Farmers Streamline Their Social Media with Meta Business Suite
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we sit down with Barn2Door Farm Account Manager, Josh to talk all things Meta Business Suite.
The Meta Business Suite is a free social media management tool for Facebook and Instagram where users can do everything from creating and scheduling posts to analyzing engagement and growth on each platform. Josh shares his tried-and-true tips and tricks for Farmers to use the tool to scale their social media strategies.
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Rory Loughran: Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. I'm Rory, your host for today's episode. We've got a great conversation for you today with one of the members of our farm account management or FAM team. Our FAMs are dedicated to helping farmers implement tactics to help drive sales, access more customers, and save time and money.
This is actually the first episode in a miniseries we're starting Barn2Door Social Media Tactics. In this series, we'll hear from Barn2Door experts and farm leaders to hear tips and tricks to save time, grow your social media following, and drive sales with social platforms.
[00:01:00] To kick things off in this new series today, we're joined by Josh Schmook. Welcome Josh. Welcome back. It's good to have you here again.
Josh Schmook: Hey. Yeah, thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Rory Loughran: To start off, I know we've had a few different FAMs on the podcast before. Uh but to start out, could you just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about how you work with farmers in your role?
Josh Schmook: Yeah, absolutely. So as Rory mentioned, my name is Josh. I'm part of the farm account management team over here. My main goal is to help farmers with their marketing strategies, grow their business, and overall just help them succeed.
Rory Loughran: It's one of the coolest jobs at Barn2Door is you guys are working with farmers every day, and being able to provide, they're through that onboarding stage. And so you guys are really able to hone in on like, okay, what are you trying to work on right now? I'm sure that's something you enjoy doing.
Josh Schmook: Oh, totally. It is a lot of fun. And like no one farm is the same too, which is always great, and everyone's always so [00:02:00] excited to dive into it. Everyone has a really great product, so it's always fun to, to watch them hit their goals.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Awesome. Well, so like I mentioned, today we'll be focusing, focusing a lot on social media. And we'll be doing that for a few episodes here in this series. And more specifically today we're gonna be talking about a tool that farmers can use to help manage it, and that is the Meta Business Suite.
But before we get to that at Barn2Door, we recommend that farmers limit the social media platforms that they, their business is present on, just in an effort to save themselves some time and maybe some sanity, and still reach their target audience.
So to start off, what platforms should farmers have accounts on that you recommend to engage their customers and grow the awareness of their business.
Josh Schmook: Yeah, everyone definitely has their preferences, but I would say the top two, would be like Instagram and Facebook, right? Everyone's on, has a Facebook account. Everyone has an Instagram account checking it, every day, and there's a lot [00:03:00] of flexibility of both of those platforms, so it's kind of a no-brainer.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. I feel like people probably were, or farmers were probably very happy to hear their Facebook, cuz I think that's the one a lot of people are most familiar with. Instagram I think can sometimes be a challenge for folks because there's that imagery aspect of it and I think there's probably just a lot of people that are excited you didn't say TikTok.
Josh Schmook: Absolutely though that is getting traction.
Rory Loughran: so true, true. It's growing. So what are some of the challenges you most commonly see farmers face with dealing with their social media?
Josh Schmook: Yeah, when they get to us after having the, that initial handoff call, one of our jobs and one of the most fun things, in my opinion, is really assessing their social media and like branding altogether. What most people mention to me, when we do this is, the biggest challenge is time and creating some of that [00:04:00] content, which totally makes sense.
I mean, it's not always easy to, you know, post every day, especially when you're working hard. As you know, all of our farmers are.
Rory Loughran: You were kind of just touching on time. That time is usually the biggest constraint.
Josh Schmook: Yep, time and just like content.
Rory Loughran: If you go through that initial first assessment, what's the action plan from there? How do you work with farmers to, to overcome those challenges?
Josh Schmook: Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those things to kind of walk them through. Facebook, Instagram, just some of the basics of, you know, really getting into it. At first, you know, it can seem super daunting, especially like getting thrown, uh, with the complexity of Barn2Door learning that software, learning that system, and then everything there in between.
