Touching Base…

It seems that although I have been busy engaging on social media, that I have not done a good job checking in with each of you at Feed Yard Foodie. I am in the process of developing a new weekly theme to carry through the winter; but have not had the opportunity to get it completely lined out in my mind. I hope to have this started next week.

In the meantime, I figured that I would share links to my work on social media for Innovative Livestock Services and the Beef Marketing Group. For those of you that follow me on facebook, you have seen this content. For those of you that don’t, I hope that you will take a look at it. I found it very personally meaningful to create 🙂

2018 started with a video describing the Beef Marketing Group — who we are — and what we value. For those of you who wonder about the agricultural cooperative that I work for, this will give you a glimpse of the people and our focus.

This week premiered another video talking about “What is life like in a cattle feedlot?” This video appeared on Innovative Livestock Services as part of our educational series to provide accurate information to folks interesting in learning about “where their beef comes from”. The video is performing amazingly well on facebook with over 30,500 views in the two days that it has been up 🙂

For those of you that like to read words instead of watching videos, here is a link to a blog post that I recently wrote comparing living space in a feedlot to New York City.

I hope that each one of you experienced a blessed Christmas season and a Happy New Year! Thank you for all that you do to support me on this social media journey. #togetherwearestronger

Tips for Facebook Live Broadcasts…

The weekend before Thanksgiving I attended the Nebraska Youth Beef Leadership Symposium at the University of Nebraska. I was asked to share my thoughts on “Building Trust” with the students, and (as often is the case) I came home smarter than I left. While at UNL, I had the privilege of hearing Haley Steinkuhler give insight into using Facebook Live broadcasts as effective social media tools.

Over the past 12 months, I’ve gone to work to build the skills needed for video social media outreach. I am a long way from “accomplished” in this department, but I’m getting smarter every day! It was an awesome opportunity for me to get to hear Haley and I wanted to share with all of you a list of tips for using Facebook Live that come from a blend of advice from both Haley and myself.

1. The average attention span for humans is 8 seconds, so it is important to have a good start to your broadcast! That being said, as a live/interactive social media tool, a good Facebook Live allows time for interested viewers to get connected to the real time event before getting into the heart of the broadcast. It’s a delicate balance! Don’t be afraid to promote the event ahead of time to increase your “live audience” interactions.
2. A good rule of thumb for informal Facebook Live broadcasts about agricultural topics is 3-7 minutes in length. While 3 minutes is short and hard to effectively communicate a topic within, you have to remember that asking your audience to give you 10 minutes of their day is a BIG ASK in today’s culture. I’m still working on this as I always seem to have too much to say!
3. Many of the views will occur after the event ends so be sure to save and share the video after the fact.
4. Facebook Live fits well when sharing: Special Events, Exciting Announcements, Interviews (Q&A’s), How To’s, Virtual Tours, and Behind the Scenes topics.
5. Make sure you have a strong WiFi connection as well as plentiful battery power on your phone.
6. Make an outline for the broadcast to keep you focused but let your personality show through by not using notes during the actual broadcast. No one expects you to be perfect — Be yourself!
7. Depending on video length and location, using a “stand” allows the video picture to be less shaky.
8. If outdoors, be cognizant of the weather as wind and cold can cause less than ideal experiences. Wind wreaks havoc with the audio and severe cold weather can cause your phone to stop working during the broadcast.
9. Reiterate your core message multiple times during the broadcast as most of your viewers will not actually watch the video from start to finish.
10. Give your viewers a “shout out” if they interact and ask questions during the broadcast. It is easier to accomplish this if you have a broadcast partner that can help you out — multitasking while running a live broadcast is hard!

