USING DATA-DRIVEN APPROACHES TO DEVELOP EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED FARMS

The long-term goal of this project is to help small and medium-sized farms increase their profitability by strengthening their existing customer relationships, and enhancing their access to new markets, via the use of social media. Farmers are often well equipped to adopt social media marketing in terms of their hardware facilities, but many lack the necessary knowledge, skills, and/or resources to navigate such marketing efficiently. Nevertheless, existing guidelines for social media use by small or mid-sized farms commonly focus on entry-level instructions or technical information, and provide few data-driven recommendations. Therefore, this project will systematically and empirically examine strategies with the potential to encourage consumer engagement with social media posts and advertisements from small or medium-sized farms. In particular, with a focus on Facebook, we propose to: (i) Build a comprehensive knowledge base of effective social media strategies for small and medium-sized farms; and (ii) Iteratively devise evidence-based guidelines for small and medium-sized farms' creation of brand posts and use of advertisements on social media.