"social media" news and stories

Is there any more social subject than food? Just ask the Chowhounds, Slashfooders, and all the other onlie foodies who will tell you that social networking has its ideal platform in what we cook, what we crave, where we eat, and why we obsess about all things edible. As part of Social Media Week, our very own Sarah De Heer, Community Manager of AOL's KitchenDaily and Slashfood, invites you to join her and a panel of online food's movers and shakers on Friday, February 10, from 9-10 a.m. for "Almost Good Enough to Eat: Food Communities and Social Media," an exploration of the social nature of food and how online food communities prosper. The free event will be held at the Art & Culture Hub at Manhattan's Hearst Building.

Joining Sarah will be Rebecca P. Bauer, Executive Digital Editor from Food & Wine magazine; Colin Sterling from The Huffington Post's Food section; and Andrea Cutright, CEO of mega recipe search engine Foodily.

For more information, and to register for the event, visit www.amiando.com/aolfood.html.

Despite the rush by American corporations to promote their brands online and amass as many Facebook fans as possible, the food and restaurant industry is having trouble getting the whole social-media thing to work for them.

This judging from a recently released list of the top 100 social media brands of 2010 by Vitrue, an Atlanta-based social media marketing company. Vitrue ranks brands based on their various mentions on Facebook, Twitter and other popular sites, such as YouTube and Flickr.

Only eight food or restaurant brands managed to crack the top 100 this year, down from nine brands a year earlier. Coca-Cola turned out to be the big winner, catapulting from #31 in 2009 to land at #9 in 2010.

Sign at a Southern farm. Photo: moonlightbulb, Flickr

Farming may be an endless tale of drought, pests and blight, but North Carolina agriculture officials are encouraging their state's farmers to find more succinct ways to tell their stories.

The state recently held a social-media seminar for farmers, a group that's been notably reticent in the tweet department. While experts aren't sure whether to blame spotty network coverage in rural areas or the exhaustive pace of farming for farmers' near-invisibility in Twitterville, they're hoping to encourage growers to join chefs and restaurant owners in promoting their products via online networks.

"Agriculture is starting to recognize the value of social media," says Karlie Justus, public information officer for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

According to Justus, workshop enrollment so exceeded expectations that the class had to be moved to a bigger venue.