Below is my most recent Facebook Live Announcing the Nebraska Beef In Schools program recently implemented by Holdrege Public Schools — As you will be able to see when watching, I am still building my skills! It is a fun journey 🙂

For more information on the Nebraska Beef in Schools program click here

A special “Thank You” to the University of Nebraska as well as Haley Steinkuhler for helping to make us all smarter! If you have any other thoughts or tips to share regarding Facebook Live broadcasts please share them in the comments 🙂

 

 

 

Finding Honor While Raising Food Animals…

I learned an important lesson on Saturday morning — When it is 12 degrees outside, your phone might get “cold” and shut down in the middle of a Facebook Live broadcast 🙂 It never crossed my mind that would happen. I’m used to working in the cold — I just assumed that my phone would be too!

I am very proud of my favorite blonde cowgirl who helped me with the broadcast. She did an awesome job! Due to the “phone shutting down complications”, we ended up with two broadcasts: one with no ending, and a second one telling the entire story more efficiently (before the phone shut down again!). Below find the second broadcast. You can find the first one on the Feed Yard Foodie facebook page if you would like to compare 🙂

The moral of the story is that there is always something new to learn! The road to excellence may not always be comfortable, but it’s certainly an interesting journey…

Eclipse Totality Video…

Learning to make and do “videos” provided a significant challenge for me over the summer months. While I still have much to learn and improve upon, I am confident enough that I am starting to actually enjoy doing them 🙂

Monday, after the Facebook Live broadcast via Innovative Livestock Services, I remained in the pen with my cattle to experience the Eclipse Totality. The following video footage comes from that time — hopefully woven together in an orderly story to give you all a glimpse into what we experienced on cattle farms all across Nebraska.

I hope that you and your families were able to enjoy the awesomeness of Mother Nature last Monday!

What is your favorite eclipse story?

 

Eclipse Fun…

I hope that everyone had as awesome a day watching the eclipse as I did! The Facebook Live stream that I did with Brandon Sorensen at Roberts Cattle Company with our fall calves was a lot of fun. I am really enjoying building this new skill 🙂  You can see the livestream broadcast here:

We did the live broadcast during the partial eclipse leading up to the period of totality (when the plains of Nebraska briefly said goodbye to the sun). Watching the beginning partial stages of the eclipse reminded me of Cookie Monster taking bites out of his favorite cookie — it was fascinating to watch the “bites” get bigger and bigger until the sun was completely covered.

The live broadcast ended about 12:20pm which was 36 minutes prior to eclipse totality. I allowed my “cattle nerdiness” take over at the time and spent those next 45 minutes hanging out with the cattle. I loved being able to take the time to just stand in the middle of the herd — watching and interacting with them during this awesome event. It made me smile when “Freckles” the calf ambled over to stand next to me just prior to the decent of darkness and during the totality.

I was pleased to see my animals remain calm during the eclipse. By understanding the cattle and intuitively providing for all of their needs, the crew at Roberts set them up for success. It was a stress-free experience for the cattle which kept them comfortable and enabled them to thrive on a day filled with uncertainty. Cattle are creatures of habit so the occurrence of darkness in the middle of the day certainly provided a strange event for them. A big “thank you” to Greg, Brandon and all of the guys at Roberts who play such an important role taking care of my animals. You all are awesome!

I took some video and a few still pictures during the minutes leading up to the totality and during the short time of darkness. I am planning to put together a video of it for all of you that were not able to spend the eclipse surrounded by farm animals. Look for that later this week 🙂

Happy Eclipse Day!

What happens each day at a cattle feedlot?

This has been a week of tremendous learning and growing for me. I did my first Facebook Live broadcast and increased my tech savvy by leaps and bounds. For those of you that do not participate in Facebook, I was able to save the Live Broadcast and upload it to YouTube. This enables me to share it here!

So, take a few minutes — grab a cup of coffee — and watch my favorite blonde cowgirls and I interact with the Lazy YN Fall Calves.

I believe that the Live broadcast was a solid first effort. I have many things still to learn and work on; but I enjoyed the experience. To date, the live video has reached more than 15,500 people — with more than 6300 of them choosing to watch it. It is a raw, from the heart, unedited look at our cattle at the feed yard. I am very thankful that Megan and Karyn were able to help me out — it created a fun experience for the three of us to cap off the summer vacation.

