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Conference Keynote: Brand with Nona Jones
216 Plays5 years ago
We hear Nona C. Jones' Keynote on Brand from the 2020 DIRECT Farm Conference. Learn how to think about your Brand, how to bring it online, and why community engagement in digital spaces is so critical.
Show Notes:
Watch more here: https://directfarmconference.com/brand-nona-c-jones
Read more here: https://www.barn2door.com/blog/2020/6/19/direct-farm-conference-speaker-nona-jones-facebook-head-of-faith-based-partnerships
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Transcript
Introduction: Four Levers for Farm Success
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast, the weekly listen for farm selling direct. We'll talk about the four levers for farm success, which are quality, brand, price, and convenience. We'll hear from outside industry experts and producers like you to delight your customers to save time and to increase your direct farm sales and business. We're glad you're here.
00:00:25
Speaker
All right. Welcome back everyone.
Recap of 2020 Direct Farm Conference
00:00:26
Speaker
You are listening to the second week of our four week recap series from the 2020 direct farm conference. This was our virtual event on August 4th. And we focused on the four levers, just like this podcast. And we are hearing the keynotes in that order. And so last week, if you missed it, go back and listen.
00:00:44
Speaker
We heard Paul Dorrance's keynote on quality. This week we're going to talk about
Nona Jones on Online Branding & Community Building
00:00:49
Speaker
Brand. Our speaker on Brand was known as C. Jones. She is the head of faith-based partnerships at Facebook. She is an incredible speaker and author of the book From Social Media to Social Ministry.
00:01:01
Speaker
She is also a pastor, and a mother, and a wife, and she joined us to share some parallels between faith and farming, as well as the incredible opportunity and some really actionable go-dos to make this happen for your farm. So here's Noticey Jones and her keynote, From Faith to Farming, Why Online Efforts Are Critical to Brand.
00:01:21
Speaker
Well, hey there, everyone. I'm Nona Jones. I'm really just so honored and privileged to join you for this conference to get an opportunity to connect with you and share my passion for branding and community building online. Before I get into the content, however, I do want to just tell you a little bit about me.
00:01:42
Speaker
So my husband and I have been married for 16 years now. If our marriage was a person, they could go to any driver's license office and get a license, which is crazy to me because I got married a month out of college. But we have two sons. My oldest is 10 years old. My youngest is seven years old.
00:02:04
Speaker
And my day job is leading faith partnerships at Facebook. But in addition to that, my husband and I pastor a local church.
00:02:13
Speaker
here in Florida where I live and I have written a couple of books and I get a chance to speak and teach all over the world, which is just such a thrill for me. So as I share some ideas and thoughts around how observations I've made in the faith sector can intersect with opportunities for the farm industry, I just want you to know that I'm not speaking in abstractions. I myself am a person of faith and so everything I'm sharing
00:02:43
Speaker
are out of my lived experiences. So let's do it.
00:02:49
Speaker
So just to start with framing, the thing that you have to know is there's actually a lot that communities of faith and farming have in common, one of which is that they both exist to nourish the community. Of course, we know in the farming industry, it really is about nourishing the physical health of people. Well, in the faith community, it's about nourishing the spiritual and the emotional and the mental health
00:03:18
Speaker
of people. And I think another common factor, another common commonality is, you know, they both are built on on the idea of trust.
Technology's Impact on Faith and Farming
00:03:29
Speaker
They both are built on the the need to serve people. And they're both premised on the idea of healing people from what hurts healing people from what ails them. So there's actually a lot that faith and farming
00:03:43
Speaker
have in common, even though, you know, on the surface it seems like they're so vastly different. So let's also talk about the realities of faith as well as farming. So, you know, if you go two blocks in most cities, you'll probably come up against 10 churches within that five minute walk, right? Similarly, there is a lot of competition in farming as well.
