A new Farm Credit Canada (FCC) Vision Panel survey shows that about half of Canadian producers (54%) surveyed have caught the social media bug, using at least one network. They plan to increase the amount of time they spend using social media in the future.
FCC Vision Panel survey findings can be found at www.fccvision.ca/research.
“We wanted to obtain information about the growing trend toward social media use – whether and how producers were incorporating it in their operations,” explains FCC Vice President of Prairie Operations, Michael Hoffort. “Producers have always adopted new technology to grow their business, so it was interesting to find out how they were using this new information channel.”
“While the survey showed that producers who use social media are much more likely to use it for personal (54%) versus business reasons (30%), there are opportunities to incorporate social media into a number of areas – such as research, making business connections and promoting agriculture as an important part of society and the economy,” says Kellie Garrett, FCC Senior Vice-President, Strategy, Knowledge and Reputation.
Four in ten producers who are online (44%) state that they spent more time using social media this year compared to last year. Non-users say they don’t have the time (43%) or they don’t see value in using social media (30%). Age is a driving factor in determining whether or not a producer uses social media. When using social media for personal use, Facebook is the application most commonly used by producers.
The survey was sent to 1,636 Vision panelists, including both primary producers and agriculture-related businesses. Of these, 883 completed the survey, translating to a 54 percent response rate.
