11-15 IAT Tweets

From moos to tweets, from milk to movies. Will Gilmer is a social media celebrity. With nearly 16-thousand Tweets and more than 147-thousand YouTube views to his credit - the Alabama dairyman is already well known for speaking up about farming. During the third Food Dialogues event in New York City - the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance named Gilmer one of nine finalists in the search for the Faces of Farming and Ranching. Gilmer explains how he got involved in the online conversation. "The reason I got started trying to reach out and talk to people about what we do on my farm is a function of being from such a rural place. People around home know what we do and they understand. But who is consuming our product? It is mostly people who have no connection to a farm. I can't bring all those folks to my farm so I take the farm to them using the Internet, social media and the like."

Social media interaction makes many farmers nervous at first but Gilmer says the biggest key to success in communicating online about farming is simple, straightforward transparency. I know a president who could use that advice with a heavy emphasis on transparency.