food hubs/shopfronts. This is the OFN UK community forum.
Running a food enterprise is about much more than just selling food and documenting/accounting for sales. Marketing your enterprise to your target customer base is key. As well as sending regular emails and newsletters, social media can be an effective (and cost-efficient) way of promoting your business.
You may wish to set up the following:
To coordinate and automate your social media campaigns, the following are handy:
Regular, periodic posts on one social media platform are better for building your audience (or following) than sporadic posts across multiple platforms.
There are lots of compelling reasons to get on Facebook, and invest in the time into doing it well. Here are just a few:
To build your brand and grow your business
To help potential customers find you
To better connect with your existing customers and create customer loyalty
To promote your products and generate excitement around your offering
To remind your customers when and where they can access your products
To engage in a dialogue with customers to better understand their preferences
To advocate for local food and differentiate yourself from conventionally food outlets
If you think of the OFN as an online farmer’s market, social media is analogous to the ‘G’day, how’s your week been’ chat that you might have with a customer at a real farmer’s market. When trading online, building this social connection is just as important, and it’s often what makes the difference to the customer between choosing the faceless supermarket, and choosing an alternative option. As well as other tools like email and newsletters, Facebook is a really great way to connect with your customers when you don’t necessarily see them face to face.
If you are new to Facebook, or are creating a new page for your farm, check out our guide to putting your farm on Facebook.
Facebook is a network and is all about forming connections between people (albeit in a virtual way).
There are two ways to connect with people:
1) People can reach out to you, and ‘like’ you.
The people who have ‘liked’ your page become your audience. They will receive updates whenever you post something on your wall. You should aim to have lots of people, including your new and potential customers ‘like’ your page. You can invite people to like your page in an email, or you can ask your existing Facebook friends to like your new page. It’s good to get a few dozen of your friends and family to like your page first, so that when the public visits your page they can see that it’s popular.
Remember, people need a reason to ‘like’ you. If a facebook page hasn’t been updated in 6 months or doesn’t have any photos people are less likely to ‘like’ it. Customers will be more likely to ‘like’ your page if you share interesting content like updates about how your crops/animals are growing, interesting news stories related to food, funny anecdotes from the farm and recipes etc.
2) You can reach out to others and ‘like’ them.
In the search bar at the top of your page, search for other farms and organisations that you want to connect with. When you find one you’re interested in, click the Like button at the top of their page. When you like a page, they’ll see that you’ve liked them, and they might like you back. You’ll also start to see updates about what they’re doing in your news feed. It’s worthwhile ‘liking’ a couple of dozen organisations and businesses because it’s a good way of getting news updates from organisations e.g. Department of Agriculture, Australian Organic, MLA or other food movements. It’s also a good way to get access to interesting content, that you can share on your own page. If you’re new to Facebook you might also want to like other farm pages, to get some ideas from how other farmers are using Facebook.
Note: As a business page on Facebook, rather than a personal profile, you can’t become friends with people, you can only ‘like’ other businesses. But people can ‘like’ you.
Managing a Facebook page can take some time and thought, so why not share the task with others? You can invite other people to become ‘administers’ of your Farm’s page. This allows them to post things on your Farm’s page. Letting your family and colleagues post on the Farm’s page means your less likely to run out of interesting content!
It’s important to acknowledge your followers when they post on your wall, send you a message, or comment on one of your posts. You can do this by liking their comment, or writing a reply.
When others post on your wall, it drives traffic to your site. You can encourage your followers to post on your wall by having photo competitions, or asking them to share positive feedback on your wall.
It’s important to be authentic on Facebook. You want to create a page which reflects everything that you are about and showcases what you have to offer that is unique and special. Be creative, be personable. Here are some idea’s if you’re not sure what to post:
What’s growing on your farm?
What produce you’re having for dinner tonight and how you prepared it
Animal photos! Everyone likes photos of animals.
A news article related to food and agriculture (keep these posts relevant)
Which farmer’s market you’re attending on the weekend
Promote your products, (this shouldn’t be all that you post, 20% is a good rule)
Need some ideas, check out what other farmers are doing to engage their customers and create interest in their products. Here are just a few of the great facebook pages out there:
https://www.facebook.com/MountainViewOrganicDairy
https://www.facebook.com/BurrumBiodynamics
This is a handy guide, not just for Facebook, but for other social media channels as well – http://www.acrcd.org/portals/0/socialmedia.pdf
This page explains the process of creating a page for a farm on Facebook. If you already have a page and are looking for tips regarding how to best use Facebook to promote your farm check out our Facebook Tips page.
To create a page for your farm (or business) on Facebook, you’ll first need a personal account on Facebook. If you already have one, login and proceed to the next step. If you don’t, go to www.facebook.com and create an account. You’ll need to provide a name, an email or phone number and a date of birth. Your farm’s page will be separate to this personal account, you just need this account to administer your farm’s page.
Once you have an account and you are logged in, click on Home in the top menu and then click create page in the left hand vertical menu.
Next, select the local business or place option, and fill out your details (see below). The ‘business or place name’ field will be the name of your farm’s new Facebook page.
Next you will be prompted to provide details about your farm (or business), in four stages. Each stage is illustrated in the images below, using “demo farm” as an example.
Select a profile picture for your farm. This is usually a logo, but you can also just use a photograph. You can change this at any time in the future.
So that you can easily find your page, you should ‘add to favourites‘. A link to your farm’s page will then appear in your menu, when you are logged into your personal account.
Here you can tell Facebook about the kinds of people you want visiting your page. This includes their location, age, gender etc and their interests. In the interests section, select any topics that you think correlate well with your farm. When you do this, Facebook will suggest to people who are already interested in local food or organic agriculture for example, that they should visit your page.
Well done, you’ve created a page for your farm! But, you’re not finished yet! There are extra features on Facebook to take advantage of!
Click create call to action, at the top of your page. This button can be used to direct people to your online shop. Select the shop now button type, and provide the URL to your shop’s website (this can be an OFN site, or an external online shop).
This large picture sits at the top of your farm’s page. A picture says a thousand words, so choose a cover image that’s engaging and tells visitors about your farm at a glance. This image can also be updated as often as you wish.
You can edit any of the information you provided during the creation of your page by clicking on About and Page Info. Here you can also provide contact details and write a longer description of your farm.
Great! Your farm’s page is all set up, and now you’re ready to start using Facebook to connect with customers and others in your industry. To learn about using Facebook, check out our Facebook Tips page.
