Our AgWired app, sponsored by Raven Industries, is almost two years old now – available for both iPhone and Android users – yet we continue to get new downloads every day and people tell us they use it all the time. It’s a handy way to check the latest posts on all of our websites with just a few clicks. Even those folks who have Blackberries or some other type of phone often download the app to use on their iPad or iPod Touch.

So, in honor of our app, our giveaway this year is the cool “Digi-Clean” handy wipe for all types of screens – from cell phones to cameras to iPads and laptops. What is really cool about this tiny little screen cleaner is that it sticks to your device, then unsticks when you want to use it and re-sticks again! They come in several sizes from REALLY tiny to almost 3.5″ wide, but we went for the tablet size that is still small enough for the phone, but big enough to be used on a good sized laptop screen.

So come on by booth #412 this week at the NAMA conference in Kansas City and get yours. Chuck is already there for NAMA business stuff, but I will be heading that way tomorrow with our youngest lovely daughter Caitlin to help us out this year.

We’ll be “appy” to see you there!

The right person would be very self-motivated and passionate about agriculture, as well as having most or all of the following skills (listed in order of importance):

• 1. Computer savvy – Mac or PC
• 2. Flexible work schedule for on-site assignments
• 3. Digital photography – composing, shooting, editing
• 4. Audio production – conducting interviews, editing
• 5. Short format writing skills
• 6. Social Networking experience – Blog, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
• 7. Video production (web style) – shooting, editing
• 8. WordPress experience

We would like to see examples of work that ideally will include social networking accounts.

A ZimmComm producer needs to be able to shoot photos on the go, conduct spur of the moment interviews, edit photos/audio/video quickly and upload and post to WordPress websites. This includes writing story posts to go with the posted media. The work will include periodic travel to ag related events of different kinds – probably not more than 10 days per calendar year. You will need to be equipped with notebook computer and camera to take hi-res photos. Personal digital audio/video recorder and/or iPhone a plus.

Payment will be negotiated depending on experience and ZimmComm will supply on-the-job training for the right candidate. So are you up to the challenge?

If so, please send me your interest including things like resume/work examples via email.

It is located on Perdido Key, Florida – which is situated between Pensacola and Orange Beach, Alabama – not too far from the infamous Florabama Bar (which is currently being remodeled). We have totally enjoyed our time here and would highly recommend it for a great getaway. While the winter at home in Missouri has been pretty mild so far and the weather here has been fairly cool, nothing beats waking up in the morning looking at the sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico.

We are heading home tomorrow to prepare for a heavy month of travel in February, which includes the Cattle Industry Convention in Nashville, National Biodiesel Conference in Orlando, three GROWMARK events in Illinois and Iowa, the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville and the National Ethanol Conference in Orlando. We hate to say goodbye to the beach, but duty calls!

See you on down the agriblogging highway!

It was our eighth year in business and we spent too many days on the road to count. We started the year in icy Atlanta with record winter weather and ended the year relaxing on the beach in Florida, enjoying some rare down time before getting back into it again. We start back on the road on the third day of 2012 with Chuck going to Orlando for Beltwide Cotton Conferences. Cindy will be right behind him, heading to Honolulu on January 7 for the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting.

We did over 5000 posts on the four main websites in 2011 with about 1,000 audio files, over 17,000 photos in 70 Flickr photo albums and 120 YouTube videos posted on AgWired, Domestic Fuel, World Dairy Diary and Precision Pays. We also posted on various other client websites including New Holland’s Boomer 555.com; the Biodiesel Conference Blog; the Southern Peanut Growers Conference blog; and National Corn Growers’ Corn Commentary.

Traffic on all of our websites increased again in 2011. Agwired was up 7.5% to almost 198,000 unique visitors; Domestic Fuel was up 3.5% with over 324,000 unique visitors; Precision Pays traffic increased by 3.5% to nearly 50,000; and World Dairy Diary was up 5 percent to over 102,000. Twitter followers total 11,584 between all the websites, and our personal Twitter accounts. Chuck, aka @agriblogger, has almost half of those himself – 5400 followers.

