Amplify Your Advocacy
Shaye Koester 00:02
Hey, hey, it's Shaye Koester and I'm your host for the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast where we connect you to ranchers and beef industry enthusiast who can help you build a more profitable operation and improve your lifestyle. Are you looking for a community of ranchers who support and challenge you to be more profitable and proactive? Then sign up for our monthly ranchermind events, rancherminds, are mastermind events for ranchers to come together once a month, and find solutions for their own and the industry's challenges. Stay connected by following cattleconvos on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and never miss an episode or event update by signing up for our newsletter on casualcattleconversations.com/newsletter. If you get value out of this episode or any episode, drop a comment or tip me by using the link in the show notes. With that, let's see who our guest is today and connect you to a new resource to improve your own operation and lifestyle. Welcome to the show or welcome back if you are a returning listener. Before we jump into this episode, I just want to let you know that I am booking speaking engagements for 2022. If you're interested, please either email me or DM me on social media. I've talked about anything from advocacy to entrepreneurship, to podcasting before so I'm definitely interested in that. Now. Let's talk about who we're going to visit with today. And today we are visiting with Tara Vander Dussen, who you may know as the New Mexico Milkmaid on social media. However, she's going to talk with us about some actionable tips to amplify your advocacy. We talk about how she got started and some social media advice for you as a fellow advocates. With that, let's hear what Tara has to share. But first, let's hear what program our friends from the Red Angus Association want to share with you to help you gain more value from your calves.
Red Angus Association of America 02:09
Value-added programs are on the rise in the beef industry as input costs increase and margins remain tight. Enterprising producers are exploring new ways to improve their return on investment and open doors to new marketing avenues. The Red Angus Feeder Calf Certification Program, the most mature value-added program in the beef industry, is expanding and helping more producers earn premiums on their calves. The FCCP combines three important components into a single value-added program: genetics, source and age verification. Cattle producers recognize the value of the yellow FCCP tag and continue to see market-topping premiums for a minimal investment by enrolling their Red Angus-sired calves. For more information on Red Angus value-added programs and the FCCP, please visit RedAngus.org.
Shaye Koester 03:04
Thank you for hopping on the show today. It's great to meet you again over zoom. Hopefully someday we can meet in person but would you start off and really introduce yourself and talk about your background in agriculture?
Tara Vander Dussen 03:18
Yeah, so first of all, thank you for having me on. I'm really excited to share with you today. Yes, I hope we get to meet in person some point. But zoom will do for now. So my name is Tara Vander Dussen. I share online as the New Mexico Milkmaid. So if you follow me online, that's probably what you know me as I grew up on a dairy farm in eastern New Mexico and my when I went away to college, it sounds so cliche, but I didn't think I was gonna come back to the farm. I thought I was gonna do something different. I didn't really know exactly when I first started college what I wanted to do. But while I was going to college, my dad actually was working with our state Environment Department to work through the regulations and requirements for dairy permits in our state. And, I ended up just really finding it fascinating. I found that there was a big disconnect between dairy farmers and the regulators. But I felt like they had the same goal. They just weren't speaking the same language. So I ended up going to school, got my degree in environmental science and came back, married a dairy farmer just down the road. We now live on his family dairy farm with our two girls and I spent the last 10 years working as an environmental consultant for dairies throughout the southwest. So my husband does all day to day operations in the dairy farm. And then I have clients and that are dairies and farms throughout New Mexico that I consult on.
Shaye Koester 04:54
Well, that is awesome. And I know like you know, we talked before like yes, you are dairy and this is a beef podcast. But ultimately, the industries are connected. And it is super important that, you know, today we're talking about advocating and we need to advocate for both industries, really. So, you know, the environmental side, that's super interesting, but really looking at your social media platform. You know, what made you want to start advocating on social media?
