Are county agents ready to adopt this social media tools for extension programs and marketing tools? NEAFCS Annual Conference Abuquerque, September 2011

1. New Mexico State University
Social Media (SM) Tool Utilization Among
New Mexico Home Economist (HE) County Agents 2009
M. Fahzy Abdul-Rahman, Ph.D., M.P.H.
INTRODUCTION RESULTS VS. US COMPARISON DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
National extension efforts are adopting Social Media O'Neill, B., Zumwalt, A., Gutter, M., & Bechman, J. • Low usage but great potential
(SM) tools (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook) as one (2011). Financial education through social media: Can - High use of e-mailing and phone texting
of the main tools to collaborate with extension county you evaluate its impact?, Forum for Family and - With 140-character limit, twittering is very much
agents and better reach out to the public. This is Consumer Issues, 16(1). Retrieved September 19, 2011 like text messaging.
especially true with the younger population where 96% from http://ncsu.edu/ffci/publications/2011/v16-n1- - The findings on HE agents’ use of e-mail, text
of Gen Y have joined a social network. But are county 2011-spring/oneil-zumwalt-gutter-bechman.php messaging, and on-line training tools point
agents ready to adopt this social media tools for towards great Social Media adoption potentials.
extension programs and marketing tools? Methodology & Sample - E-mails and telephone, on-site training, and on-
line training were the preferred way of
PURPOSE • 14-question Instant Survey® questionnaire communication but not on-line chatting, which
has been used in companies for live
Although the main intent of the of New Mexico Family • Sent to ≈ 350 Financial Security for All (FSA)
communications.
Resource Management (FRM) Need Assessment Survey Community of Practice (CoP) members in December
2009 is to assess the needs of FRM programs and home 2010
• Learn social media evaluation metrics
economics (HE) county agents in New Mexico, the - For evaluation and reporting purposes
• N =45 respondents (≈ 13%).
author included questions on utilization of Social Media
tools, internet, and high-tech gadgets. This is partially to • Primarily female and age 50, older, middle income • The power of sharing/retweeting via SM
gauge their readiness to adopt Social Media tools in
extension work where Social Media use has been
networks
Frequency of SM Use by Extension Family - Work smarter
increased rapidly.
Economics Educators (N =45) - Aggregate impacts could be impressive
SM Site Daily Frequently Sometimes Rarely Never - In the national Home Economists study, 45 people
PARTICIPANTS had potential to reach almost 6,000
Facebook 42% 20% 22% 9% 7%
- Those 6,000 could potentially reach many more
Home Economics (HE) County Agents in the 33 counties Twitter 7% 14% 2% 39% 39%
in New Mexico are in charge of seven main programs, YouTube 5% 25% 48% 16% 7% • NM vs. US comparison
namely Food & Nutrition, Food Technology, Family Life Blog 5% 5% 35% 7% 49% - Similar HE demographics
and Child Development, Family Health and Wellness,
- Evidence of lower SM use among NM Home
Diabetes, Family Resource Management, and Disaster
Economists
Preparedness. In some smaller counties these programs Methods Used by Extension Family Economics
- Different timings: May 2009 vs. December
would be assumed by their county director or 4-H agent. Educators to Access Social Media Sites (N =45)
2010
Among the 16 survey respondents, five HE agents do not have a SM Site Computer Smart Phone Other N/A - Possibly due to clients’ tendencies
INSTRUMENTS social media tools and six of them rarely update their social media Facebook 91% 36% 4% 7%
accounts or websites. This is not reflected in their text messaging Twitter 56% 13% 4% 40%
A 22-item survey was design to cover four main aspects: behavior where most of them (nine out of 16) text message often or YouTube 91% 18% 6% 9%
1. HEs’ involvement in various Home Economic all the time.
Blog (any) 50% 0% 2% 50%
Programs (three items),
2. HEs’ thoughts on various FRM Programs (three 53% had
items), content
about
3. HEs’ knowledge in FRM areas (13 items), and
4. Other: Agent-Specialist Communication; Social Media both
Professional
use; and technology use (three items). Personal
For this online survey, the seven main programs were
collapsed into five. Diabetes and Food Technology were
grouped with Food & Nutrition. Different questions
utilized different scales which included Likert-scale, 47% focused on one
select-any, and select-the-correct-answer questions. The or the other
survey was administered on-line using Zoomerang®.