We are looking forward to setting new records in 2012 and hope to see you all on the agriblogging highway in the year ahead.

This was not an easy task. It took me about a month to get it the way I wanted it, including photos from events throughout this past year and getting as many dates for the major ag events included. Not sure how it would actually look in person, we ordered a limited quantity to give as Christmas gifts to some of our clients.

We think they actually came out pretty sweet and now we are wondering if there is any interest among AgWired readers to get their very own copy.

You can order your calendar here: Order 2012 ZimmComm Ag Events Calendar.

The cost is $20 each plus $2 shipping/handling.

In good company, Chuck was honored with Stephanie Gable (left) of Novus International for Product/Species Management and Margaret Fogarty, Farm Credit for Marketing Communications. The fourth winner in the Sales category was Sue Lee of Farm Journal Media who is not pictured because she was attending another meeting. All are well deserving of the honors.

Here’s what NAMA had to say about Chuck:

From on-line photo album development for key industry events, to news reporting and media liaison activities for various commercial clients, to ‘blogging’ his way across the land, Chuck has become a common sight at just about any type of meeting or event in the agriculture industry. He has also done a great deal to get many others involved in new media endeavors.

Chuck has been active in NAMA throughout his career and he continues his membership in a very active way now in his role representing his own company, ZimmComm, Inc. He has given countless hours and days to NAMA service in many, many ways over the years. He has always been active in his local chapters, and has been involved in program planning and leadership at local levels. He is currently a nominee to the Executive Committee.

Stephanie turned the tables on Chuck and interviewed him about his award. Listen to that here: Stephanie Interviews Chuck

2011 NAMA Trends in Agriculture Photo Album

Of course, Chuck did spend over a week in Ontario, Canada for the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) annual congress this month, so we weren’t TOTALLY home bound. Check out all of the more than 1,000 photos from the trip here. Thanks to Pioneer for once again sponsoring our coverage of this great event.

As for Cindy – well, I spent a grand total of one day on the road in September – and now feel fully caught up. My one trip was to Minnesota for the official opening of the REG Albert Lea biodiesel plant. We would like to sincerely thank the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council for allowing us to cover this event on their behalf and congratulate all involved for getting this plant back up and running to meet the advanced biofuel needs of the state of Minnesota and the rest of the country under the Renewable Fuels Standard.

Gearing up to get back on the road, both of us will be heading to Madison, Wisconsin the first week of October to cover the World Dairy Expo on World Dairy Diary for sixth year in a row. Thanks to our sponsors Charleston Orwig and several of their dairy clients, including Hoard’s Dairyman, Accelerated Genetics, and Dairy Business Association; as well as Alltech – a first time sponsor for this event for us, but a long time supporter.

Hope to see you all somewhere on down the agriblogging highway!

We started out the month with cattle producers in the Sunshine State for the 2011 Cattle Industry Summer Conference. The joint meeting of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and the Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB) in Kissimmee, Florida featured Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain. Click on the photo for a larger version and see the CISC 2011 photo album for more. Posts about the CBB side of the meeting can be found on BeefBoardMeeting.com, where meeting photos, interviews and committee reports going back to 2007 are archived.

We also covered the AgCareers.com 2011 Ag HR Roundtable for the first time. The event was held on the campus of Purdue University and brought together representatives from agribusiness and academia to discuss how to recruit and prepare young people for careers in agriculture.

Another stop this month was in Toledo, Ohio for the CTIC Conservation in Action Tour, which featured a full day of visits in the area around Lake Erie. This rosy sunset over the Maumee River greeted us as we returned from the tour. I really love that photo – click on it for a larger version, and check out the CTIC 2011 tour photo album for more.

The Sturgis Motorcycle rally in South Dakota was definitely a first for us. Chuck covered that for the Renewable Fuels Association, which partners with the Buffalo Chip Campground to promote ethanol. See his photos from Sturgis here. No, he didn’t ride a motorcycle, but he did sleep in a very comfortable RV at the campground – it was an experience!

Without too much of a break, Chuck headed to Kansas City for the NAMA Bootcamp and then to Nashville for the AgChat Agvocacy 2.0 conference.

