Agricultural producers's satisfaction with whatsapp community group platform: Survey study

Social media usage is increasing day by day in the world and in Turkey. Apart from messaging in daily life, social media platforms contribute to increasing productivity and service quality in different sectors. In the agricultural sector, there is an increase in the amount, productivity and quality when producers benefit from agricultural extension services in matters such as cultivation, marketing and product processing. With the development of the information and communication sector in recent years, agricultural organizations have made it easier to communicate with producers. With the development of smartphones, especially the WhatsApp social media platform, it has given the opportunity to access and share information in many different areas. In this research, the relationship between the education level, professional group, gender, age range and duration of being in the group and satisfaction of the members of 6 WhatsApp group platforms containing agricultural producers was investigated with a 5-point Likert survey. The resulting differences were examined with chi-square analysis. The number of male and female members who say they are happy to be a member of WhatsApp group is over 85%, and the number of members who say they are actively followed by more than 70% of members on a daily basis is over 85%. In the WhatsApp group, there was a statistical difference between male and female genders in terms of "following posts about the fight against diseases and pests", "face-to-face meetings of group members" and "satisfaction with the rules applied in the group". There was a statistically significant difference between the statements "I do not trust the information given by experts on WhatsApp group " and "Not all of the posts made in the group are suitable for the purposes of the group" and their educational status.As a result, it has been concluded that these platforms should be developed and disseminated in order for agricultural producers in our country to benefit more from the developing information technology and to have timely access to all kinds of reliable information during the production stage. Keywords:Social media, survey, digital communication, manager, educator, marketing