Perdue Passes Through Confirmation Process

When the U.S. Senate confirmed a new Secretary of Agriculture today it affirmed the nomination of a former governor, a veterinarian, an agribusiness entrepreneur…and a pilot. As a young man, Sonny Perdue flew a crop duster and, after college but prior to earning his DVM, served as an Air Force pilot.

George Ervin Perdue III still flies, and he qualified as a helicopter pilot while serving as governor of Georgia from 2002 to 2011. He’s been called Sonny since his childhood on a diversified Georgia crop and dairy farm and will be sworn in as ag secretary using the nickname.

[caption id="attachment_2492" align="alignright" width="200"] Sonny Perdue giving a press conference in Montevideo, Uraguay. Photo Credit: US Embassy in Uraguay[/caption]

If Sonny Perdue approaches his new duties in the same way he fulfilled his responsibilities as Georgia governor, expect him to emphasize steps that make the USDA run like a well-maintained combine. Before he left the governor’s office, Perdue told reporters he’d want to be remembered not for some monumental accomplishment but for “making government work.”

Perdue’s record as governor is strong on trade. He established Georgia’s international trade office in Beijing. During his administration, traffic at the port of Savannah increased from 24^th busiest in international shipments to 6^th. Sonny Perdue led trade delegations to Cuba (a major consumer of Georgia’s poultry) and to South America.

After leaving office, Perdue and cousin David Perdue (a former Dollar General Stores CEO) founded Perdue Partners, an Atlanta company that facilitates exports through “trading, partnerships, consulting services and strategic acquisitions.” (David Perdue was elected to the Senate in 2014 and serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee.) Sonny Perdue’s record on trade could resonate with legislators who initially hoped for a Midwestern nominee.

The last three ag secretaries were from Iowa, North Dakota and Nebraska. As a result, farm policy has focused on corn and soybeans. Southerners would prefer subsidy programs more favorable to rice and cotton. Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse said he wants to help Perdue understand “the unique interests of Midwest agriculture.”

Nevertheless, Republican leaders from the Midwest express optimism about working with Perdue. Backers point to his time on the board of the National Grain and Feed Association and as managing partner of AGrowStar, which operates elevators in Georgia and South Carolina. According to North Dakota’s Senator Hoeven, who met Perdue when they were both governors of their respective states, says “he knows how to work with everybody.”

Article Source Here: Perdue Passes Through Confirmation Process

Is Your Digital Marketing Hitting the Mark? This checklist can help.

Effective digital marketing is a moving target. The speed of change presents an ongoing challenge to every business serious about maximizing their digital presence and impact. Google, for example, continues to change how they present search results—both paid and organic.

The transition to mobile use in the digital arena is rapidly accelerating. Mobile use now accounts for almost two out of every three digital media minutes, according to a 2016 comScore study. This opens up a whole set of considerations that didn’t exist when desktop computers dominated the digital landscape.

So…how can you increase your digital marketing effectiveness in the coming year? We’re offering this basic checklist as both a place to start the planning process and a way to assess your progress.

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Digital Marketing Checklist

Start with your website

• How did your site perform last year? The better question may be, do you know how to determine site performance?
• Pretend your site isn’t your site. Try to imagine you’re a first-time visitor and assess how easily you can find your way around. Better yet, recruit a friend or family member—someone who truly is a first-time visitor—and get their feedback.
• View your site on a tablet or phone. Is it mobile-friendly? If not, what’s your plan to make that transition?
• What are your competitors doing? Did you like their content? What can you learn from what they are doing—and what do you want to avoid? Again, get input from a third-party visitor.

Consider your content

• Are you blogging? If so, are your blogs scheduled or created as an afterthought? Do the messages support your overall marketing goals, and do they provide true value to your target audience?
• Is your content professionally written, or does it fall to the team member who draws the short straw? Do all content pieces (online and offline and external sites) include intelligent, meaningful Calls to Action?
• Is there a comprehensive content strategy? If not, take the first step and set up an editorial calendar and writing schedule.
• Are you repurposing your best content to use in multiple channels—web, print, e-news and white papers, for example?

Are you social?

• Do you have a plan for social media marketing? Is your social media presence the responsibility of a dedicated individual on your staff?
• Is the content on your social platforms consistent with your overall marketing emphasis and branding, or is it a lonely island?
• Do you know how to analyze your metrics to determine engagement trends?

Can they find you?

• Do you have a working knowledge of SEO concepts, or is it a bit of a mystery?
• If the answer is yes, are you analyzing search phrases that bring traffic to your site? Are you developing web content to connect with these interests?
• Are you maximizing key SEO items in each blog post?

You’ve got mail

• Is your email capture strategy growing your list?
• How was your email marketing performance for opens and clicks?
• Were you communicating regularly? Are you using your best repurposed content to increase your impact?

