ZimmComm – New Media, LLC

ZimmComm will be out and about next week. Here’s a heads up of where you’ll find us.

To start with, Cindy will be attending a BASF Sustainability Summit in Chicago. From there she’ll join Joanna Schroeder and John Davis at World Pork Expo working with sponsors Boehringer Ingelheim and Novus International. It’s going to be a busy week for the @FarmPodcaster.

Next week Chuck will also be on the agriblogging highway starting with the Corn Utilization & Technology Conference in Atlanta working with the National Corn Growers Association. From there he’ll head to the Carolinas to ride and drive new Gator Utility Vehicles with John Deere. Make sure you follow @AgriBlogger and AgWired to keep up with all the action.

Have you got us on your event’s schedule? We’d be happy to live blog your event while providing professional photography services!

Here’s Cindy doing live blogging in the Illinois Corn Marketing Board suite at the Corn Crib during the first game in the new stadium. The baseball park is the home of the Normal CornBelters. Cindy and I were brought in by the ICMB to live blog the event on AgWired. We took almost 400 photos and conducted 6 interviews. Our posts are not only being used on AgWired but also on the Illinois Corn Growers blog, Corn Corps as well as the National Corn Growers Association blog, Corn Commentary.

You can find our event photos in our Flickr set: Normal CornBelters Home Opener

We’d like to make sure that your story is being told in the most unique online community you will find and that’s the ZimmComm News Network. The ZNN consists of AgWired, Domestic Fuel, Precision Pays and World Dairy Diary. These are all highly search engine optimized websites and all have Twitter feeds that get headlines out to followers as they are posted. Having your name or company name mentioned is a great way to increase your online “findability.” Here’s what you need to do:

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.

President Obama made his first visit to an ethanol plant since taking office I was on hand to cover it for our Domestic Fuel and AgWired websites. His message focused on achieving the American dream and rebuilding the economy with renewable fuels playing a key role.

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

ZimmComm New Media supports the AgChat Foundation which was created to assist farmers who want to become agvocates for their industry by utilizing social media and networking channels like Facebook and Twitter. AgChat is a weekly Twitter conversation (Tuesday, 8-10pm eastern) that just celebrated its one year anniversary. That effort, started and led by Michele Payn-Knoper, Cause Matters, has now grown into an organized effort.

I am one of the founding board members of the AgChat Foundation and am leading our efforts to find sponsors who would like to help with the Foundation’s mission and program areas. You can learn more about the Agchat Foundation on their website.

Most of the board members leaders are farmers. I’m producing a series of interviews with them. Here’s one with Jeff Fowle, a northern California farmer with a very diversified operation. Jeff is a very passionate AgChat Foundation board member. He says the mission can be summed up by pointing to the four key program areas: Agvocacy 2.0 training; Agvocacy strategic campaigns; Data Analysis and Technology scholarships. The goal of all these program areas is to assist farmers who want to become advocates for agriculture.

You can listen to my interview with Jeff below:
Jeff Fowle – AgChat Foundation

Can you believe that it was six years ago that the agricultural communications world changed forever when a little new media company was formed by Chuck and Cindy Zimmerman? Things have never been the same since.

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.

The 2010 National Agri-Marketing Conference has started here in Kansas City, MO. Patriotic Case IH tractors are going to be much sought after in the Connection Point trade show. These will be given away by AgriMarketing Magazine to lucky winners throughout the show.

ZimmComm will be giving away a Barnes & Noble Nook eReader at our Connection Point booth #412. The opening of the trade show is after the Best of NAMA Awards ceremony on Wednesday evening. We’ll also have a drawing for a Zoom H2 digital audio recorder for students who are interested in becoming farm podcasters.

Post Update:

The B&N Nook was won by Sara Sims, Valmont Irrigation. (pictured with Cindy)

The Zoom H2 was won by Kathryn Tokarz, Penn State University.

Hello from the 2010 National Agri-Marketing Conference. ZimmComm is putting the final touches on its new company website and will be announcing it during the Connection Point trade show on Wednesday evening.

We are once again sponsoring the NAMA conference and assisting as the NAMA bloggers on the NAMA Blog. Full coverage is also being posted to our AgWired website.

Over the next several days we’ll be posting photos and interviews with agrimarketing professionals and students during this annual meeting that brings together ag media, advertising and public relations agencies and marketing and communications professionals at agribusinesses and farm groups.

Apple just announced its newest creation – the iPad. There is an agricultural slant to this story. What is it? This device will continue to change how we we market to and engage our audience. You can also enter to win one at the Successful Farming booth at the NAMA Connection Point trade show. Thanks to Successful Farming for sponsoring our coverage of the event on AgWired.

I have already used one of these devices to actively participate in an AgChat session. I can do just about anything else I want to do on the web. Will it replace my Mac? No. But it is an awesome book reader and works great for tweeting and handling email.

A large, high-resolution LED-backlit, IPS display. An incredibly responsive Multi-Touch screen. And an amazingly powerful, Apple-designed chip. All in a design that’s thin and light enough to take anywhere. iPad isn’t just the best device of its kind. It’s a whole new kind of device.

The high-resolution, 9.7 inch LED-backlit, IPS display on iPad is remarkably crisp and vivid. Which makes it perfect for web browsing, watching movies, or showing off photos. It’s also been designed to work in any orientation — portrait or landscape. And because it uses a display technology called IPS (in-plane switching), it has a wide, 178° viewing angle. So you can hold it almost any way you want, and still get a brilliant picture, with excellent color and contrast.

2009 was a busy year for ZimmComm New Media.

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!