Lisa Richards of Mack Hill Farm is responsible for one of the most beautiful and inviting social media campaigns out there.
Mack Hill Farm is located in southwest New Hampshire on 343 acres where Lisa and her husband raise Tamworth pigs, Percheron horses and Icelandic sheep and chickens.
I have long admired her photos, cooking projects and farm musings. I am a fan of Mack Hill Farm on Facebook and I adore the frequent updates and pictures of her animals. She was kind enough to share some of her advice with us. [source: Ulla Kjarval, farmtotableonline.org]
What prompted you to use social media?
Social media is something that just makes sense to me. I’m a sales and marketing professional by trade, though I gave up the high tech corporate world to farm full time three years ago. I’ve always been an early adopter of technology, especially in the social media space. We’ve had our farm journal online since March of 2000, almost 10 years now.
What social media platforms work best for you?
The platforms that work best for me are probably in this order: my blog, Flickr, Facebook, then Twitter. The blog is useful to me in particular because I use it to record things for the farm that I want to remember, that I need to brainstorm about. It started out as a gardening journal, and has really evolved over the last ten years. But I routinely look up stuff in it. What did I plant where? Who did I breed to that sheep? When was that litter of piglets born? I’ve met lots of people through the blog over the years, especially farmers who are of a like mind—pastured animals, raw milk drinkers, real food eaters, heritage breeders.
Next, I’d say Flickr is my next favorite. I take a lot of pictures. I walk around with a point and shoot in my pocket. I am constantly finding critters doing things that I want to catch in a photo. I take pictures of food that I cook, plants that I grow. It helps me illustrate my journal, in ways that I find personally helpful, and I like to be able to show other people how I see my farm, my life. I sell some prints, some cards, and some digital photos through Flickr, and that income helps support the farm.
I like Facebook because it lets all the different parts of my universe collide. I have lots of family I haven’t seen since I left Texas 20 years ago. There are many former work colleagues, most of whom are quite amused to see me farming after having seen me closing multi-million dollar deals and jet-setting around the world. Many of my farm customers follow my farm fan page now, and that’s helpful for scheduling pick-ups and letting them know when we will have different things for sale.
Twitter is a whole different kettle of fish to me, because it’s mostly filled with people I don’t know. I tend to treat it sort of like cable television—I dip into the stream when I have time. I enjoy it in small doses, and have found communities of farmers and cooks and people who can like I do, and it’s been really fun when I can make the time for it. I just got a cell phone after years of refusing to carry one, so we’ll see if I use Twitter more now that I can do it away from the computer.
What were your goals for using social media?
Farming full time is a lot of physical labor, and I enjoy social media for the short breaks I can take. I don’t watch television and I spend so much of my life either outside or in the kitchen. I rarely see people, speak mostly to animals, and social media gives me a little human contact.
I’ve helped several small farms and local restaurants get started with social media. I’m good at teaching people who aren’t very computer literate how to use technology. Social media is a fantastic way to connect with customers, as long as you do something besides sell. I try to get them to follow my example—take pictures and show us your world. Write about your day on your blog. Give us recipes for what you cook. Be consistent. Give things away. Tell interesting stories. It’s fun!