My Appeal to Walton

[Chef]

Austin Jonathon I know that this community is focused on meat processing and having a lot of fun along the way. I have so enjoyed this community, both from an education as well as a friendly entertainment standpoint. I Pray that this post does not cause problems in the community, one which I an so proud to be part of.

Recent decisions from Facebook and Twitter have resulted in me evaluating their social media platforms. I can no longer support their positions and I will remove myself from both. There are many companies that I do not support and carefully screen those that I do business with. I will not support companies that contribute to causes that violate my my value systems.

Respectively, I ask that Walton’s withdraw from Twitter and Facebook. Their platform is no longer friendly to what I believe the Walton’s and Meatgistics community value system supports. I may be 100% wrong, but I will no longer follow Walton’s nor Meatgistics on Facebook or Twitter.

I appreciate your consideration in this matter. I am 100% a Walton’s supporter as well as a proud member of Meatgistics. I’ll always will be.

[blackbetty61]

Chef I don’t have Twitter and I’m glad for that many times in the last yr I’ve thought about deleting my Facebook account but just haven’t pulled the trigger yet… it might be time

[kyle]

I have never been on either one. In fact this is the only online social thing I do. With that being said, I hope things don’t get political on here. I get on here to get away from the outside world, and if that changes, I’m gone

[twilliams]

Chef i support you 100% in your life decisions and opinions whether i agree with them or not. However you are literally asking Waltons to cut a big part of their advertising and customer base. I dont understand why you would do that to a business that you support so much. I am not sure what has happened personally to you from Facebook and Twitter to make you feel this strongly and its really none of my business. I just hope its not politically driven. Perhaps this is more of a conversation that should be just between the two of you but im guessing you are wanting to publicize it to hopefully get more people to follow your decision.

[blackbetty61]

kyle I agree this is where I get away from all the BS in the world…I’ve had to unfollow some friends on Facebook nothing but political $hit

[kyle]

blackbetty61 Blue and Orange is the only argument I like…and Blue of course is better

[Joe Hell]

Chef Um…nope.

[Austin]

Chef
@Team-Orange @Team-Blue @Regular-Contributors @Power-User
Sorry about not responding to this sooner. It has been so crazy here lately, and I didn’t want to give this just a 2 second response.

I wrote a response multiple times, and I’m scrapping it all to be a bit briefer (Yes, this one is briefer than my first couple takes at writing something! Haha!)
Before the events of the last few months, I already had a distaste for social media for a variety of reasons, so I started to write out why I disliked them, and I didn’t personally use them. I have a lot of personal animosity towards social media, but I know a lot of people enjoy it and it provides value to them. I would write a 20 page novel if I could, but I decided I should cut a lot of that out because I ultimately hope everyone makes the choice that makes them happy and they also allow me to make the choices that make me happy, and I am personally happy by not using social media.

Walton’s ultimately uses various social media platforms because that is where many of our customers spend a lot of their time, they expect to interact with us there, and they find value in it. While we use them, I don’t want to let them use us. While they provide a benefit to our customers and thus a benefit to us, we will probably remain involved and have a page/channel to some extent on different platforms. We had been discussing previously if Twitter specifically was providing any value to us for a long time, and we had already made the decision to wind down what we did there. We simply no longer got a benefit from it and I don’t think many customers were either, so as of now, I believe we are mostly done with being very active on Twitter. Our account does remain there and will continue to, but it won’t receive much attention going forward because it doesn’t benefit our customers or us. While Facebook continues to benefit our customers who choose to use it, we will probably remain involved to some extent. I have historically chosen to not spend money with them, but I prioritize trying to use them (or any other social media platform) instead of letting them use us. If we and/or our customers stop getting a benefit from using them, then we will stop using them.

While I personally dislike social media in general, I understand everyone gets to make their own choice about whether they use it or not. I choose not to use it personally, but while people use the various platforms, we will try to be available as a company to our customers through the various channels they prefer. That does have a limit, and our involvement may only go so far as to the specific needs and benefits that it brings to our customers. If it stops being of a benefit to our customers, or somewhere else becomes a more appealing place, we would and will be changing our focus. I can say that we will be changing some of our focus. I know there are many other social media platforms out there that have some very strong and loyal user bases that we have not used in the past, and we have and are creating channels on some new platforms. If they prove to be beneficial to us and our customers that use them, we’ll continue to focus more heavily on them than others. We will continue to try to adapt to where our customers are investing their time.

