Be an Opinion Leader

The definition of an opinion leader: one who has an influence with his or her opinion. The average American farmer feeds 144 mouths. How do we share that story, as well as the agriculture stories of America? Social media networks are on the rise. According to Dr. Scott Vernon, professor at Cal Poly, SLO, "You must be present to win." What does this mean? This familiar phrase usually refers to some sort of raffle prize. In a way, the future of American farming is really a raffle prize. The ag-vocates and ag-tivists of the world are growing in popularity, more redily on social media sites. On Facebook, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has 234,296 fans and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has 575,338 fans. In comparison, these groups that are negatively portraying animal agriculture, as well as agriculture in general, have more fans on these social media sites than some of the agriculture fan pages combined. This needs to stop. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has only 5,814 fans on Facebook. If those of us that have a Facebook page can invite our friends to become a fan of the USDA, then the number of fans of agriculture fan pages can increase. It's just all about taking the time to do so during your day. There is a special, newly created group called Human Watch, who keep a watchful eye on the HSUS and alert others about what their most recent activities are. The person who manages Humane Watch's Facebook spends on average 30 hours online each week. It doesn't have to take that much to make a difference. Dr. Vernon's Rule of Thirds states 1/3 of your Facebook updates should be socially related to your normal lifestyle, 1/3 should point to other links like an interactive cuts of meat chart or another blog post informing others about the immigration situation in Arizona, and the other 1/3 should be agriculture related. There are fun facts about agriculture that we can all share with our friends, with the hopes that they will share it with their friends and so on and so forth. If we can all set aside a small portion of our day to dedicate to social media networking like Facebook, Twitter, and blogging, then we can make a difference one small step at a time. And never forget to love farmers, because they feed our soul! Want to learn more about this grassroots effort? Click here.

~Malorie