Kansas State University forms Center for Rural Enterprise Engagement to help small businesses utilize social media

Kansas State University has established the Center for Rural Enterprise Engagement "to help small businesses succeed through new media marketing research," says the school. "The center's objectives are to generate research-based knowledge related to new media technologies and rural enterprises while offering hands-on research experiences for graduate and undergraduate students in an effort to serve as a source for local, regional and national rural enterprises and others involved in improving rural life."

The center was established by faculty from communications and agricultural education; horticulture, forestry and recreation resources; and agricultural economics. Cheryl Boyer, associate professor of nursery crops, told Kansas State, "We saw a need for independently owned rural businesses to learn how to capitalize on new online media technologies in order to advance their business goals. The team conducts research to determine how to effectively use social media to improve rural businesses and rural economies." (Read more)