Tara Vander Dussen 05:21
Yeah, and I'm so glad you said that about beef, because I like dairy is our focus. But dairy, you know, beef is our second biggest producer on a dairy farm. And I feel like sometimes that goes not like unnoted, but it just isn't something that's always a shared like, it's like, oh, their beef ranchers and their dairy producers, but it's so much more intertwined, especially now, even on our dairy, you know, we're breeding to Angus crosses. So you know, beef is even more like upfront in our minds nowadays. And so then to the social media side, so it's kind of a it wasn't like a straightforward journey for me to start sharing. I had been thinking about it for a while and I think it seemed like kind of a natural fit for me. I already felt like I was kind of that communicator between dairy farmers and regulators and so with the idea of being able to share online kind of came about, um, it seemed, yeah, just very natural to then move into being, you know, a liaison between farmers and consumers. And then another part of that was, at that same time, I was kind of thinking about, you know, what I wanted to share online. I had, you know, my young daughter who was only like 18 months old. And so I, like most Millennial Moms, joined a bunch of Facebook groups when I became a mom and was, you know, seeing what you were supposed to feed your kids when you were supposed to feed them? What type of milk were you supposed to give them? Like I was seeing all those comments, all that information. And I was seeing a ton of misinformation at the exact same time. And I was really surprised to see how much of the misinformation wasn't about like the nutrient content, or, you know, what was in milk. It was about like, the environment and environmental regulations, and you know, the sustainability piece. And so I just felt like it was just a very, like, a perfect fit. Because I think before that, I didn't know exactly what I would share. I don't work like directly with the cows. I don't have a traditional job on our dairy farm. And so when I started seeing these conversations around sustainability in the environment, it was just like, yes, that's, that's what I do. That's what I should be sharing about. And so at the third piece of my story is of how I started sharing. The actual day I started sharing was we actually had a freak blizzard. We don't have blizzards in New Mexico. We had a blizzard, I woke up and I share just like a very heartfelt post, it ended up going viral and I kinda was just like now or never. So that day, I sat down and started my blog. And then it's just kind of grown. I started with a blog, then I went to Instagram, I've added Facebook, I finally started sharing on Twitter, for better or worse. So it's kind of just, you know, it was just it evolved and has changed over the years. So that was probably the longest answer ever. And I'm sorry, but that's how I started sharing online.
Shaye Koester 08:09
Well, you know, I think it's important that that was a long answer. Because as you look at different people in different individuals, different advocacy journeys, I think it is a lot of things that pile up and finally get to that point of, hey, now or never I'm this is how I'm going to advocate because advocacy comes in so many forms, whether that's in person, just that in person word of mouth, or if it is that social media factor.
Tara Vander Dussen 08:36
Yes. And I think that that is kind of one of my tips, actually, for sharing is definitely like, it's easy to look at an influencer wherever they're at an advocate and say like, oh my gosh, I could never get there. You have to remember like we all started I've been sharing for six years online like this. I didn't just wake up and have like a social media following. I started sharing to friends and family. I felt really stupid, because I always felt like I was just sharing to, you know, people that already knew me. Like, I remember my first intro post, it was like, Hi, I'm Tara and I'm an environmental scientist. And it felt so stupid because I think I hit like 300 followers, but for me, I just had to wake up like it was literally one day where it was like, Okay, today, my Instagram is now about advocacy. And that was it. Like from then on my page has been about that. And so I feel like that was the easiest way for me to tackle it is just to be like, Okay, today's the day, like I'm sharing and transition kind of from a personal page to you know, a more ag focused, you know, sharing page.
Shaye Koester 09:46
So with that you took the personal page that you already had, and you transitioned it. You just kept that same page and transitioned it into an advocacy page. You didn't start a separate one.
Tara Vander Dussen 09:58
I didn't. So I started with my blog and now I think I was like, I feel like that was a year or two into my blog before I really decided to start sharing on Instagram, which now looking back, I'm like, Why did I do that that way? But that was how I did it. I had just been sharing my blog post on my personal Facebook and my personal Instagram. And so yeah, I took my personal Instagram and just changed the name to match my blog and started sharing on it and I archived. Over the year I like, you know, started archiving some of the older posts or things I didn't want to be on the page. I didn't care about actually having like a personal Instagram page and I know that's different for everybody. Some people like having just a regular Instagram page where they can share about their kids and you know, kindergarten graduation, or you know, grandmother's birthday. For me, I didn't really care about sharing that anyway, like, that's just, I feel like when you share online so much that it's nice to just keep the rest of it personal. I feel like and so yeah, so I just transitioned my personal page, right into a business page to the Creator page as it is now.
