Q. Tell me about your Operation? What is produced? Family Owned?A. Baird Family Orchards is a family-owned farm. We have been growing fruit and selling it at local farmers markets for over 30 years. We are best known for our sweet and juicy peaches, like the yellow Suncrest peach, but we also grown many varieties of cherries, nectarines, apricots, pears, plums, pluots, apples, and even grapes.
Q. How long have you been involved with social media and what aspects are you currently using?
A. Although the younger Baird generation has been tech-savvy for years, we’ve only been using social media sites to promote our family business for about 9 months. Baird Family Orchards now has a page on Facebook, a company profile on LinkedIn, we provide at least weekly updates on Twitter (@BairdFamOrchard), and we publicly post farm pictures on Flickr. We also have a brand new website and a fairly new blog.
Q. How has social media changed your marketing?
A. We primarily sell our fruit at local Portland-area farmers markets and for years our only marketing has been the word-of-mouth reputation of our family and our fruit. However, in response to our local customers’ requests that we ship fruit to their friends and family out of state, we decided to create a website with an online store. We realized that since our online store could serve people throughout the U.S., we needed a way to connect with people beyond our local farmers markets. So, we began using social media to connect with a wider geographic audience. Now, we tweet with people all across the U.S. and our Facebook fan page is open to all.
Q. What new opportunities has social media helped you to explore?
A. Knowing that we could connect with people outside of the Portland, Oregon area through social media gave us the confidence to explore the idea of a farm website with an online store.
Q. What is the biggest challenge you face today, it terms of attracting new business, keeping old business?
A. Although we’ve already connected with many new people through Twitter and Facebook, our biggest challenge today is spreading the word about our great fruit and our online store to fruit-lovers around the country. It’s hard to figure out how to tell someone over the internet how genuinely great our fruit is; at the farmers markets we’ve always handed out samples so people can taste and see for themselves how good it is, but online we have to rely on words and pictures to convey that same message.
Q. Why do you think it is important for people involved with agriculture to use and understand social media?
A. In the big scheme of things, we are a very small operation in a world run by huge agri-businesses. People are used to going to the grocery store and getting fruit that looks a certain way, comes with a certain brand label, and can last forever on the shelf or in the fridge. That’s not how we do things. We’re small, but we grow amazing fruit – many varieties that people have never heard of. We pick it ripe and deliver it fresh and our fruit doesn’t sit around a long time. So, we’re doing something quite different than what many people have come to expect. For us, social media is a great way to connect with people and show them who we are, what we do, and why our fruit is actually better than what they’ve come to know.
Q. What do you hope to accomplish this year in terms of marketing and social media?
A. Since our website and online store are brand new, this year we hope to attract as many new visitors as possible to our site.
Q. Advice to others getting involved with social media?
A. Just take the plunge! When we first started using some forms of social media they seemed complex and confusing, but after trying them out and playing around for awhile, things just started falling into place.
Q. Have you noticed any changes in website visitors, number of customers since starting social media?
A. We have been thrilled to see how many people visit our website from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
