In a WATT Poultry Chat video interview, Dan Wood, vice president of North American Operations at Potters Poultry, spoke with Egg Industry Insight Managing Editor Deven King about what social media platforms he finds work best for building brand awareness and its importance during the COVID-19 pandemic.
KING: Dan, I have been following you following you on LinkedIn for a while now and I've enjoyed your posts, specifically the one where you sang Ice Ice Baby, as eggs, eggs, baby. Could you talk about the importance of networking on social media, and how it helps build relationships within that network and specifically what networks you find to be the most useful.
WOOD: Of course, of course, I think we're all familiar with the social media platforms, I suspect most of us have Facebook, or Instagram. And I think the youth of today are into TikTok and all those crazy dances, well as a business, it's a super useful piece of equipment that you can get messages out there, globally, free of charge across you know, all of all of the world. So, if you're not using it, you need to be using it. The Ice Ice baby thing? Yeah, we are a new brand and we're trying to raise awareness here in the US. So, you know, we come out with these crazy ideas to try and get a brand awareness, I guess. So, when we're looking at the different platforms, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, each platform tends to have a different voice. And it is important that we get those voices, right. Facebook can be quite a fun voice, you're appealing to end consumers which is one aspect. Instagram, very pictorial kind of platform where the content that you are using is vital. So, making sure you get a beautiful picture and some lovely words is great. Probably the most useful platform for us as a business has been LinkedIn. Because that is the one where you are working within business-to-business. It helps me find new members of staff, it grows awareness for Potters Poultry with our peers within the industry. And that's the one that's been the most useful for us. Although we're, you know, prominent on Facebook and Instagram, obviously. And then when the crazy dude here, decides he is going to sing a rap song, to try and raise a bit more awareness, you know, we're going to have a bit of fun, right? It's been a crazy year for everybody, 2020, I mean, let's just time to forget it, to put it behind us. So, if you can make someone smile, and with that smile, they remember that brand, I think that is a cool way to get your message across.
Dan Wood of Potters Poultry. (Dan Wood)
KING: Absolutely, so how important is all of this spend during the pandemic?
WOOD: With the pandemic, and the restrictions on travel, you can tell from the voice, I'm not from Iowa, I'm originally from the UK, and I moved out here with my wife and kids, we haven't been able to go back home to the UK since we moved out here because of the pandemic. So when you want to have those face to face meetings with farmers, they can be a little bit kind of, you know, offish about you traveling and meeting them on farm when you're traveling state to state social media platforms allows you to get into those places, face to face with these people. Whether it's on a zoom call, like we are now, everybody is meeting like this nowadays. But those platforms allow us to get into those homes, getting in front of those people. So yeah, during the pandemic it’s become more prevalent than any other time to be able to use those things effectively. I am sure every business is looked at themselves and gone, we need to be better at doing this because this is the way of the future. I mean, who knows when this pandemic is going to stop, you know, my family back in the UK is going crazy again, so we don't really see an end to it. We have got to be better at what we're doing with this (social media) now. It has been a vital piece of communication to get out there to all our customers, consumers and interact network within the industry.
KING: I would agree. Before we wrap things up, Dan, is there anything else you would like to add?
WOOD: There is actually, yeah. The more I think about what we are doing here with the social media, 99% percent of us are very active on it and have great access to the internet/WiFi, but there is a small minority that don't, and I'm talking about the Amish and Mennonite communities that don't use it. Although they are a small minority, as far as using the internet, they are a large majority of the business that we do over here in the U.S. So, I guess I'd like to put a question out to your viewers, how can we better communicate with those communities, and be more effective at targeting them and getting our messages out to them? There must be networks that they use, and I am really interested to find out what those are.