Shaye Koester 11:07
Okay, now I'm going to kind of backtrack here to a point where you brought up earlier where you said, you know, towards the beginning part of your journey, you were a new mom, and you were joining Facebook groups. Now, these were groups that were related to the mother side part of your story, but not the agriculture part of your story. So how important do you think that is when you look at yourself as an advocate as far as being able to connect with other people at different areas in your life?
Tara Vander Dussen 11:38
Yeah, so one of my other tips for sharing online is being just like really having a really good understanding of what your why is why are you sharing? Why are you choosing to share, and a lot of my why is really around like misinformation and just misconceptions, misconceptions about dairy farmers misconceptions about women and ag women in business, misconceptions just around all of those things. And so for me, a piece of my why is being a mom and understanding that a lot of moms there's we are bombarded with information, and we have to figure out what is correct. What's misinformation, you know, we were a lot of the weight falls on moms to make the grocery store run and figure out what we're feeding our kids and, and with that comes, you know, you go into any grocery store, there's so many labels, there's so much you know, fear based marketing. So for me, a lot of why I share was I wanted the moms in the grocery store to be like, I can pick any milk on the shelf and know it is safe. Know it's nutritious and know that it's good for the environment. Like I'm not doing harm to the environment and so I think for me, motherhood is obviously very intertwined with my advocacy just because that's, that's the phase of life I'm in. I actually was just feeling recently, I've kind of noticed that it's become a little bit less in some ways about my advocacy, just as my kids are entering school age, they're going to school more they're not with me as much that, you know, I feel like I'm, you know, you transition through life through different phases. But I'm not having nearly as much of the like, Okay, well, how do I transition from Formula and a bottle to regular milk like that, for a while was such a piece of my everyday conversation. So it was a piece of my advocacy. And now like, I'm past that phase in my life. And so I think that's why being like really rooted in your why and understand why you're sharing and understand that it does kind of change can be so important and just so helpful for picking out what you're going to share about what posts you're going to write and things like that.
Shaye Koester 13:39
Awesome. So looking at advocacy as a whole within the agriculture industry, what would what do you see is one of the biggest mistakes people are making on the advocacy front?
Tara Vander Dussen 13:52
Probably comparison, I feel like we all fall into this I know I still. You see someone else sharing and you instantly think I should be sharing like that I should be doing that I should be. I mean, I know for years, I was like everyone's on YouTube, I should be on YouTube. And it just was not what I just didn't want to record videos all day. I didn't want to edit videos. Like it just wasn't what I wanted to do. And when I finally like, let that go, and just decided like, that's great for those people. I'm so glad they're on that platform. I don't want to be on that platform. It allowed me the time and energy to put into other things. For me, like my blog has was what started this. And for a long time, I feel like I had let the blog go because I was like, Oh, I've got a hustle on social media. And just in the last few months, I've been like I really loved sharing on my blog more and I've gone transitioned back to doing that more. And so I think that one of the I mean, I don't know if it's a mistake, but it's what happens. You just compare yourself to other people, you compare yourself to their growth, their pictures, their reels are funnier, whatever it is. I think the most important thing about sharing like is you know that said your why. And it goes to that like just being true to who you are, be authentic and be like rooted and what you actually want to do. I think that when you do that, it makes you so much happier for other people. Because you realize, like, that's great that they like, you know, started a merchandise line, I'm so excited for them. That's not something I want to do. So then I feel like it helps with that comparison, that jealousy that you're like, that's actually not for me, that's not on my path right now. And so I hope that makes sense. But I just feel like that is just one of the hardest things is you just see everyone's page. And just like, if you started following me today, like you'd be like, wow, like she has 45,000 followers, you wouldn't know, I've been building on that for six years, you know, and all the work and time that went into it. And so just like being, you know, really rooted in yourself and what you're doing and your why is such an important piece of advocating.