Cindy’s next two trips sent her from coast to coast. First to the Boehringer-Ingelheim annual swine health seminar in North Carolina. This is the fourth time we have been able to attend this event and it is always fun because it is so family-oriented. They invite their producer and partner clients and their families for a really nice weekend on the Carolina coast. It was a pirate theme this year and all the kids really enjoyed it!

Five days later, Cindy headed to Seattle at the request of the United Soybean Board to attend the U.S. Soybean Export Council’s first Animal Utilization Stakeholders meeting. The weather was glorious in Seattle and as a weird coincidence, Cindy got to attend the wedding of a very close high school friend who lives in Tacoma.

The month wrapped up with the biggest product launch in the 174 year history of John Deere in Indianapolis. Chuck got lots of great photos and video there. The photos have already been viewed over 2600 times and the three videos collectively have been seen almost 10,000 times! Cindy attended the GROWMARK annual meeting in Chicago, then we both got together and headed to Decatur, Illinois for the 2011 Farm Progress Show. Together we uploaded over 600 photos that have been viewed more than 3,000 times.

All totaled, we traveled over 16,000 miles in August, uploaded nearly 4,000 photos, and did more than 400 posts on all four of our websites. We are definitely looking forward to a break from the road and a little R&R on Labor Day before we get back at it in September!

Announcing the New Holland Boomer™ 555 Contest. Eight lucky winners will receive a 5-year lease (150-hour per year) on a New Boomer 30 with a 240TLA Loader with the 5-year Boomer Guard5 Limited Warranty. All you have to do is fill out the entry form and describe how you would use a New Holland compact tractor.

You can find out all you need to know, including contest rules and regulations, on the Boomer555.com blog. I’m going to be the Boomer™ 555 Contest blogger throughout this campaign, updating you frequently with announcements and sharing selected entries and feedback from the folks I meet. Yes, that does mean I’ll be out and about. Follow along on Twitter and Facebook too.

Here’s a picture of a Boomer 30. Picture that on your place!

So, let’s learn more about the contest from Doran Herritt, New Holland Brand Marketing Manager. We spoke by phone. Doran says New Holland decided to conduct the Boomer™ 555 Contest as part of their introduction of the new 5 year limited warranty on the new Boomer tractors. The 5′s represent 5 months to enter to win a 5 year lease on a Boomer 30 with a five year warranty. Doran encourages you to think creatively about how you would use a Boomer tractor/loader and enter the contest. Whatever you can dream up is okay. It’s time to get Boomer555 Fever!

You can listen to my conversation with Doran here: Doran Says - Get Boomer555 Fever

If you aren’t familiar with the New Holland Boomer Tractors then learn all about them on the New Holland website.

Just like its iPhone predecessor, the app offers one-touch access to all the latest news and information in the agribusiness and agricultural marketing world posted on Agwired.com, including audio, photos and video, and connections to other ZimmComm news sites. The AgWired App features a news tab drop down menu to select ZimmComm News Network feeds as well as individual news on AgWired.com by category.

You can find the AgWired App in the Android Market with this link. The AgWired iPhone App has been downloaded onto almost 3,000 iPhones/iPod touches/iPads since we introduced it and is being opened for viewing between 3 to 5 times per day, showing a high level of use by those who have it.

I’ve been asked who we worked with to develop the AgWired App and will point you to rock solid mobile app developer WillowTree Apps.

App sponsors are being sought. Contact ZimmComm for more information, including rates. First time and early sponsor discounts available.

The really good news is that we enjoy what we do and we have the best clients in the world! When we started the company seven years ago this month, we never had any idea that it would go in the direction that it did. Facebook had not yet graduated from Harvard. Flickr had just launched and no one knew what it was. YouTube didn’t even start until 2005. Blogging was just starting to break into the mainstream and we ended up hopping on that train and have been just enjoying the ride since then. Our initial goal was really to provide content for media, which was why the Talking News Release service was started, and that is still one of our primary functions. But we just keep evolving along with the tools and technology.