So really just taking the steps there to make sure that they're good and comfortable with it. Going through, some of their past posting cadences has been a definitely a big one.
Rory Loughran: Why is that something you look at and what are you taking away from [00:05:00] that? How are you using posting cadence, I guess as, as maybe a benchmark or something to kind of move forward?
Josh Schmook: Yeah, great question. Some of our most successful farmers on the platform are posting between like three and four times a week, and doing that fairly consistently I should say. Some folks, especially when they're, you know, traversing, the social media sphere, if you will, they post really sporadically.
One thing with a business account, especially on Facebook or on Instagram, is businesses have to fight that much, harder to, you know, get in front of their intended subscriber, their intended follower. So keeping up that posting cadence is a really like, really key thing to do.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. And I think that's always the challenge is keeping something up, uh, over a longer periods of time. It's easy if you get the excitement and passion for it one week, but then making sure you're doing that all month and all year is where some of those challenges lie.
But, that's a great segue, getting [00:06:00] into the. The main topic of today's episode. I guess I'll start at at square one. What is the Meta Business Suite
Josh Schmook: That is a great question and I've like wrapped my head around how to define it honestly in like my opinion, it's kind of like a Swiss Army knife for all of your social media. You can get analytics, which is gonna be super helpful for knowing which content lands with your subscribers. The helpful scheduling of posts, different just data points that are like really, really intricate and actually really, really cool once you really dive into it.
I guess an all-in-one solution for social media.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. So how does that kind of help small businesses, maybe specifically with their social media, because I know that is, a lot of the users of the meta business suite is, is small businesses. Why does it work particularly well for them?
Josh Schmook: Totally. Like I mentioned before, that, saving a ton of time with posting or scheduling posts to go out. [00:07:00] And I always, I kind of, uh, have coined the term, finding folks that are interested adjacent. It's that third degree of followers that are interested in, you know, what some of the business owners are doing in their day-to-day business, but maybe haven't found them yet.
This is a really good tool to kind of grasp that third degree of folks.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Awesome. That's, I really like how you explained that. So I guess that the next question with any kind of tool like this, is always how much does it cost or, or is it free? And so what is, where does the Meta Business Suite fall in that area?
Josh Schmook: Well, I'm super happy to say that it is a free tool. It's as easy as just having a Facebook account, really, which is so, so nice.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, That's great. Well, that's, that's one we, that's a price tag everybody loves. And so I guess kinda, yeah, going from there, when should maybe, when should farmers maybe start to consider if they don't [00:08:00] have this set up already, when should they consider. To start managing their accounts on the Meta Business Suite.
Josh Schmook: Truthfully, I would say, you know, as soon as they can, as soon as they have the flexibility, and their schedule to do so. Um, really one of the reasons being is catching some of those like analytical data points early on so that they can see over time posting cadences, likes, comments, subscribes, sends all the good little nuggets of information.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely having that, and being able to see the growth and the improvement from that. You know, if you get on earlier when you're first starting your accounts or when you're first starting to try and grow your presence online and sell online, um, I'm sure that can lead to some really cool insights down the road as you focus on that more and kind of see the fruits of that.
Josh Schmook: Uh, fruits, no pun intended, right,
Rory Loughran: Yeah, Uh, awesome. Well, we [00:09:00] talked with Richard not too long ago, another Barn2Door FAM, about the Google Business profiles. And I think one of the great things about that was he talked about how easy it is to set up. What's kind of the, the setup process for getting started with the Meta Business suite.
Josh Schmook: Yeah, that's a great question. So as long as a farm has a business page or has a Facebook account, they can previous easily hop in here and check it out. When they log into their Facebook account, there's a little slew of a bunch of tools, usually on the left hand side, depending on when Facebook updates their interface.
Of course, there's a little option there for selecting the meta business. From there, Facebook does a really good job of walking like the user through some of the tools, some of the little like analytical data points that I mentioned earlier, but with us, especially as FAMs, it's nice to kind of be there as a learning guide to assist with any questions as they come up.[00:10:00]
Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. I can imagine. I feel like that would be a lot to take in when you're first jumping into it.