Shaye Koester 15:55
Yeah, I mean, and I think, and I really appreciate you bringing up the comparison factor, because that's something all humans face, from my perspective, no matter where it is. But with that, that really, you know, I thought about my own journey with handling comparison, as I've started on social media, etc. But to me, that kind of goes back to, well, what does success look like? So what advice do you have for helping upcoming advocates or individuals understand, you know, what can success look like for different people?
Tara Vander Dussen 16:34
Yeah, and obviously, I'm gonna say success looks different for everyone. This is something we talked about. So I, if you follow Natalie Kovarik, we are launching a course called Elevate Ag. And this is something we talk about, actually, in our course, is, you know, for her, she's really pushing into the merchandise line right now. So she's having great success with that. And for me, success right now is when I book a speaking engagement, and I'm like, Yes, like, that's what I want to do. And so it goes again into I think setting goals and figuring out kind of what you want to do, and where you want to share can help you understand your success. Because then it doesn't, it's not, then you don't get lost kind of in the weeds of what success is. For me right now, the success is every time I book that, and so that that's my success. For someone else that doesn't have any desire to speak like that wouldn't be success. That wouldn't matter to them. Maybe they want to sell direct to beef boxes, you know, and ship beef to someone. For me, I have zero desire to ship beef to anyone if I am being honest. And so that's not success for me. And so it just goes back to really thinking about, you know, what you want out of this, and kind of your plan to get there. I also think success varies based on how much time and energy you put into the platform's. It does not have to take up all your time, obviously, I feel like the more you put into it, the more you're going to probably get out of it just like with anything in life. But there's varying degrees of success there, maybe this is just a super small, like side thing you want to do is just kind of share your firm's story. And so success may just be you getting five posts posted to Facebook in a month, you know, like it just it's just so different for every single person.
Shaye Koester 18:21
Awesome. And I mean, I agree with everything that you said. And it's important to understand that, you know, even in those beginning stages, when it does feel like you're only talking to your friends and family, you're still making progress, and that progress is success. So even if it is only 10 followers, you know, like you said, you've been building on your page for six years. And that takes time.
Tara Vander Dussen 18:43
And what I think the I think a lot of people are finally understanding too is like the engagement. So like the bigger of an account, a lot of times you're engaging in a smaller the actual percentage of people you're reaching, maybe less just because there are so many people. And so sometimes smaller accounts can have a huge engagement, because every one of their followers sees their posts. And so I feel like people really discount how many people they can reach even having a small following like you do not have to have 10s of 1000s of followers to reach people and have an impact. Like it just does not take that. And so I just think why especially with Instagram and the algorithm changes. I get just it wants it to be more of a smaller sense of community and your friends and family in your favorite accounts to follow. And so there's definitely power in any number of followers you have. You're reaching somebody and even if you're not it's so that you just have no idea like who you're reaching. So when I was really small I think I only have like a few 1000 I ended up having this like workout girl fitness person who had a half a million followers share about me. I have no idea how she found me. I seriously was such a small account and she shared about me on her page. And like the amount of people she reached because she shared mine. Like it wasn't even my followers that were, you know, thing to post it was hers. And so you just never know who's following you and who's who's seen the content you're putting out there.
Shaye Koester 20:12
Yeah. And I think that's awesome to remember and really think about as we continue to keep growing. But with that, what are, what are some other tips, some of those actionable tips or advice that you have for advocates?
Tara Vander Dussen 20:26
Yeah, so one tip that I definitely have is consistency. And that doesn't mean posting every day. So I'm going to put that out there right now, consistency, I believe, is you figuring out what works for you and your schedule. So for one person, maybe consistency is posting to Instagram five days a week, for another person, maybe that's posting to Facebook, five times a week, maybe it's only posting once a week, whatever it is just being consistent so that your followers know kind of what to expect from you can go a really long way. So they're just like, Oh, yep, there's their posts, I was, you know, I was expecting to see that. Or if you always show up in stories, you know, maybe that's where you're at more is just you're in stories. Yep, they know, they're gonna get to see you every single day doing something on the farm. And so I feel like it doesn't have to be complicated, it just has to be something that you can manage and consistently do.