Thanks to the people who helped us get this party started. Looking forward to keeping it going for a long time yet!

In the category of Blogs/Electronic Newsletters category, the winner of the coveted Golden ARC was the National Corn Growers Association and ZimmComm New Media for the organization’s Corn Commentary blog, which we designed several years ago for them and recently updated. The photo shows me receiving the award from Mace Thornton of the American Farm Bureau Federation, who is the new president of ARC.

The competition was judged by members of the North Florida chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, according to contest manager Amy Keith McDonald of McDonald Marketing Communications. “The judges focused on a number of objectives including audience analysis, creativity, execution and campaign results,” she said. “They then provided constructive feedback to allow entrants to grow professionally from the opportunity.” Originated in 1990, the Golden ARC Awards Contest recognizes the best and brightest in agricultural public relations, and is open to both ARC and non-ARC members. The 38 categories reflect the broad scope of contemporary public relations activities.

Find out all the winners in all the categories here.

Really enjoyed attending the ARC meeting – you can get a taste for the highlights here.

Let’s look at Agwired first.

According to the survey, the largest percentage of our 14,000 visitors each month are in Advertising/Marketing/Sales or Communications/Public Relations – making up 20% in each category for a total of 4 out of 10 of our readers. Another 13% are with agribusiness associations or organizations and 7% are media. Over 20% are in crop or livestock production – including crop and livestock producers, dairy farmers, crop consultants, etc. There were some categories that applied to production agriculture but several also checked the “other” category.

We had responses from 21 states, three countries, and the District of Columbia, with the Midwest significantly leading the pack. Most responses came from Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

On Domestic Fuel, we now are getting 30,000 unique visitors a month. The survey says that the largest percentage of those visitors (13%) are existing biofuels producers. The next largest categories were Advertising/Marketing/Sales (9%), Consulting (8%), Engineering (7%), Consumer/General Public (7%), and Association/Organization (6%).

We had responses from 38 states the District of Columbia and Canada. Most responses came from California, South Dakota, Missouri, Minnesota, and Iowa.

Nearly 12,000 visitors go to World Dairy Diary each month for news about the dairy industry. According to the survey, the largest percentage are dairy farmers or milk producers – about 14%. Another 11% are nutritionists in the dairy business and about 7% are consultants. Over ten percent of respondents said they were with dairy organizations, media, or in public relations for agribusiness. About two in ten of our visitors are consumers, students, homemakers or retirees – falling into the “other” category. We also have a good number of beef cattle producers, farmers, and input dealers in the other category.

We had responses from 33 different states and three other countries besides the United States. The states with the most responses are among the largest dairy producing states – Wisconsin, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, Kentucky, and Michigan.

Finally, visits to our precision agriculture publication Precision Pays are up to 5,000 per month. The survey found that 22% of them are actual crop farmers of mainly corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton. The next largest category was Equipment & Services at 18%, followed by education at 15%. Another 11% each fell in the categories of Crop Consultant or Advertising/Marketing/Sales.

We had responses from 15 states and Canada. Most responses came from Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, Missouri, North Dakota, California and Oregon.

Hope that answers some of the “Who reads your stuff?” questions!

We may have to ask that question again later this year since there’s lots of changes coming up in mobile phone carrier systems and phones.

ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.

We started out the month in “Icelanta” covering both the second AG CONNECT Expo and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) annual meeting. The weather was okay for the first couple of days, but on the first day of the AFBF meeting we saw five inches of snow and ice hit the southern city with only six snow plows! It was an experience we will not soon forget. Farm Bureau has never had a meeting like it!

Besides the snow and ice, the highlights of the meetings included being part of a really great show for AG CONNECT with lots of content that we are still using on all of our on-line publications – and meeting Mike “Dirty Jobs” Rowe. He is really a great advocate for agriculture.

Check out the coverage of AFBF on Agwired here and all the stories from AG CONNECT Expo here.

