On April 7, 2014, my childhood friend and I took our very first step towards entrepreneurship by forming South Fork Jerky Company, LLC. Months in planning, our ambitions have finally begun to become realities. Our mission is to process and sell beef jerky made from grass fed, free range beef, free of hormones and preservatives, providing customers with naturally delicious health-conscious snack choices. For some time now, we have carefully researched the industry, devised a business plan, and established a long list of contacts in wholesale suppliers, organic growers associations, farmers markets and food processing professions.
As we move forward and slowly tackle the myriad of paperwork, permits, licensing and health standard requirements, we are beginning to explore the marketing and advertising opportunities in social media and other web-based communication channels. Writing 304 has opened my eyes to these opportunities within Twitter and Internet blogging. Recently, I have explored and considered the attractive advantages of blogging for my business.
Blogging can be an invaluable tool for engaging customers and building a stronger brand identity among our target market. Blogging can create a voice for my business and build customer relationships. It can help us solidify and sharpen our business focus and strategy, and broadcast our purpose. Additionally, blogging for our business will force us to think more about worthy topics in our industry or regarding our customers, and can inspire us to be more creative. What is most attractive to me is the fact that through blogging and social media, we can reach out to just as many people as a costly, professionally developed website, but for free. Our presence in social media and blogging will be indefinitely beneficial to creating a voice and brand personality. In an increasingly web-based business environment, I feel it is crucial to distinguish our business by transcending the static and impersonal modes of ecommerce by employing a more personal marketing strategy and creating easily accessible mediums of communication for our customers.
In addition to creating a voice for our business, a blog correlates to our niche market. We seek to take advantage of the relatively new and booming organic food craze. Our target market will be focused in adventurous, active and health-conscious adults aged 18-34. Granted our market is not limited to this age group, we feel it will be our most predominant. According to a recent survey, a staggering 90% of adults aged 18-29 use social media regularly. There is no denying the obvious presence of social media among this age group, and we will seek to take full advantage of it.