Shaye Koester 21:18
Awesome. And I mean, I think, you know, that ties back into what you're speaking about, with the engagement side of things, because it does, you know, go back to the quality of the posts, too, like, if you don't have the time to create a post, that's going to bring value to your audience. Don't waste your time creating it, that's kind of my perspective, there are weeks, I mean, I always make sure you know, I'm posting you know, a minimum of three times a week, sometimes I hit five. But I know there's certain types of content that I need to put out each week. And after that, it depends on what my time allows for.
Tara Vander Dussen 21:53
I love that you said the word value because everything you share should be rooted in value offering value to your community. The more value you can offer somebody, the faster your account is going to grow, and just the more engaged people are going to be. So I'm so glad you brought that up, because that's probably like, my next biggest thing is really thinking about value for your community. You know, are you offering them information about you know, farming and ranching like, what tools you're using? Or what your vaccination protocol is? Or are you offering consumers information about beef, you know, what is your value and every potion really have that value? That is back to like, why you're sharing like, what, what are your topics, like, I like to think about my topics, as like three to four topics, or four to five topics, depending on where I'm at, that I share about every single week, and offering value on those topics. Right now I've actually been, I only have like three topics. I've been hitting dairy sustainability, and ag sustainability really hard. And just going back to the real roots of like, why I started sharing. And I just try to right now one of my focuses is trying to give information to other farmers and ranchers. That's like, Hey, here's some like fast facts about dairy farming, or beef sustainability or whatever it may be. That's where the value I'm really trying to offer. And obviously, I hope consumers see it as well and are like, Oh, wow, I didn't I know that, you know, animal ag only accounts for 4% of greenhouse gas emissions. So I definitely trying to serve both. But I do try to think about the value. I added every post like earlier this week. I had been off Instagram for a while. So I kind of just wanted to post that said like, Hey, here's what's been going on. Sorry, I've been off it, I knew it wasn't gonna have great engagement, because I wasn't really offering them anything. It was just kind of like a, here's where I've had, like, just thought you guys should know. And sure enough, it just wasn't as successful as, say, my dairy sustainability posts because it's, it wasn't giving anyone anything, besides just telling them about me, which is not why people come to my page, they people don't come to your page, because of you they want to see the value that you're offering. What are you bringing to your community? That's at least how I like to look at it.
Shaye Koester 24:07
I think you know, your comments about you know, sharing information etc. really brought me to the thought about communicating science. And I really think that's something as producers or just being involved in these agriculture industries that we need to improve ourselves. So how do you make sure you are effectively communicating science in your advocacy efforts?
Tara Vander Dussen 24:36
Yeah, that's another one of my biggest tips is I always try to tell people to keep it simple. If you can break it down into just bite sized nuggets, you know, like, if I look at a research paper I see the research paper as that like, the big you know, the huge elephant and then you have to just like what does that saying like how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time is really just me like okay, what is like the biggest takeaway from there that I can put but in a real caption, like a text on a reel, you know, and just really trying to make it simple, like, I think with ag, sometimes probably with any industry, when you're so deep in it, it's easy to start using the terminology and the jargon and just get lost in all of that. And it's just you want those bite sized nuggets of information. And so that's where I really try to like, take a you know, a research paper and just break it down into the simplest form. And so I think my advice for that is always just like, Don't overcomplicate it, don't get lost in the weeds, and you don't have to share about everything in one post, you have 365 days in the year to share, if you choose to share every day, there's plenty of time, you know, just like keep it really simple and focused on a single thing, especially when it's really sciency. And like, just going to get out there, you just don't want to lose people and have them stop reading or stop, just, you know, we're so quick to keep scrolling. And so kind of break it down, and try to relate it to things that people can understand.