We had the opportunity to welcome a new sponsor for Agwired and Precision Pays during the month of January – GROWMARK and their FS Green Plan Solutions. Chuck visited ​GROWMARK headquarters in Bloomington and Cindy attended a conference on the company’s “Pursuit of Maximum Yields” program in East Peoria. Look forward to learning lots more about this regional cooperative that started in 1927 and provides agriculture-related products and services, as well as grain marketing in the Midwest and Ontario, Canada.

At the end of the month, Chuck headed back to Atlanta for the International Poultry Expo, with coverage sponsored by our friends at Novus International. This is the third year in a row that we have covered this event for them and once again they featured a well-known sports figure at their exhibit. This time it was a football theme with NFL Hall of Famer Dick Butkus. The weather was much better this time!

While Chuck headed south, Cindy went north to Des Moines to attend the 5th annual Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit for the first time to enjoy a fantastic program that included two potential presidential candidates – Former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum. The great event was made possible by sponsorships from Domestic Fuel supporters Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association.

We are supposed to get back on the road this week, heading to Denver for the Cattle Industry Annual Convention and NCBA Trade Show, but that will depend on the weather as the forecast is calling for a major snowstorm. We’ll get there at some point to start off another big month of travel in February. Joanna is in Des Moines for the Iowa Power Farm Show this week and Chuck is scheduled to head directly from Denver to Phoenix for the National Biodiesel Conference. Later in the month, we’ll be at the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, the National Ethanol Conference in Phoenix, the Agricultural Relations Council meeting in Naples (yeah!) and the Western Farm Show in Kansas City. Praying for better weather everywhere and hope to see you all down the road!

The winner for December is Michelle Stahlhut, an Agwired reader and crop farmer from Indiana. Michelle actually filled out her survey in November and since we put all the entries back in the pot for the next month, she was the lucky pick today and will be receiving a check for $250 from us.

Among the topics that Michelle says she would like see covered by us in 2011 are sustainability, beginning farmer programs, organic industry, small farm policy, meat processing.

The survey continues through January, so please fill it out before the end of the month, if you haven’t done so yet. All entries received so far will be entered to win in the last drawing for $250, which will be held on February 1.

Agwired Survey
Domestic Fuel Survey
Precision Pays Survey
World Dairy Diary Survey

It’s kind of mind boggling to count the number of posts we do in a year – just on Agwired and Domestic Fuel there was over 3,000! The number of audio files posted on all websites totaled over 1,000. We posted nearly 16,000 photos on Flickr from about 60 different events and posted 103 videos on YouTube. Can’t even begin to count the total number of tweets on Twitter!

Traffic on all of our websites increased in 2010. Agwired was up 17% to 185,000 unique visitors; Domestic Fuel was also up 17% with 315,000 unique visitors; Precision Pays traffic increased by 66% to 48,000; and World Dairy Diary was up 35 percent to over 98,000.

The most popular YouTube video of the year was the unveiling of the Chip Foose designed John Deere tractor at Commodity Classic, which has been viewed nearly 13,000 times. Videos from the John Deere XUV media event were viewed over 5,000 times. Other top videos of the year including the unveiling of the New Holland T8 & T9 Tractors, Opening Day at National Farm Machinery Show, AG CONNECT Expo Preview, General Motors Exec at the National Ethanol Conference, President Obama at the POET plant, AgLeader at AG CONNECT, Kip Cullers New Record, and the fly-by at the National Agricultural Aviation Association meeting.

Our wonderful clients make every day of every year a pleasure to do what we do. Those clients are not a bunch of corporate names – they are people we are proud to call friends. They are John and Whitney, Bob and Matt, Pat and Sandi, Barry and Kelly and Leigh Ann, Gene and Dawn, and Rich and Mike and Jeff and Dan and Jeremy and Jill and Andrew and Ken and Rita and Jessica and Joe and Joy and Chris and Stephanie and Jerry and Erika and Mindy and Janell and Curt and Mace and Billy and Mark …. just to name a few! We sincerely appreciate you all and look forward to continuing our relationship for many years to come. We also sincerely appreciate our wonderful freelance team of Joanna, John, Melissa, Michelle, Lisa, Kurt, Robert and JoDene – our super sales guy Dave – and our daughters Chelsea and Carly, who both helped out with the business in 2010.