00:04:09
Speaker
And they're both impacted by new technology. And I'll get into this more in a moment, but, you know, with the advent of social technology in particular, it kind of has disrupted the way that people have been practicing their faith, the way that they've been expressing their faith. Even before COVID-19, which of course closed the physical doors
00:04:31
Speaker
of like every church on earth, every mosque on earth, every synagogue on earth, every temple on earth, even before that happened, the idea of people gathering online to connect with faith communities was happening pretty frequently. And so, you know, there has been a disruptive element to the way that the faith sector has learned to function and to operate. And I think similarly that has happened in farming as well.
Defining & Enhancing Farm Brands
00:05:00
Speaker
So now that we kind of know what faith and farming have in common,
00:05:06
Speaker
I want to start to build a foundation on what is brand? What is it? Because before we talk about how to build a strong brand, we really need to understand what a brand is in the first place. And the first thing I want you to know is whether you know it or not, you already have a brand because your brand is essentially just your cumulative customer experience.
00:05:31
Speaker
It's the way that people feel about your farm, the way that they feel about the experience that they have with you and your products, because every interaction counts. It's not just what happens when they are actually on your physical property, it's how they're interacting with your farm, every opportunity that they get. Think about your brand that way. It's much more comprehensive than people typically imagine.
00:06:00
Speaker
So let's think about that a little bit longer. You already have a brand. Whether or not you have a social media presence or a website or a logo, even your customers have an experience with you and with your farm and with your products. It's a conversation that they have with you at the farmer's market.
00:06:18
Speaker
It's the experience of getting the food, the ordering experience, how easy it is to then actually get their food in hand. It's even how frequently they're getting newsletters from your farm or if your social media is consistent with your website. These are all aspects of brand that come together to create an experience that the customer has.
00:06:38
Speaker
And what we found and why brand is so important is that customers who connect with your brand are actually three times more likely to become repeat loyal buyers. This means that they're three times more likely to come back to your farm to purchase again and again, which means recurring sales for you. It means a stronger community relationship between the people growing food and those consuming it. And it's just better for everyone. So let's hear from Nona how to begin to go do that.
Digital Shift: From Town Squares to Online Spaces
00:07:08
Speaker
So when we think about the traditional methods of gathering, we think about the traditional methods of building a community. A lot of us think about the traditional town square. You know, we think of the place where everybody physically goes to meet up. And in many instances, it could potentially be a marketplace.
00:07:32
Speaker
But right now, there is a Newtown square and it's online. It's in the digital space. The question becomes, are you there? You'd be surprised how many churches have actually said they refuse to have a website. They refuse to have a Facebook page. They refuse to have an Instagram account because they believe that the real experience of church has to happen online.
00:07:59
Speaker
As a matter of fact, when I first got into my role at Facebook, I reached out to the church communications director of a very large church, I mean, 37,000 members. And I was just mentioning to them the opportunity that social technology provides to actually build an online church experience. And their response to me was, we use social media to get people to our building, to connect with real people each weekend.
00:08:28
Speaker
You know, I think there is still this idea that, you know, the online space is artificial. The online space is inauthentic when, in fact, the online space is filled with real people, which makes it a real experience.
00:08:47
Speaker
This is why online efforts are so critical. It's not something that's nice to do. It is truly an imperative and a must do. Your web presence is really your storefront. You may not realize it, but there are people who will check out your web presence to make a decision about whether or not they want to buy from you before they even encounter your product physically.
00:09:15
Speaker
Your online efforts really help to reinforce offline relationships. I want you to think about it like this. Let's say someone comes to your farm or perhaps they, you know, purchase your products in a grocery store. Well, that transaction may take all of 10 or 15 minutes.
00:09:35
Speaker
But there's 168 hours in the week. So that means there's 167.75 more hours that people can be interacting with you, interacting with your farm, interacting with
00:09:50
Speaker
your values in order to build a deeper relationship. And it helps to stay top of mind all week.
Importance of Digital Presence for Farms
00:09:58
Speaker
When people are experiencing you online, they're not constrained or confined based on their ability to actually get to your property. Now, they can interact with you regardless of where they are in the world. And that's why online efforts are absolutely foundational and fundamental to success in this digital age.
