The Center for Rural Enterprise Engagement: Helping Green Industry Businesses Navigate New Media Marketing

The Center for Rural Enterprise Engagement (CREE) was established at Kansas State University in February 2015 after a need was identified for independently-owned, rural businesses to learn how to capitalize on new online media technologies in order to advance their business goals. Our research team had been working together for two years prior to this, specializing in the nursery and garden center industries. The mission of CREE is to be a Center that focuses on helping small businesses succeed through new-media marketing research. As a generator and source of knowledge about new-media technologies, CREE enables rural businesses to flourish in an ever-changing environment. Our goal is to make research-based knowledge discoverable and accessible to individuals, businesses, and communities and foster positive changes to rural livelihood. Specifically, CREE Objectives are: 1) To generate research-based knowledge related to new media technologies and rural enterprises; 2) To offer hands-on research experiences for graduate and undergraduate students; and 3) To serve as a source for research-based knowledge for local, regional, and national rural enterprises and others involved in improving rural life. Target Audiences for CREE include: 1) Independently-owned rural-based businesses like rural garden centers and retail stores; 2) Farmers and ranchers and other farm-based enterprises such as agritourism; 3) Next generation of agricultural marketing professionals (undergraduate and graduate students); 4) Those involved in rural-economic development in the private and public sectors including Extension personnel; and 5) Other researchers involved in marketing and rural development. From a national perspective, no other Centers or groups of faculty are specifically working on assisting green industry businesses as they seek to improve their social media marketing efforts. Our focus is unique and we have attracted attention not only from stakeholders in Kansas, but across the U.S. including businesses in rural and metro areas. It is our goal not only to fulfill our mission of helping these businesses, but to become a thought- and resource leader on this topic. To that end our learning resource, RuralEngagement.org, and social media channels have been influential in reaching our stakeholders. While subject matter discussed is currently focused on garden centers and nurseries, many agribusinesses will benefit from content generated by CREE.