Best wishes to all for a healthy, happy, prosperous and blessed new year!

The Domestic Fuel reader was chosen from almost 200 entries – those who had filled out a survey on one or more of our four primary on-line publications to help us learn more about our audiences – to win $250. All those who have already filled out the survey will remain in the running for the next drawing at the end of this month for another 250 bucks.

Some interesting results we have found so far from the first month of our survey:

Domestic Fuel got the most survey responses, which makes sense since it has the most traffic. The majority of respondents were either existing producers (12.5%) or in marketing/sales for biofuels (10%)

On World Dairy Diary, one quarter of respondents said they were actual dairy farmers and over 35 percent said they followed WDD on Twitter.

Over 30% of the respondents for Agwired are in advertising, marketing, communications or public relations. Almost 40% said they read Agwired 4-7 times a week and the same amount follow on Twitter.

One third of the respondents on Precision Pays are crop farmers and all of them grow corn and soybeans.

We have almost enough entries at this point to be statistically significant, which is great, but we intend to keep it going at least through the end of January. The more responses we get, the better we can know who is in our audience to serve you better. Yes, we have to ask for all the personal info like name and address, but we will not share that with anyone else. We just simply want to get a better handle on who you are and what you want to read about.

Agwired Survey
Domestic Fuel Survey
Precision Pays Survey
World Dairy Diary Survey

It stands to reason that the majority of our 15,000 unique visitors a month on World Dairy Diary are somehow involved in the dairy business. We can tell where the most traffic comes from in terms of geography, search engines and links. But, we really don’t know much of anything else about them.

We know by word of mouth and feedback that a large percentage of the agribusiness and agri-marketing community are among the 18,000 unique visitors each month on Agwired. Who are the rest of them? It is one of the drawbacks to having a free and open information service.

So, we had to do one of those things that everybody hates – a survey. We thought carefully about what to use as an incentive and finally decided on what we usually decide on for wedding presents – money. It’s something everyone can use and it’s the easiest thing to mail to the winner.

We came up with customized surveys for each of our four main publications – Agwired, Domestic Fuel, Precision Pays and World Dairy Diary – asking for all that personal information that people hate to share, like name and location. In return, people who fill out the survey are entered to win in a random drawing for $250 at the end of the month for both November and December. We are also asking for some input about what people would like to see stories about on each of the sites. We have a strict privacy policy that we will not share any of your personal information.

If you are a regular reader of any of these sites – please take about 2 minutes and fill out the survey and maybe win $250 in extra Christmas cash! At the very least you will experience the warm glow of satisfaction at having helped give us a better idea of who our audiences are and how to serve them better.

Agwired Survey
Domestic Fuel Survey
Precision Pays Survey
World Dairy Diary Survey

ARC President Deron Johnson, Rhea & Kaiser and Golden ARC Awards Contest Manager, Amy Keith McDonald, McDonald Marketing Communications, presented the awards. ZimmComm New Media won two awards in the Tactics Division. Working with BCS Communications for John Deere we won for the blog, DriveGreenTractors.com. Working with the Renewable Fuels Association we won for the podcast, The Ethanol Report. These are the first Golden ARC Awards we’ve ever won and Cindy and I are very excited about it.

The app is now available for iPhone users to download, free of charge, in the Apple iTunes store. You can find the AgWired App in the iTunes Store with this link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/agwired/id382820712?mt=8

Apps just make on-line access from an iPhone quicker and easier. We wanted to be the first to develop an iPhone application to show that it can be done and that there is a demand for this new technology tool in the agricultural world. And of course, the AgWired iPhone App is open for sponsorship. Who wants to be the first?

We’re looking for feedback on our first app. Let us know what you like, don’t like and wish it would do and we’ll try to incorporate your suggestions in a future update. Thanks.

Top Ten Reasons to have ZimmComm cover your next event:

10. We “Tweet” u right – in so many ways. We have multiple established Twitter accounts with thousands of followers on several different topics and can help tweet your event to tweeps all over.