Josh Schmook: For sure.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. So if a farmer already has a, an Instagram account that they're using for their farm or a Facebook account that they're using for their farm, that isn't registered as like a business account, is that a problem?
Do they need to make a separate account?
Josh Schmook: That's a really great question, and I'm glad that you've asked. It does get a little tricky, but it is possible to essentially move those over. Say like if you have 900 followers on like your personal page, creating a business page starting at zero would be kind of a bummer to lose all those people, right?
There is a way to merge them together. And um, that's something that I've assisted with other farmers with as well. And that being said to you, there's other really great practices and really great, like best steps to try to organically convert some of those folks over to.
Rory Loughran: and it, [00:11:00] but that sounds like, is it a pretty manual process? Is it easier and better to start as a business account?
Josh Schmook: definitely. If possible, highly, highly recommend going with the business account first.
Rory Loughran: And I guess just to, to clarify for folks too, if they're unsure of that, is there a way you can check and see if you're, you will currently have a business account? Cause I know sometimes people set up their Facebook account for their farm or their own account years ago, and then it's like, oh wait, is this a business account or not?
How could you check that? And then if they do need to look at maybe switching it over to a business account, how could they get this, the ball start rolling there?
Josh Schmook: Totally. So to tell if you have a personal Facebook account, they'll be lacking a lot of tools as you would normally get with a business account. One major one is being the swap ability from pages that you like, manage. So If you're in your personal Facebook account, one thing that you'll see up on, usually like the right corner or like mostly right [00:12:00] in your face, is the ability to switch to a page that you manage.
If that isn't there, you're in your business page. If that is there, you're in your personal page.
Rory Loughran: Okay. Good to know. That's a good clear indicator. And then if you do create a business account, would that then be one of those managed pages that would be under a personal account.
Josh Schmook: Yep, that's right.
Rory Loughran: Okay. So you kind of have to start with a personal account either way.
Josh Schmook: Yeah. Either way. You have to have, say for example, I would have to have, uh, my Josh Schmook account and then Josh Schmook's Farm Bela, the business account that I manage.
Rory Loughran: Oh, okay. Very cool. All right, that's great clarification. So I know we've kind of touched on a few of these features, but what are some of the most popular features that farmers might want to make sure they're utilizing right off the.
Josh Schmook: Yeah, that's a great question. I'd say. If above all else a [00:13:00] farm or a business had to look through, play with anything, the top three features would be the planner tool for really scheduling out those posts. Definitely the messaging tool, it sounds really silly, but it's a great space to view all of your messages across Facebook and Instagram.
And then with the added bonus of there, too, setting up automations for when somebody visits one of your social pages. And then lastly from there, the insights tool that's gonna house a lot of that, analytical data that I mentioned earlier.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Something you touched on there, those automations, and I know that's something we're really big on, is trying to automate as much as possible for farmers so that they don't have to, waste time doing little minute repeat tasks. What are some of those automations that exist to, for that the meta business week can then just start doing for you automatically?
Josh Schmook: Totally with the messages. A farm, business can [00:14:00] set up an automation. When somebody view, uh, hops onto your profile, that welcomes the individual to the profile, maybe lists some frequently asked questions that they may have or even set up, a little message for, top products that they're trying to push for, you know, that particular week or month.
So, really, really handy.,
Rory Loughran: Yeah, super. That's awesome. And I love that that's customizable. You can update it over time if you want to kind of change the goals of that. And I think folks are, might even be familiar with that if you've been to somebody else's or a business's Facebook page and there is that little popup, um, that's a really cool way to kind of grab people's attention.
And I believe it's kind of customized too. If you pop in there, it would say, Hey Josh. And then whatever other information they throw in there.
Josh Schmook: Yeah, exactly. And even there too, as businesses just get started, there's a lot of little layouts that they can use that are already pre-made with all the designated like plug and play information. Or to your point, they can totally [00:15:00] customize whatever they wanna automate.
Rory Loughran: that's really cool. That's a great feature for farmers to, you know, you don't have to be monitoring your inbox all the time for potential customers to get a quick response or interaction with you, which is really great. I know the first thing you mentioned there was scheduling and the planner tool.
