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It’s quite conceivable that the old adage, “It’s not what you know, but who you know,” is the essence to cultivating social media success and I would venture to say it takes a patient and determined mining within the web chasms to define your voice and seek out your audience. This morning, I was inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk’s riotous call to action, “The Personal Brand Gold Rush is going on, where are you?” The metaphor shades the frontiers of the social web in the colors of the Wild West; taking the metaphor a step further, the act of gold prospecting could be synonymous with finding your audience, the influencers, and those willing to spread your story. Give your audience the tools they need to tell the story in their own words and watch your riches grow be they monetary or otherwise. Social Networking let’s you do what people have done throughout history, which is sharing stories. What to watch, where to go, what to eat, and what to buy are often determined by what are friends tell us.
So with a bit of audience-mining in mind and considering Gary V’s encouragement to define the thing you are an expert in and claim the space, I thought I would have fun with a little prospecting of my own. I thought I’d take a niche field and suggest a bit of social media gun slinging to thwart off potential prospectors and stab claim to your rightful web property. Giddy-up.
A Blueberry Farmer ~ 
I’m willing to bet that your local, blueberry farmer can toil more than enough web soil to seed a bright and blueberrific future. Here’s the scenario: local, family owned and operated farm wants to gain some of the local market share, spread the word about their products and create some long-term loyalty and patronage. Easy enough. For the sake of the article, let’s look at Sauvie Island Farms based here in Portland, Oregon. They have a website with quite a bit of information including the crops they grow, the cycle of seasons, recipes, photos, about us, links etc… and they have a blog written by The Farmer’s Wife. The blog is up-to-date with topical posts. These are sufficient for someone to grab quick information doing on online search, however, all arrows are pointing inward. The idea behind social networking is about reaching outward, extending the hand of information, connection, conversation, entertainment, tools, ideas or whatever you decide that differentiates you and remains true to your image. A video or a podcast seems an easy and inexpensive way for Sauvie Island Farms to enter the web 2.0 space. It could be a series based on happenings around the farms, new recipes, a live-crop-cam, visits to the local famers’ market, a day in the life of a farmer, how the blueberry was won, or any other idea that strikes their fancy.
Build it and the foodies will come. Once you have created your content, it’s time to network. There are countless online social networks geared towards foodies and several hundred networks with active advocates for keeping it locally grown. Also, you can join blogging communities in your niche, find out who are the top bloggers in your field with a large audience and reach out to them via commenting on their blog posts or maybe you can befriend them on your favorite micro-blogging site like Twitter or Plurk. By creating portable and sharable bite size bits of content, you can share them within all of the communities you belong, allowing your audience to get the word out for you. You might even be an early adopter in a niche space like advocating the health benefits of the blueberry and claim your share of the spotlight before anyone else. Good for you, good for the berries, good for everyone and good as gold!
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