00:10:20
Speaker
Nona's point here is really well made and we see the same thing every day at Barn to Door, which is that it is so important to be meeting people online because they are spending so many more hours there than they ever will in your physical presence. And so for farmer's markets, for example, which are a great place to meet new customers and to collect emails to add to your mailing list. But 99% of Americans are not going to a farmer's market on a regular basis.
00:10:48
Speaker
They are, however, spending at least six hours a day online. And so this is just another example of why it is so important to be meeting customers on those digital channels and to have a digital presence on email, on social, as well as a website and a web store so that you can take advantage of all those other hours that people are spending looking for your farm outside of those in-person relationships. Here's the thing to know.
00:11:15
Speaker
Many people who are just kind of dipping their toes in the digital space. The first thing they say is we need to get a website.
00:11:22
Speaker
And sometimes people spend a whole lot of money on a website. Sometimes people spend no money on a website. It's really obvious. But people sometimes think that the first place they need to go is they need to buy a domain and build a website. But what you need to know is that the Facebook page has virtually replaced websites. Websites are actually no longer the first place that people go.
00:11:46
Speaker
Right now in the United States of America, 75%, three out of four people have a Facebook account, which means that they're spending time on Facebook vast amounts of their day. And so anything that they're looking for, they can just search while they're on Facebook, which means they're not necessarily opening up a web browser.
00:12:07
Speaker
anymore. People typically will go online when they're on their desktop computer or their laptop computer, but we live in kind of a mobile first world now. And so that means that people are using apps in order to find what they want and find what they need. So just know that if you're thinking, well, we really need to invest in our website. Think again, because people are actually looking for you and your products and services on Facebook.
00:12:36
Speaker
And this brings us back to the original contention that online efforts are critical because it's the new normal.
COVID-19: Adapting Branding Strategies
00:12:44
Speaker
People right now are spending their time on their phone when they're standing in the grocery line waiting to check out, they're on an app. It's the new normal. It's the new way that we operate. And it also lends itself to increased accessibility.
00:12:59
Speaker
Let's say it's two o'clock in the morning and somebody can't sleep and they suddenly have just, I don't know, a hankering for some peach pie. They want to know, is there a local peach grower that they can purchase peaches from? If they're going to go online, chances are they're going to go on Facebook and they're going to try to find a farm in their area. No matter what time of day it is, it allows people to find you. It's so important to have
00:13:28
Speaker
a strong online presence because that's where the demand is. And especially right now, COVID-19, I think, has forced everyone across every sector to rethink, rediscover, and reimagine what they can do to meet customers where they are. Customers who, in many instances,
00:13:49
Speaker
aren't going to make the drive to your property. Customers who in many instances maybe don't feel safe doing that, but they do want to support you and they do want your products. And so it's about adapting to the demand that the market now has.
Building Community Through Social Media
00:14:06
Speaker
So what I want you to know from my standpoint, the best thing that you can do is not just throw up a website or throw up a Facebook page.
00:14:16
Speaker
The best thing that you can do for your farm is think about how to turn your brand into a community experience.
00:14:26
Speaker
Because see, the idea of a brand, oftentimes it gets limited to the logo or the website. But what you have, really, your competitive edge, the value that you bring to your local community is a value that you can actually replicate online. Community branding requires going beyond telling people about your farm to actually inviting them into your farm, inviting them into the experience. And I want to share more about that.
00:14:57
Speaker
So I wrote a book called From Social Media to Social Ministry. You know, when I first got into my role at Facebook and I started working with churches and pastors and denomination leaders all over the world, what I realized is that there was a mindset that essentially said that church required a date, a time and a location.
00:15:20
Speaker
And because it required a date, a time, and a location, if something happened that disrupted that date or that time or that location, church couldn't happen. I believe just as a person of faith, however, when I was reading the scriptures, I realized that in fact, there was no model for the church being just exclusively required to happen in a place. And so the entire concept of from social media to social ministry
00:15:50
Speaker
is really about shifting out of a marketing mindset, which is typically what people bring to a social media strategy. So it's not about marketing, raising awareness, increasing reach alone.
