Do you remember the Real Seal? It was/is a dairy industry label that promotes real dairy from USA farmers. Its about promoting the real deal. AI has been creating a lot of fake online. I am tired of fake.
This year I made a resolution to make my social media usage more more intentional. Social media is double edged sword. In the early days, it truly was a way to create connection. Tim and I were heavily involved in those early farmer to consumer connections via social media. We met AMAZING farmers and customers from around the world. Those online connections become offline connections. It was exciting! We have long time friends that we would not have met had it not been for Twitter or Facebook.
It no longer makes me excited. Social media companies are trying to get us addicted so we don’t make human to human connections. It is about chasing the advertising dollar. Social media and AI companies are building mega data centers in our area that threaten our water supplies and increase our utility bills. For what? So people can use large amounts of data to make memes and spread lies? Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of good uses for AI, but I want those uses to be intentional. I am tired of the fake.
Small businesses like ours are chasing the next thing that these companies want them to chase with promises of more eyes on their business. AI images are being used by small businesses now. That feels icky to me. The whole point was to open the door to our farms so that customers could see and be a part of what we do and how their food is raised.
With all that being said, we do love our online supporters. We have created a community here that is different in many ways. When I want to just delete all online accounts, I think of you, our community.
I have been thinking a lot on this topic and here is what I have come up with:
*I promise to never intentionally use AI generated images to represent our farm or our products. The crummy pictures you see will be my work. The good pictures you see will most likely be captured by our son, who is really good with a camera (see pig picture).
*I promise that I will not use AI to generate narrative content about our farm. The stories I tell will be my own words, grammar and spelling mistakes included. I am a terrible copy editor, but it will be real.
*I will focus my time on platforms whose business model isn’t about addicting you to their app. I am going to be doing a lot more on our blog. Yah, that is sooo 2010, but it just feels better. Go over to our website and sign up for our emails. I send one a month with stories about our farm and updates on products. www.zweberfarms.com
* I will focus more time on creating human connection events on our farm. Sign up on our website for our emails to learn about them first.
To us it is more important to be authentic than it is to post every day or to chase the next shiny thing promising new customers. Our products should speak for themselves and they do.
Thank you to all our customers who continue to spread the word about us to friends and family. Word of mouth, human to human, has always been the most effective way to advertise for us.
To come see our real farm and products, give us a call ( 952-461-3428) or email ( info@zweberfarms.com) us to make an appointment. You can also stop in Tuesday and Thursday from 3-6 during our open hours too.
If you made to the end, thank you! I hope to see you in real life soon.
~Emily
(Real picture of real us with our real pigs).
