INTRODUCTION

Social Media (SM) Tool Utilization Among New Mexico Home Economist (HE) County Agents 2009

M. Fahzy Abdul-Rahman, Ph.D., M.P.H.

RESULTS

New Mexico State University

VS. US COMPARISON

Among the 16 survey respondents, five HE agents do not have a social media tools and six of them rarely update their social media accounts or websites. This is not reflected in their text messaging behavior where most of them (nine out of 16) text message often or all the time.

National extension efforts are adopting Social Media (SM) tools (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook) as one of the main tools to collaborate with extension county agents and better reach out to the public. This is especially true with the younger population where 96% of Gen Y have joined a social network. But are county agents ready to adopt this social media tools for extension programs and marketing tools?

PURPOSE

Although the main intent of the of New Mexico Family Resource Management (FRM) Need Assessment Survey 2009 is to assess the needs of FRM programs and home economics (HE) county agents in New Mexico, the author included questions on utilization of Social Media tools, internet, and high-tech gadgets. This is partially to gauge their readiness to adopt Social Media tools in extension work where Social Media use has been increased rapidly.

PARTICIPANTS

Home Economics (HE) County Agents in the 33 counties in New Mexico are in charge of seven main programs, namely Food & Nutrition, Food Technology, Family Life and Child Development, Family Health and Wellness, Diabetes, Family Resource Management, and Disaster Preparedness. In some smaller counties these programs would be assumed by their county director or 4-H agent.

Methodology & Sample

• 14-question Instant Survey® questionnaire

• Sent to ≈ 350 Financial Security for All (FSA) Community of Practice (CoP) members in December 2010

• N =45 respondents (≈ 13%).

• Primarily female and age 50, older, middle income

Frequency of SM Use by Extension Family Economics Educators (N =45)

SM Site Daily Frequently Sometimes Rarely Never

Facebook 42% 20% 22% 9% 7%Twitter 7% 14% 2% 39% 39%YouTube 5% 25% 48% 16% 7%Blog 5% 5% 35% 7% 49%

PersonalProfessional

53% had content about

both

47% focused on one or the other

INSTRUMENTS

A 22-item survey was design to cover four main aspects: 1. HEs’ involvement in various Home Economic

Programs (three items), 2. HEs’ thoughts on various FRM Programs (three

items),3. HEs’ knowledge in FRM areas (13 items), and 4. Other: Agent-Specialist Communication; Social Media

use; and technology use (three items). 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, select-any, and select-the-correct-answer questions. The survey was administered on-line using Zoomerang®.

Methods Used by Extension Family Economics Educators to Access Social Media Sites (N =45)

SM Site Computer Smart Phone Other N/AFacebook 91% 36% 4% 7%Twitter 56% 13% 4% 40%YouTube 91% 18% 6% 9%Blog (any) 50% 0% 2% 50%

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

O'Neill, B., Zumwalt, A., Gutter, M., & Bechman, J. (2011). Financial education through social media: Can you evaluate its impact?, Forum for Family and Consumer Issues, 16(1). Retrieved September 19, 2011 from http://ncsu.edu/ffci/publications/2011/v16-n1-2011-spring/oneil-zumwalt-gutter-bechman.php

• Low usage but great potential- High use of e-mailing and phone texting- With 140-character limit, twittering is very much

like text messaging. - The findings on HE agents’ use of e-mail, text

messaging, and on-line training tools point towards great Social Media adoption potentials.

- E-mails and telephone, on-site training, and on-line training were the preferred way of communication but not on-line chatting, which has been used in companies for live communications.

• Learn social media evaluation metrics- For evaluation and reporting purposes

• The power of sharing/retweeting via SM networks

- Work smarter - Aggregate impacts could be impressive- In the national Home Economists study, 45 people

had potential to reach almost 6,000- Those 6,000 could potentially reach many more

• NM vs. US comparison- Similar HE demographics- Evidence of lower SM use among NM Home

Economists- Different timings: May 2009 vs. December

2010- Possibly due to clients’ tendencies