9. Flickr Photos up in a Flash – get your photos uploaded and out for media to use and everyone to see faster.

8. Google Loves Us – Search engines pick up posts from ZimmComm blogs fast and furious, both news and web searches.

7. We Flip for YouTube – short, web quality video clips give your event a YouTube presence.

6. Audio on Demand –interviews with key presenters and speeches can be available on-line to listen or download.

5. First Class Photography – we take high-res photos of everything so you don’t have to.

4. Targeted Exposure – We can post on your blog and one or more of our own – with audiences that include agribusiness, renewable energy, dairy, and precision farming. We can even design and build a blog for your specific event.

3. Event Blogging Trail Blazers – ZimmComm was one of the first pioneers of event blogging, starting with the National Biodiesel Conference in February 2006.

2. Multi-tasking is our Middle Name – We often do audio, video, photos, tweets, blogging and more at the same time – while chewing gum and balancing a book on our heads. Ok, we made the last part up.

1. Historical Preservation – Your event is archived for history on the web and we provide a digital copy of all photos, video and audio sent to you for the sake of posterity after the event.

AgWired:

Are you and advertising or public relations agency with ag clients? Do you want your story and brand in front of agrimarketers who might want your services? Then please send all agency announcements to news@agwired.com. We’re finding that many agencies have multiple “lists” and we want to be on all of them. We want your agency news releases as well as those you distribute for your clients. AgWired is probably the most unique online industry news source and you can help define it. Just go to “What Is AgWired?” (http://agwired.com/2010/05/11/what-is-agwired/) and add your comment! The same thing applies to you farm groups and marketing and communication departments for agribusinesses. We can’t tell your story if you don’t tell us!

Domestic Fuel:

Are you doing any work in the renewable fuels industry? Ethanol, biodiesel, algae, wind, solar, natural gas, propane? Do you have clients who are? Then please send all announcements to news@domesticfuel.com. With nearly 30,000 unique visitors a month and growing, Domestic Fuel is the best way to get your message out to all the participants in the industry as well as a significant component of interested consumers.

Precision Pays:

Here’s where we cover the latest technology that’s making farming more efficient and cost effective. Send your news to news@precisionpays.com. Precision Pays is one of the only online sources of news dedicated to this topic.

World Dairy Diary:

This very active news service covers all things dairy. Send your news and announcements to news@worlddairydiary.com.

A signature feature of our on location online event coverage is a photo album and I took quite a few during this event: President Obama POET Biorefining Photo Album

Even we didn’t know that today you’d be following news and information produced by the company via Twitter on your mobile smart phones.

Well, one thing you can count on is that ZimmComm will Tweet you Right! If you’re attending this year’s National Agri-Marketing Conference please stop and visit and while you’re there get some Twitter tips from the professional ag tweeters and enter our drawing for a cool prize.

Between the two of us and our hardworking freelancers, we did 4310 posts on all websites, including Agwired, Domestic Fuel, Precision Pays and World Dairy Diary. We also did 176 podcasts and too many audio interviews to count.

We uploaded 11,282 photos to 48 Flickr photo albums and 88 YouTube videos.

The most popular YouTube videos on our channel in 2009 were Daryl Hannah at NBB with 6854 views, the new John Deere planter with 5876, the New Holland Celebrity Tractor Race 4557 and the tractor pull at National Farm Machinery Show 2872. Top stories on Agwired included:
John Deere Unveils Largest Planter
HSUS Challenges American Agriculture
HSUS in Nebraska (tops in comments)
Record Phone Calls on iPhone
Get a Rustler from New Holland

We visited over 60 different cities, from Panama City to Portland, San Antonio to Minnetonka, and San Diego to Boston. Read our travelogue here.

Best of all – our readership was up significantly on all websites:
Agwired – up 45% to 158,400 unique visitors
Domestic Fuel – up 15% to 269,000 unique visitors
Precision Pays – up 166% to 29,000 unique visitors
World Dairy Diary – up 68% to 110,000 unique visitors

Thanks to our of our wonderful friends in the industry for making 2009 a great year for ZimmComm. We look forward to continuing our relationships in the new decade.

Happy New Year!