00:16:04
Speaker
It's really about ministry. And what is ministry? Ministry is meeting people where they are, discovering the needs and the interests that they have, and finding a way to connect them with other people who have similar interests and needs. So a few things here. It's been said that content is king. And that is true. When you get into the social media space,
00:16:27
Speaker
You really should have content. I mean, you want people to actually see something when they come to your page. But what you need to know is although content is king, engagement is emperor. The way that these various social platforms, all of them, the way that they work,
00:16:44
Speaker
is they try to ensure that people only see the content that they want to see, which means the algorithms that determine what's called distribution of content, they really determine that distribution based on
00:17:00
Speaker
how those people engage with that content. So if the people like it, if they make a comment, if they tag a friend, if they share it, the algorithm recognizes that, oh, this is content that they may want to see more of. So it's not just about content. It really is about engagement because the more that people engage with your content,
00:17:21
Speaker
the more likely they will see it. A couple of years ago, the algorithm for Facebook pages was changed and there was a lot of just weeping and gnashing of teeth because people had invested very deeply in building their page following. But the algorithm changed such that people only saw content if they actually interacted with the page. And so this is why I want to make sure you understand this is foundational.
Using Facebook for Community Engagement
00:17:50
Speaker
to community branding is engagement, driving engagement. And the second thing is, so marketing, again, it's really all about reach. It's about followers. And there are many people who are really excited to have a lot of people following their page. But what you don't know is that just because there's a lot of people following your page, that doesn't necessarily translate into sales unless you're able to turn those followers into a community.
00:18:18
Speaker
And the platform on Facebook that is absolutely focused on community building are Facebook groups. And this is something that, funny enough, many entities do not invest enough in. But Facebook groups really become the place where people can get to know you, they can get to know each other.
00:18:39
Speaker
and they can have conversations, which I think you as a farmer, a farm owner are uniquely situated to foster conversations about what it means to farm. And I think that is something that can excite people tremendously. The third thing, and I just, I want to emphasize this because I think sometimes when we, you know, work in the social media space,
00:19:04
Speaker
we start thinking that we have to use gimmicks and we have to use all different types of creative tactics in order to get people to engage with us. But in fact, we just have to be ourselves. Talk about the things that matter to you. Talk about not just what you're selling, but talk about the values that you have that are actually leading to producing the high quality that you produce on a regular basis.
00:19:32
Speaker
authenticity really, really matters. And you have to also know, I think right now, because we live in a society that is very much so focused on health and wellness, you actually have the opportunity to engage with people in an authentic way
00:19:47
Speaker
who may be struggling with living a healthy life, and they're trying to figure out how they can do this. You're uniquely positioned to lead that conversation. And I always like to give this framing. Think of your Facebook presence like it's a house, all right?
00:20:05
Speaker
your page would be your front porch. That's the place where people can kind of come up and see what you're about. It's very surface, very superficial. But your group, your Facebook group, it's like your living room. It's the space that you invite people inside of.
00:20:24
Speaker
And remember, when people are on your front porch, you don't actually have to open the door. They can just stand on the front porch and look around if they want to. But Facebook Live is essentially like you opening the door. And so I want you to think about, as you think about a community branding strategy, I want you to think about using Facebook Live
00:20:45
Speaker
to kind of open the door to your farm, to give people kind of a behind the scenes experience of what it's like to actually invite people into the experience of farming and why what you are producing should matter to them, especially in the way that you're producing it. So again, your page is like your front porch. Facebook Live is like you opening the front door and your group is like your living room. So that becomes a place where you have those authentic conversations.
00:21:15
Speaker
where you can drive engagement and where you can build community.
00:21:19
Speaker
The other thing you should know about Facebook groups, and this is something that I've really been trying to emphasize across the faith partners that I'm working with, is right now the algorithm actually treats Facebook groups better than pages. So the way that the algorithm kind of ranks content is family and friends, what they share is considered the highest. And then right below that is groups. So when you create a group and you invite people to join the group,
00:21:46
Speaker
The assumption is if they join the group, it's because they want to see what you have to say. So I want you to get to just think about your brand, not in terms of just the logo, not just in terms of the website. Think of your brand as who you are. And I want to go back to something I said earlier. It is absolutely true that you already have a brand, but just because you have that brand,
00:22:11
Speaker
that doesn't mean that that's the only brand you can have.