Having gotten my feet wet this week with Live broadcasting, I am going to take the plunge on Monday to do a second broadcast via Innovative Livestock Services. As many of you know, we live within the Path of Totality for the #SolarEclipse2017. The partial eclipse will begin about 11:30am central time, with the short period of total darkness occurring just before 1:00pm.

Brandon and I with the fall calves…

The live broadcast will occur at 12:00pm central time during the partial eclipse. I am going with a “Tail Gate” theme and will be joined by Brandon Sorensen who is the Assistant Manager at Roberts Cattle Company. We are going to hang out with some of our Lazy YN calves and talk about Mother Nature, the eclipse, and how we care for our cattle in the feed yard.

I think that 12 months ago if anyone told me that I would be doing live social media video broadcasts from a feed yard, I would have looked at them like they were crazy. But, life is an interesting journey full of twists and turns.

While live broadcasts are a little bit scary and the end result (at least for an amateur like me) is not professionally polished, I think that they create a necessary level of transparency between farmers and our urban neighbors. Unedited creates a level of truth and trust that is hard to otherwise obtain. For that reason, I am taking the plunge.

I hope that you all will be able to join in and ask questions during the broadcast 🙂

Click here to access the Innovative Livestock Services facebook page.

In order to view the facebook live broadcast, you need to “like” or “follow” the page. Then click the “following” button just below the cover photo and make sure that you click “see first” and turn your notifications “on”.

Facebook Live!

Despite their remarks that summer has gone too fast, my girls head back to school on Wednesday. They’ve been on vacation for three months, but I have to admit that it seems like last week when we transitioned from school to the swim team season.

The warm summer months were filled with:

• Fitness training for both swimming and Cross Country
• Shooting thousands of baskets to prepare for basketball
• Taking care of our grass cattle and pasture ground
• And doing other farm chores….
• And welcoming a new puppy into our family!

 

I’m not sure exactly what the girls had in mind for their last day of summer, but their Mama decided to finish out the vacation with a Facebook Live broadcast from Roberts Cattle Company to visit our cattle at the feed yard.

I tell my girls that the road to excellence isn’t comfortable, so it seems appropriate to finish up the summer pushing my comfortable limits and forging into new territory. I’ve never done a Facebook Live broadcast, but I think that it is a great way to increase transparency and allow folks to have insight into life at a cattle feed yard.

I would ask that you all support me in this new endeavor by both sharing the news of the broadcast and getting online to participate in it. It will be at 7:30am central time tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. Just hop onto Facebook to the FeedYard Foodie page to watch. I plan for the broadcast to go approximately 10 minutes, so you can hang out with Karyn, Megan and I (along with our bovines) as you enjoy your morning coffee!

Please feel free to ask questions during the broadcast, or you can leave them here in the comment section of this blog prior to tomorrow morning.

• Have you ever wondered about the story of where your beef comes from?
• Do you want to know about life in a Nebraska feedlot?
• Are you looking for a way to start your day with a smile?

Join us tomorrow morning at 7:30am via Facebook Live 😊

See you then!

 

Visiting the Lazy YN Ranch Yearling Steers.

My favorite blondes and I visited the Lazy YN Ranch yearling steers this week at Roberts Cattle Company. The steers are living it up in Pen 73 and doing an amazing job of getting bigger! Hats off to the feed yard crew as the guys are doing an awesome job taking care of the cattle 🙂

Megan and Karyn were glad to see that the steers remembered us, and I am very thankful that my girls can continue to watch the calves through their entire life cycle as it serves as a great reminder of both where their food comes from and the dedicated people that it takes to raise beef with integrity.

We also moved the fall calves off of grass and into the feed yard this week as our grass supply is depleted. The fall calves have taken up residence at Roberts Cattle Company a couple of pens down from the yearling steers…

Megan celebrated moving the cattle with her first semi-truck ride 🙂