And this I think is maybe one of the things I'm most excited about, but, How does scheduling post work, could you maybe explain like why that might be advantageous for farmers?
Josh Schmook: Yeah, absolutely. Normally this is like the kind of the cherry on top whenever I'm going through the Meta business suite. The planner tool is really, really helpful for scheduling posts, scheduling any Facebook reels, Instagram videos, um, anything really like that. And when, uh business goes to the planner tool within the meta business suite, they have a toggle down option that'll walk them through the different posts that they may want to.
Usually what I do is select the [00:16:00] post option so that farmers can then walk through entering in any photos, any videos, any links, any information that they would, you know, normally post out there.
Rory Loughran: This is all so cool and I think, I guess I was gonna take a step back too and kind of talk through. You know, it, it's great that it can work with all these different kinds of posts because, that meta, I guess being the parent company of Facebook and Instagram is able to kind of build all these super custom and niche features, so that you can send out reels to Instagram and videos to Facebook, and whatever capabilities that those allow.
So that's really great. I'm curious, how far out can you schedule posts, in the meta business suite, you know, is, does a farmer need to maybe if they want to be batching and getting all their social media content done at one time, is that something they should be doing weekly? Could they do it monthly? How far out can you schedule those?
Josh Schmook: Yeah, that's a another great question. I was actually really surprised by this, but they can [00:17:00] do three months worth, worth of post. So like three months off of their plate while like still in the background they know, Hey, my post is gonna go out. Hey, my store link's gonna go out.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. That's really awesome. And I'm even thinking too, just as a reminder too, you could, cuz I'm assuming you can kind of like have a drafted post start before you actually submit it to be published at that date. So, you could go through and just knock out holidays or things like that.
Think days, you know you're gonna want to get something out three months ahead of time. That's a huge time saver.
Josh Schmook: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, even with that too, we have some farmers that are using the marketing toolkit that Barn2Door offers, and that's a really great resource for just plugging and play some of that, some of that information as far as social posts, little like video nods and different things like that.
There's, uh, another functionality within there too, and totally talk about this all day, but something called AB [00:18:00] testing, which will, in a nutshell create a, kind of audience, a shadow audience, testing out your posts to see which content or which type of post is gonna work best with your subscribers.
Rory Loughran: Wow, that's really cool. I'm just blown away that all these capabilities are in here for free, because I know could probably spend 50 to 60 bucks on a pretty, uh, a, a month, I guess I should say for a pretty base level social media content planning tool like this, you can spend much more than that too, for other tools and softwares that'll do the same thing.
But, the fact that Meta has this kind of built locally and available for free is, it's super helpful. And folks should definitely need to be taken advantage of it. Uh,
Josh Schmook: extremely
Rory Loughran: and, so, and it does support multiple platforms, those being Instagram and Facebook. Is there anything else beyond that or are there any types of posts that it might not support?
Josh Schmook: So really the, the only two things that it supports is gonna be [00:19:00] to your point, Instagram and Facebook, but full functionality within Instagram and Facebook. Any posts that you would normally do. And then again, any videos.
Rory Loughran: Wow. Yeah, that's really great. And available, like in the reels format, carousel posts, like where, you know, you can swipe through multiple images. Does it allow you, cuz I know there are, we've talked on the podcast before too, and we always talk about this in the Social Media academy, there's almost like different rules around posts with Instagram and Facebook.
Like, for example, you can put a link, a hyperlink, or not a hyperlink, but a regular link in a post on Facebook. But that's not something you can do on Instagram. Does the Meta Business Suite allow you to kind of tailor your, even your captions for the, for an individual post to each.
Josh Schmook: So with the Meta business suite, you can post to both Facebook and Instagram at the same time, which is nice, but exactly to your point right now, Instagram doesn't have the capability to allow like, hyperlinks to be posted to a specific post.
One [00:20:00] thing that we usually recommend, especially as you know, farmers are growing their Instagram following is to utilize something called Link Tree and always, refer back to their main, like about them section on their Instagram. Now, to go into it a little bit, what a link tree is a nice little, uh, link that will spit out three different links than an individual can, view and click on.
