Women run social media workshops for rural sector

Lucy Griffiths and Chelsea Millar.

Bringing rural businesses and the agri-sector up to speed with social media and connecting them with the world is a current goal of business women Lucy Griffiths and Chelsea Millar.

Both women are founders of the Rural Voice national social media seminar and workshop series, which is bringing rural businesses together to educate and up-skill members of the industry and in the process, boost regional business economies. The series has held two workshops over the past two months, and this month on April 27 one is being held in New Plymouth.

"Taranaki is a rich farming community with diverse agribusinesses and it's time they started sharing their stories with the rest of NZ and the world," says Lucy.

The seminar will cover the latest techniques on how to market products and services using Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and how to develop a marketing and social media plan to increase brand awareness and sales.

The Rural Voice duo saw a gap in the market for their seminar series and have been humbled by the great response to the workshops.

"There's a growing community of farmers on Twitter and a greater number of rural community members across platforms like Facebook. But the presence of agribusinesses on the growing medium of social media as a whole is lacking.

"Rural businesses in NZ are keen to use social media but there's not a lot of professional help out there for them compared to the big cities. We hope to change that," says Lucy.

More information on the workshops can be found at www.ruralvoice.co.nz