Growing Engagement Through Farmer-Led Storytelling

Tennessee Corn partnered with McCracken to bring strategy, consistency, and a more authentic farmer-focused approach to its marketing. As Tennessee Corn’s marketing partner, we developed a content strategy that aligned social media, email marketing, blogging, and editorial planning around Tennessee Corn’s identity as a farmer-funded, farmer-led organization. By shifting away from overly branded content and spotlighting real Tennessee corn growers, McCracken helped Tennessee Corn connect with its audience, increase engagement, and build a more proud, informed community of Tennessee corn farmers.

MARKETING STRATEGY • CONTENT DEVELOPMENT • SOCIAL MEDIA

About

Tennessee Corn Promotion Board

The Tennessee Corn Promotion Council (TCPC) is a state corn organization that serves Tennessee’s corn farmers. The organization invests checkoff dollars in research, market development, education, and promotion to support the future of corn production across the state.

Through this work, TCPC helps connect the value of corn to farmers, consumers, livestock producers, and the industries that depend on it. Its mission is centered on supporting Tennessee growers and making sure that farmer investments create real value for the broader agriculture community.

PTx Trimble farmer in cab of tractor on tablet

The Challenge

Tennessee Corn had valuable stories to tell, but needed a clearer strategy for what content to create, who it should reach, and how it should support the organization’s goals.

Its audience strategy was misaligned, and social media results showed room for improvement. Engagement, impressions, and follower growth were low, showing a need for a stronger, more focused approach.

The Solution

McCracken started by creating a clear strategy. This included defining goals, key audiences, messaging, content pillars, and platform direction.

The strategy focused on strengthening Tennessee Corn’s identity as a farmer-funded, farmer-led organization while building a more proud and informed community of Tennessee corn growers.

On social media, the focus shifted to content that felt authentic and relevant and less heavily designed or branded. McCracken helped highlight the value of the checkoff through real farmer members’ stories, photography, and user-generated content.

The content strategy centered on local relevance, farmer voices, current member engagement, and the value of the checkoff. Strategic content pillars included market development, research, promotion, education, advocacy, and checkoff transparency.

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Implementation

McCracken developed a structured editorial planning process so each piece of content connected back to Tennessee Corn’s goals, audiences, and strategic content pillars.

This included yearly and monthly planning, a content calendar, and regular collaboration to identify timely topics for social media, email, and blog content.

Social media content focused on Tennessee corn farmers, their experiences, and the issues that matter to them. Posts were made to feel less staged and less graphic-heavy, allowing real stories, faces, and moments from their grower community to lead the message.

McCracken also created a monthly blog strategy and e-newsletter plan to keep content consistent and extend its reach across multiple channels. Blog topics, email content, and social posts were planned together so key messages could be repurposed in a natural way, giving each story more value and visibility.

Results

The new social strategy launched in June 2025 and led to significant growth through the second half of the year.

By focusing on current members and sharing more authentic, farmer-centered content, Tennessee Corn saw measurable improvements across key performance areas.

From June 2025 through December 2025:

Engagement rate increased by 38.1%, reaching an average high of 13.89%.
The organization gained 91 new followers, a 48.6% increase in total following.
Post link clicks surged by 1,348.5%, showing stronger audience interest and action.
Comments increased by 553.4%, reflecting deeper engagement with the content.
Total impressions rose to 46,204, a 151.7% increase over previous benchmarks.