Farm Credit sponsored the Trade Talk Social Media Corps for the first time ever and brought them to NAFB 2013. The team is made up of seven students from colleges all over the nation who are all majoring in agriculture communications. Farm Credit’s National Communications Director Margaret Fogarty took on the task of heading up the students and teaching them the ropes.

“We had the idea that we wanted to expand and amplify the conversation from the trade talk floor through channels in the social media space,” said Fogarty. “We wanted to expand the conversation and get some interest from folks in the industry who aren’t able to be here at the event.”

Following NAFB, there may be a future for the Social Media Corps.

“We are already talking to folks about bringing the Social Media Corp to other industry events throughout 2014,” Fogarty said.

The students posted throughout trade talk on various facets of social media including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. They posted interviews with companies they sought interest in, video clips, photos, and posts. Following trade talk students will continue with blog posts and follow up pictures from the event. They used various hashtags like #NAFB13 and #TradeTalkSocial.

Listen to my interview with Margaret here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/nafb/nafb-13-margaret-fogarty.mp3″ text=”Interview with Margaret Fogarty”]

Checkout photos from NAFB Convention: 2013 NAFB Convention Photo Album