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These are basic questions that will help point you in the right direction, and really just the tip of the iceberg. They may also reveal some areas in your digital plan that you have overlooked or underrepresented. If you need additional guidance, have questions or believe a fresh perspective would be helpful, contact us. This is what we do every day.

Read More Here: Is Your Digital Marketing Hitting the Mark? This checklist can help.

3 Ways Employees Can Help Protect Your Brand—Compliments of United Airlines

Sometimes, the best way to learn what to do is by observing what not to do. Case in point:

United Airlines overbooked a flight. Offered passengers $800 travel vouchers to get off the plane and take another flight. Not enough people took the bait, so a passenger was forcibly removed from the plane. The video exploded on social media. United Continental Holdings (UAL) market value dropped $250 million in the next day’s trading.

This incident goes to show how one false step can cause major headaches for a brand. And while your company may not have the brand name recognition of United Airlines, there’s something to be learned from their situation.

3 ways employees can help protect your brand story

1. Share your brand story with employees
   Make sure employees understand that your brand story is more than just the products and services you sell. It encompasses everything customers believe and feel about your business. Take advantage of company gatherings to share your brand story with employees. Make sure they understand your organization’s overall purpose, and what this means to the people you serve.
2. Task employees with sharing your brand story
   Employees are your brand ambassadors. They can promote (or devalue) your brand by how they interact with people and what they say on social media. So, it’s important employees understand their vital role in communicating your brand story. Give them examples (such as the United Airline story) of how their actions can impact your brand … for better or worse.
3. Empower employees to use common sense
   Your company has policies and procedures, and employees are expected to abide by those rules. Yet, it’s important to empower supervisors and frontline employees to use common sense.

Getting employees on board after a merger

Companies often spend considerable time educating their target audiences after a merger—but perhaps not so much time educating employees. Even though employees have new business cards or wear new uniforms, they don’t necessarily understand or embrace the merged company’s brand story.

United Airlines has struggled with its image ever since it merged with Continental Airlines in 2010. Perhaps the most recent incident is just one example of employees not knowing what United’s brand story is … or how to communicate it.

VistaComm has 20+ years experience helping agriculture businesses and farm cooperatives develop and share their brand stores. Contact us for ideas to help your business.

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Want help sharing the brand story for your ag business?

That’s VistaComm.

START THE CONVERSATION–TALK WITH US TODAY.

Read More Here: 3 Ways Employees Can Help Protect Your Brand—Compliments of United Airlines

One Simple Digital Marketing Trick You May Have Missed

Ok, I’m embarrassed to admit it. But as a journalist rather than a programmer, I used to look at a website, note the link labeled “sitemap” on the page, and think, “What’s the point? Isn’t that what the navigation is for? Why does anyone need a map? What is an XML sitemap?”

News flash. It’s not a map for people, but for bots.

Oh.

XML Sitemaps, and their importance in the world of digital marketing, can still be a mystery to many who enjoy only a casual relationship with the technical side of website development and SEO enhancement. At VistaComm, they are a mandatory addition to every website we create. Here is a quick explanation of what XML Sitemaps are, what they bring to the table and why you should care.

First: What is an XML sitemap?

What is a sitemap? Here’s a basic explanation straight from Google. “A sitemap is a file where you can list the web pages of your site to tell Google and other search engines about the organization of your site content. Search engine web crawlers like Googlebot read this file to more intelligently crawl your site.”

[caption id="attachment_2532" align="aligncenter" width="608"] Here is an example of an XML sitemap created by YoastSEO[/caption]

 

A sitemap can also provide information about specific pages, such as when the page was last updated, how often the page is changed and the importance of the page relative to others in the site.

Now: Why do you need one?

As in, why is this important. Ultimately, a sitemap helps with search engine optimization because it makes it easier for Google to find out about the content on your site so they can serve it up in the search results.

Here are some of the many other benefits of using an XML sitemap.

• Content alerts: Search engine rankings are now driven by content. Consistently placing fresh, relevant content on your site improves your visibility. A sitemap notifies Google whenever your site content is modified.
• Sitemap = roadmap: The whole point of website creation is to be found online, and having an XML sitemap will bring traffic to your site more quickly. This is particularly important for new websites.
• Emphasize the important: Sitemaps let you assign a priority to your web pages. This means that the pages carrying your most important content will be crawled and indexed faster than those with a lower value.
• Faster flow: Most content is better fresh, especially news. With a sitemap, spiders will find your fresh content faster...and so will your visitors.
• Continuing education: You can learn a lot about your visitors by monitoring your sitemap reports. You can track traffic sources, perform keyword searches and pinpoint errors to improve site performance. This information can help you improve your content and attract more traffic.

Creating a sitemap is a routine part of every website we design at VistaComm, but it is only one small part of a comprehensive digital marketing plan that can increase your online impact. For more information about our digital marketing program, contact us today.

Original Post Here: One Simple Digital Marketing Trick You May Have Missed