So think of it being their website, the store link and maybe even their, MailChimp signup form.
Rory Loughran: Very cool. Yeah, I know. Um, link tree. I feel like I see that on a lot of accounts. Definitely pretty widespread. And kind of a nice way to be able to pack more than just one link into your, the bio section of your Instagram account. But, so that's good to know. Well, I'm curious, are there any kind of, drawbacks I guess to, to setting up a farm social media in the Meta business suite?
Are there any limitations to the platform that we should note?
Josh Schmook: That's a [00:21:00] great question, too. Honestly, the only limitation that I could think of was, just that Instagram hangup with, you know, not being able to post those links. So if you are in the meta business suite and you are posting out, you know, a link to an item in your store, you might have to do two different posts.
So one with Facebook that includes the link. One separate Instagram post that would just direct folks back to their about them section.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm. . Okay. Yeah. That's great. Well, I'm glad we had the bases covered there. And then I was curious, are there any instances that you've run into working with farms or that you can think of where the Meta business suite wouldn't be useful. It seems like this is kind of a no-brainer. But are there any cases like that?
Josh Schmook: Truthfully, if they're not ready for the all the potential success they might get from posting, and keeping relevant with a lot of their followers. But honestly, outside of that, it's kind of, it's funny to your point, it's like a no-brainer. It's one of those things that absolutely like, [00:22:00] dive into it.
Um, lot of, lot of really great things.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Um, well I know when I kind of asked you before, what are some of the best features about this, that third one you had mentioned was the analytics. And so obviously, tracking your progress, your success, keeping track of, what you're doing is always really important.
I was wondering if you could speak to that feature as well and what are some of the ways farmers can be utilizing that to, to make sure they're growing.
Josh Schmook: Totally. So with that, they can pull, a number of reports to see, you know, how they performed last month as far as how many posts have really gotten enough reactions, enough comments on it. The, what I always tell, farmers when they, come over to me is the name of the game is to really stay top of mind with your customers, with your subscribers pushing out content that's gonna be, really digestible, really relevant.
Again, if that's a post, if that's an Instagram reel, if that's a Facebook video, is gonna [00:23:00] be super, super key and kind of harping back on the saving time. If they find that data, they find something that works, they can just keep pushing that out there.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's, that's really great. And man, I'm just, there's so much. I just keep thinking of how much you could pay for some of these things, and it's really great that this is free, and that you can get those insights from it. And the time savings obviously is huge. So, I hope folks listen to this and if they're not already using the Meta Business suite, they get signed up because like we said, it's free.
This has gotta be the best free social media management tool out there. At least that I've heard of. Would you say the same?
Josh Schmook: absolutely.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Okay, cool. Well, um, I was curious if you had any examples of farms that are really doing well on social media. I know you talked, you know, you guys, some of the most successful farms are doing three or four posts a week, and sometimes that seems like, oh my gosh, that seems overwhelming to a lot of farms.
What are some examples of folks that are doing that, [00:24:00] doing it well, and maintaining it over time?
Josh Schmook: Yeah, like three farms that really came top of mind. One being Chucktown Acres. I actually, when I was first on the podcast, I actually did my podcast on his podcast. One really great nugget that I just like, I still love was you just have to do it. And it might seem silly and it might seem uncomfortable at first, but it's one of those things that you really have to do.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Josh Schmook: The two others, Old Rich Valley Farm, I work with them personally. They're super, super great. Got a really good footprint and a really good handle on all of their social media. And then, definitely Dan and Debbie's Creamery as well. They host some of our, social media academies, which are always a treat to watch cuz she just does so well.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm. . Yeah, that's, those are, I mean, yeah, you picked three awesome social media farms. Uh, and I think to your points there, with Chucktown Acres, you know, Alex's point about, you [00:25:00] just kind of have to do it. You gotta get something out. I think this whole Meta Business Suite makes that just a little bit easier.
