Social Soil: Blogging

*Welcome to Social Soil - a series of social media posts for farmers. Whether you're a seasoned social media veteran or just trying to start, we want to help farmers with their "ag+advocacy" skills ("AGvocacy") so together we can promote Nebraska corn and agriculture.*


The blogosphere is made up of any blog you can imagine. Basically, anyone can start their own blog (essentially their own website) and publish anything they want! I’ll cover a couple of blogging platforms in this post, as well as some great ag blogs to follow.

First, if you’re reading this post, you’re familiar with blogs because you’re reading this! When a blogger publishes a post, readers can read it directly by going to that person’s blog page with the URL, or they may subscribe to an RSS Feed, where blogs are directed to. By subscribing to a feed, you can read several blogs in one place….you can setup your email with RSS feeds to come directly there, or through a an RSS reader like Feedly.

If you’re looking to start a blog, I recommend three platforms – all are a little different but you can choose which seems like a best fit for you. All of these are free – I know there are platforms out there you can pay for, but I do not have experience with them.

The first is Blogger – it is a platform through Google (and how the Nebraska Corn Kernels is setup). Blogger is a simple setup that allows you to choose your blog name and custom URL, choose from blog designs or allows you to create your own, and gives you a lot of creative flexibility.

The second platform I recommend is Wordpress. Wordpress is also free and easy to setup with choosing your own blog name and custom URL. Once you get into Wordpress, the options are much more detailed and broader than Blogger and allows for more customization to your site. CommonGroundNebraska.com is a Wordpress platform site.

With both Blogger and Wordpress, you can purchase your domain (ex: allowing your blog to be www.yoursite.com instead of www.yoursite.blogspot.com or www.yoursite.wordpress.com). You can also use a program like GoDaddy to purchase a domain and source it from your blog. The benefit of purchasing your domain is that you own the content.

The third blogging platform I recommend is Tumblr. It is slightly different than the Blogger or Wordpress formats, and is a simpler layout. But it is still a great blog to share your thoughts and easily share with others. I think that having a Tumblr site along with your blog is beneficial to re-post blogs you put on your Blogger/Wordpress site as it will reach different readers. It’s all about SEO and leveraging your great content!

Ok, here are some great ag blogs to follow (this list could go on and on….if you have more, please share in the comments):

Ag- It’s not a job, its an adventure
Big Picture Agriculture
Corn Commentary
Corn Hugger
Dust in My Coffee
Feed Yard Foodie
Fuels America Blog
Farm Meets Fork - Nebraska Farm Bureau Blog
Innovating Agriculture and Natural Resources - Dr. Green's Blog
Midwest Agricultural Law Guide
Real Farmwife on the County Line
The Farm Wife

Read other Social Soil posts here!