Today’s VICE News piece, Flooding Fields in California’s Drought, epitomizes “journalism” at its worst. The hit piece on California farmers’ water use provided little balance to a story that is misleading and, at times, nonfactual.
The California Farm Water Coalition issued a fantastic response on its webpage dispelling many of the assertions made in the piece. It also posted the response on Twitter to its 4000+ followers and for anyone else who happened upon it in the Twitter-verse. With WG and others “retweeting” and “favoriting” their post, we were able to exponentially reach multitudes of other Twitter followers by using the #cawater and #cadrought hashtags.
Unless you have been locked in a closet for the last 10 years, most people and businesses understand that social media, in its many forms, has become a tremendously valuable tool to help get information and messaging out to key audiences. However, social media is often underutilized as an effective communications medium because it can be misunderstood and underestimated.
Western Growers is making a concerted effort to ramp up our social media activities. Our presence on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube help us spread news and information quickly (and to counter the type of misinformation we saw from VICE News). Along with our counterparts at the California Farm Water Coalition, we took to the internet today to pass along “our side of the story” on this negative piece.
Additionally, our staff regularly posts information useful to your business on social media. We hope you will consider doing the same. Please consider” “Following” us on Twitter or “Liking” us on Facebook and we’ll do the same for you.
Here are some useful WG Twitter Accounts (Please note: Twitter handles are NOT CAPS specific):
@WesternGrowers (Official page Twitter page)
@TomNassif (WG president and CEO)
@Dave_Puglia (WG Executive V.P.)
@JasonEResnick (WG V.P. and General Counsel)
@HGiclas (WG Sr. V.P. of Strategic Planning, and Science and Technology)
@CoryJLunde (WG Director of Strategic Initiatives and Communications)
@delihant (WG Director CA Government Affairs)
@healthcarelaws (Jon Alexander, Western Growers Assurance Trust general counsel)
@WG_Foundation (WG Foundation Official Twitter Page)
@WG_CIT (WG Center for Innovation & Technology Official Twitter Page)
WG Facebook Pages
Official WG Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/WesternGrowers
Western Growers Foundation Page: https://www.facebook.com/WesternGrowersFoundation