The Most Important Stuff

One of the “alternative” platforms out there, in my opinion, is Meatgistics. It is in a sense, some level, part, or piece of a social media. I wouldn’t put it in that exact category, but it does have some similarities. Meatgistics is where I prefer and we do spend most of our time and money, particularly when it comes to direct customer interactions. I very much prefer having our own platform for sharing, communicating, and interacting with customers (and even people who aren’t customers). I think Meatgistics has been a place that has grown to be a very well respected place where everyone is friendly, kind, supportive, and very much like a family (Even Team Blue, as crazy as they are, hold a special place in my heart! Hahaha!). It is unlike other sites, platforms, and places out there on the web for the quality of community that has been developed. We could have spent our time and money on building a connection with people through an existing social media and a group page there, but we decided to forge our own path and create our own place where people could communicate freely with one another and us and we weren’t beholden to someone or something else. While other social media platforms will always have some place in what we do, Meatgistics will always be our main focus, our main area of communication, and our preferred place to interact with everyone out there. Everyone has their own choice to make though on where they spend their time. Many people won’t ever use Meatgistics because it is not as convenient to them as Facebook, or maybe it is just too unfamiliar, or whatever other reason people may have, but we can choose to make this the one place that receives most of our attention, time, and money, and we can try and foster an environment that is different from other places out there. That is the amazing thing that I love, the fact that everyone is free to make their own choices. My hope is that everyone is also able to respect my choices and let me be free to choose what I want to do, just as I don’t want to interfere with what they choose to do, even when I don’t agree with them. My choice and loyalty will always lie with the users of Meatgistics and the people here. Even if we have or don’t have a presence on other platforms, Meatgistics will always be the one platform we will spend our focus on.

[Midwest_kc]

As someone new to this hobby, and new to Walton’s, I do hope that you keep your YouTube presence up, simply because that’s how I found you, and the quality of the videos and the information led me here, and, ultimately, to spending the first $300 of what I assume will be many hundreds of dollars with your store. Now that I’ve found you, that won’t change without YouTube, but I am sure there are many like me who have not found you who would be good customers out there lurking in YT land, maybe not even realizing they want to process meat yet.

[badfire2625]

Chef, Austin , I agree wholeheartedly with the lack of value of social media. I haven’t been able to break the chains yet, myself I did delete Twitter last year, so it’s a start. Austin , the only thing I’d say is that you probably put that compliment for @Team-Blue a little too far down the post. There were no pictures, and we all know how short their attention span is…

[craigrice]

Austin ,As someone that hates all forms of social media ,other than this platform I agree with your statement . I think the success of meatgistics is it is topic specific !

[Departing Contestant]

Austin just felt like disagreeing . I have retained that right!

[Daniel Cybulski]

I only use them to get the extra monthly giveaway drawing point.

[kyle]

Austin , very well written, good job. Meatgistics is a big family, not like other social media. Thank you for that

[PapaSop]

Austin
Well said… It’s all about choices.
Our choices are just that. Personal!

Meatgistics… The only “social” site that makes any sense! Just a meat and “Orange” thing.

Don’t understand why I can’t change the font color… At least for the word “Orange”. Austin , you need to work on this!

[JoeB]

I have boundaries, if i like, enjoy, and exchange information and ideas without degradation then this is a good place to be. I’m new to the site, and i have to say that in all my ramblings i was always treated with respect, and welcome. All those i have encountered have approached this forum with the heart of a teacher. I confess, I’m just a challenged adult learner. Keep up the good work. It’s not a bad thing to agree to disagree… Life is good… There are always worse places to be and worse things to be doing. We’ve all been there, and got the torn tee shirt for it. Thank you Austin
Joe, A Happy Member

[Chef]

Austin Well stated. Before recent events, there are many things that I thought imposable in the United States of America. It now seems that nothing is off the realm of possibilities. Just imagine if an animal rights group wanted to censor Meatgistics as cruel.

Think of all the veterans that are part of our family. To think they fort for our freedom of speech and what the social media’s censorship must mean to them. It is with all due reverence to them that I am appalled at social media as of late.

Austin the Meatgistics platform is is my social media of choice. It is a place that I have met many wonderful people and have learned so much.

Thank you Austin for the response. You have a loyal Walton’s customer for life.

[badfire2625]

PapaSop that is a great idea. In fact it should be the only font color. Can you imagine the frustration @Team-Blue would feel if the only font color was Orange?

[mdseaside]

Bravo! With you all the way.

[calldoctoday]

Chef Don’t get me started this afternoon!