Delivery of FutureBeef industry engagement

Abstract

FutureBeef is a collaboration between the Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australian government agricultural departments and Meat & Livestock Australia to provide coordinated delivery of online extension for the northern beef industry. FutureBeef achieves this through the website, webinars, eBulletins, social media, multimedia and newspaper features.

Achievements between July 2017 and January 2022 include:
• a website with over 1220 pages of quality content and over 1.7M pageviews and 950,000 visitors
• 49 webinars with almost 6900 registrations, over 3000 live attendees and over 27,200 webinar recording views, with a total watch time of 3234 hours
• 54 eBulletins published to 6288 subscribers, with an average open rate of almost 33% and click rate of 8.6%
• Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn with 18,821 combined followers, 85,058 engagements and 58,916 referrals to the FutureBeef website
• 3 podcasts published with 161 listens in two weeks • 15 professional videos published, with 5789 YouTube views and a Facebook reach of 59,995
• YouTube channel with 280 public videos receiving 157,851 views and total watch time of 13,424 hours
• BeefTalk, CQ BEEF and Northern Muster published regularly in the Queensland Country Life and North Queensland Register.

An external evaluation in 2021 showed that users have a strong awareness of FutureBeef and that FutureBeef is regarded a key source of reliable and relevant information. There is a high level of satisfaction with FutureBeef’s current communication tools and information provided. There are also strong indications that FutureBeef is positively contributing to on-farm practice change. FutureBeef continues to provide efficiencies in the provision of online information, with access to a 24/7 one-stop shop for the northern beef industry. Therefore, it is recommended that the current FutureBeef collaboration and mix of online tools continues, which is strongly supported by external evaluation participants and current adoption projects. However, FutureBeef should explore additional ways to support MLA, Government and private adoption projects in the later stages of the adoption pathway.