Being able to, you know, sometimes you might sit down and work on a post for five minutes and you finally get it out. Being able to sit down for 30 minutes and take care of the entire week and then know that you don't have to come back to that for some time. That's so great. And , it's, I think that's kind of a lot of what we're about at Barn2Door, you know, is, is with online sales you invest a little bit of time or, or a good-
I mean, I don't wanna understate it. I guess you invest time to get your store set up. But that saves you time in the long run letting the software kind of do the work for you. And with Amy from Old Rich Valley, their social media is great. I love they, they feature their kids on it a ton. Some of the posts are hilarious. That's a great farm, um, account for folks to check out.
And of course, uh, Josie's really locked in at Dan and Debbie's creamery as well. They've got awesome content there. So yeah, that was three great, great examples. Thanks. [00:26:00] Uh, well, great. We, I know we've covered a lot about the Meta Business Suite today.
And like I said, it's, it's a tool to manage and streamline all that social media management, kind of similar to, to Barn2Door in terms of managing and streamlining your business operations. What would be your top two pieces of advice to kind of round us out here for farmers looking to improve their social media strategy, gain more followers, or grow their brand?
What is like kind of your top two tips?
Josh Schmook: So I've definitely got two, but I also have a bonus, so we're gonna call it three.
Rory Loughran: Okay.
Josh Schmook: The first and foremost is really just keep posting. Can't say it enough. Pushing out that content there, it's so important. And one thing that I know some people feel strange about, I feel the same way too, is that nobody's gonna be annoyed by the amount of times that you post.
They want this information, they want, you know, the product that you all have out there. So keep posting. Another thing. Keep [00:27:00] promoting yourself. You know, keep directing folks back to your social media channels, back to your email list. All that synergy is gonna come really, really into play, and make you a more successful, more like well-rounded, business individual.
And then for my bonus tip, always interact with your audience. It is super important to, make your social profile seem like a social profile, like you're reaching back out to, you know, anyone that reaches out to you.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, that's really great. I love, and I love that, we touched on some of that messaging capability, but being able to interact with people is huge. And I think that a lot of times that's something that they're, if somebody's buying from a local farm, that's kind of something they're looking for to begin with.
They want a more personalized experience. So, being able to answer their questions over social media is really great.
Well, awesome. I love the bonus answer that you had there. And so for your bonus answer, I'm gonna actually hit you with a bonus question. Um, and that is, if you know folks are listening [00:28:00] to this and it still is sounding overwhelming, you know, getting set up in this or you know, that three to four posts a week managing it all, what would be your advice to them if, it still seems overwhelming.
Social media media's a big world. How can they help, you know, have a clear path forward?
Josh Schmook: Yeah, no, that is a great bonus question. And definitely something too that hits us when farms come over to the farm account management side of things. I would say for those times that are, seems super daunting, just really keeping at it. Maybe three to four posts is, you know, too much at first.
Narrow it down a little bit and then gradually go off to that. The worst thing you could do is not post, and the best thing that you could do is keep going at it.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. Putting things out there will never be a bad thing. So that, that, that's true. And I know sometimes if it seems tough, you know, you can always ask for help too. If, I don't know if people have kids that maybe are more familiar with social media or somebody even that just works at the farm or anything like that.
But I [00:29:00] think the reassuring thing is that if you can use tools like this, even if you're a one man or a one woman show, you can make it manageable. And so that's what's really great about this tool.
Well, Josh, thanks so much for joining us and I hope folks if they're not using it already, we'll start jumping on the Meta Business Suite.
Josh Schmook: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. As you can tell, this is a super powerful tool. Super, super important. Love talking about this stuff.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Awesome. Thanks so much, Josh.
I want to extend my thanks to Josh for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Join us next time as we continue the Barn2Door Social Media Tactic Series. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of farms across the country who implement sustainable agricultural practices and support their local communities.
We're honored to get the opportunity to learn from our account managers what tactics the most successful farmers are using to grow and manage their farm businesses. If you would like to connect with a range of farm advisors, you can attend Barn2Door Connect, and you can register for those weekly sessions [00:30:00] at barn2door.com/connect.
Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time.
Josh Schmook: Thank you.