Shaye Koester 26:07
I think all of the offers a lot of value and really helps, you know, ease up the stress of trying to share so much because, you know, when I look at what I when I'm just scrolling on, say my personal account, or you know, trying to engage with other people, the posts I engage with, or your simple shorter form posts like, especially, because when I look at Instagram on my phone, and if it takes up if the post takes up my whole screen, I don't want to read that even though like if it was on the computer screen, it wouldn't look that bad. Like, it wouldn't seem like that much. Yeah, it's because a lot of people are consuming on our phones that sometimes it just feels like you're reading you would have to read a lot more, which makes it you know, less likely to engage in I mean, that's my perspective on it.
Tara Vander Dussen 26:58
And I was gonna say I feel like that depends on every person. So one of the things I recommend to people, when they're looking at their posts, is go back and look, you know, Instagram has great insights, go back and look at what are your most, you know, engaged with posts. And what does the caption look like? What does the photo look like? You know, is the photo like a selfie? Are you in it? Or is it of cows? Or is it of the landscape? What does your caption look like? Is it short or long? Because there are people out there that share really long captions that are great. And that's what their followers come to expect. That's what they want to see. And so maybe that is your thing is really long captions that are really heartfelt or meaningful, or whatever it may be. And so one of the best ways to see that is, you know, to go back and look into experiment, you know, do longer ones and see what happens for a while and see if you enjoy them, see if it feels good to you. And if your community reacts to it, or do shorter ones, I mean, it goes back to how everyone just needs to be authentic to them and what works for them. And you'll find you know, your people in your community. And so it varies so widely, which is what's great about the internet, there's literally millions of people out on the internet. And so you'll find your people that are interested in the content you have to share.
Shaye Koester 28:14
Absolutely. So as we kind of start wrapping up here today, do you have any extra advice or resources that you want to share with my audience?
Tara Vander Dussen 28:26
Yeah, so I have a few things. If you are deciding to share one of the most my best advice is just start like just start you don't have to have some big fancy website, you don't have to have a huge plan for Instagram or Facebook, sometimes just getting started is the easiest way to do it. You know, just today, this is the week I'm going to share three times on Facebook. And as simple as that can just be the encouragement you need to really get going. As far as resources and tools. If you go to my website, https://newmexicomilkmaid.com/ my pop up is actually a free resource guide for advocacy for beef and dairy. And so if you enter your email in there, I'll send you a PDF that has links to all sorts of thing I have broken down into like greenhouse gas emissions, water nutrition, and that way it's just quick and easy to be able to like I want to share about water today. I need some facts and I have some guides in there. Um, we are launching Elevate Ag on March 7, this will be a beta launch our full launch will be in May. And Elevate Ag will be an E course that really helps farmers, ranchers and producers understand how to share online how to share in person, just all forms of advocacy that you can kind of think of and giving them even more tools and resources and things that they need to really get started. And then finally we'll be launching our elevate ag podcast at the end of April. That will be a little bit more business strategy focused as far as for people who are really wanting to turn their business use, like social selling, and you know, if you're in direct to be consumers, direct to consumers beef, there we go. And we'll be kind of, you know, breaking down all sorts of business strategies. So those are kind of the resources and things that currently I have coming up in my, I guess, out of my projects,
Shaye Koester 30:25
Well, those are all very exciting and I know your beta launch full lineup, right about when this podcast episode. Yeah, so that should be awesome. Well, with that, thank you for hopping on the show today and sharing your experience and some actionable advice and really diving into some of those harder conversations about comparison and success and helping my listeners understand what consistency and all that really looks like.
Tara Vander Dussen 30:53
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I hope that people found value in it. And you guys want to give me a follow. Like I said, you can find me in New Mexico Milkmaid on Instagram or Facebook, or Tik Tok, and then my website is https://newmexicomilkmaid.com/. And if you're interested in learning a little bit more about Elevate AG, you can go to elevate your ag story calm.
Shaye Koester 31:13
Awesome.
Tara Vander Dussen 31:14
Thank you.
Shaye Koester 31:20
And that's a wrap on that one, folks. Thank you for tuning into this episode. And I encourage all of you to evaluate how you can advocate and market the beef product. It can be done in so many different ways, whether that's social media, in person, or wherever you're at. Have a great day, folks, and I'll see you on the next one. And once again, thank you to the Red Angus Association for bringing this episode to you.
Red Angus Association of America 31:44
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