Social Media as a Community Platform
00:22:15
Speaker
You can change your brand. If for some reason people don't think of you and the terms that you would like them to think of you, you can actually change that. It really is, it really is up to you. And so I think the last thing I just want to leave you with, because at the end of the day, you know, what you do is hard work. It's necessary work. You're, you're thought leaders. You are thought leaders.
00:22:40
Speaker
And so I think if you make this leap from just social media, thinking about it as a marketing tool to social ministry, thinking about it as a community building platform, you are going to deeply engage with your customers in a way that you may not have imagined before. Great to hear the inside scoop from Nona on the difference between pages and groups and using Facebook Live and the importance of that community engagement.
Driving Engagement with Promo Codes
00:23:09
Speaker
And in addition to the go-dos that she offered, I want to encourage you to think about promo codes. We've seen at Barnetador that farms who use promo codes drive 25% more monthly revenue. And so get creative with ways that you could even use promo codes to drive some of that engagement.
00:23:26
Speaker
whether it's offering a certain amount off of a given product and you hold a recipe contest or ask people to post pictures of what they did with that, to get people engaged and sharing as well as driving sales promo codes could be a really effective tool to do that. So I mentioned that I've written a couple of books. My book, From Social Media to Social Ministry,
00:23:50
Speaker
It includes various tips and tactics and case studies from organizations that I've worked with over the years in order to provide some very tangible, just useful tips on how you can make that shift, how you can make that leap. The thing that I want you to know is at the end of all of this, if you can build a community of people who understand who you are, you will have built your own fan base.
00:24:20
Speaker
And many times people buy things not just because they saw an advertisement, not just because they came across an ad online. They buy things because people are excited about it. And if you use Facebook groups and you build this community branding strategy, I can guarantee you people are going to be excited about you. They're going to be excited about what you stand for. And they are going to become the ambassadors for your farm.
00:24:44
Speaker
So I want to thank you so much for joining me. I just want to summarize very quickly a few thoughts for you.
Building a Connected Community
00:24:51
Speaker
Remember, you already have a brand, but your brand is not just your logo. It's not just the element of who you are. It's not just what people see. It's the experience that they have.
00:25:06
Speaker
And right now, we're all online anyway. So you might as well be online doing it well. But remember, doing online well is not just about sharing content. Content matters. And you absolutely should share content. But beyond sharing content, you want to always be thinking about building community. Instead of making statements, ask questions.
00:25:31
Speaker
Connect people to each other. Get to know the people who follow your page or who are in your Facebook group. And by doing that, you will be building a connected community of people. Remember, being online is critical because that's where the people are. We have to adapt to the demand and the way that people actually make purchases today. And I really want you to remember this.
00:25:57
Speaker
Sometimes we think that unless we see the person eyeball to eyeball, that somehow that's an inauthentic relationship. Remember, digital spaces are filled with real people.
00:26:11
Speaker
So you can build real relationships with people online. Thank you so much for joining me. And please know that I am accessible and available to answer questions that you have. You can connect with me on social. My handle is at Nona, not Nora. And I do my best to respond to messages because I love to hear from you. So.
00:26:32
Speaker
Thank you for your time and your attention. I'm wishing you the absolute best as you set out in this new digital town square.
Preview: Pricing Strategies with Paul Grieve
00:26:39
Speaker
All right, hopefully that session has you really excited to go build your brand online to meet all of those real people in those digital spaces.
00:26:47
Speaker
We were so grateful to Nona for sharing her insights and her experience. And you are going to want to be right back here next week. We are going to hear from Paul Grieve, who talked to us about price. And if you are using cost plus pricing, think again, he is going to challenge you on that. So I hope you have a great week. We'll talk to you again soon.