Twitter

[steeringwheelholder]

I haven't chimed in here much since I found twitter. Seems like the discussions there are more suited to my generation of farmers. Its real time discussion, lots of brokers and traders give insight, and the pics folks share are nice to see from all over the nation. Obviously, you don't have to disclose, but is anyone here also active on twitter?

[Jeff_a_Caldwell]

Hey, Holder. Yep, I try to stay pretty active on Twitter. I'm @jeffacaldwell on there. Look me up! Usually, I tweet most about football this time of year! I also help with the @agriculturecom account, too. We try to get the big stories out using Twitter, as well as interact with folks like those you mention -- brokers, traders, other farmers, etc. 

Are you tweeting from a mobile device, computer or both? Getting some good value out of it, then?

[steeringwheelholder]

Almost exclusively mobile using an iPhone. Rarely ever sit down at the home computer and pop on unless it's wintertime. Both here and twitter are easy access when waiting in a grain line, furling up, stopping to eat lunch, or just taking a break to check on news and markets. Twitter is no rambling though. Short and to the point, whereas here the topics are more in depth I would say. (paragraphs!) Twitter is more personal, where here it is nice to remain anonymous if you wish with a user name. I'll check you out Jeff!

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

I check Twitter several times a day.  I like to restrict my Twitter following pretty much to business, including news feeds from agencies I'm interested in.

I don't post very often, but should give more crop reports and other items to help people understand what is happening.

My smartphone broke so I'm mostly using my computer, but I expect to get a new smartphone in November and will be back on it a lot.

@jamesnmeade

[Kay/NC]

I've never even looked at Twitter.  Just never thought about it being actually useful...it seemed more of the users were following celebrities and such, which is pointless to me. 

May have to check it out, but 144 characters would NEVER be enough for me! 

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

Twitter, like LinkedIn, has some specific uses.  It's much faster to read than Facebook.  One can shape one's interaction based on one's objectives.  I use Twitter for business type info.  I used LinkedIn mostly for the group interactions there - more credible than what I find on Facebook, but defnitiely not for everyone.  I don't used LinkedIn as a networking tool.

One can embed a URL in Twitter, thus you can essentially sent a comment on an interesting story to all your followers.

This past summer, we used Facebook groups to communicate about a family reuntion to people from Florda to California to Washington state to New York.  Used it for an ethnic group, also.

As we get more media, sometimes it's hard for me to know what to use, not use, emphasize, etc.  The younger people are more comfortable with Facebook than they are with a letter and sometimes even a phone call.  Times are changing and I'm not sure I'm always on the right track, but I'm making noises like an engineer.  Toot, toot!

I think if you Follow agriculture.com you will be able to see others who follow it an dyou can ask to follow them, so it will only take a couple of connections to see many others you might be interested in.  But!  I'm not an expert on this stuff.

[minnisota]

What hashtags are you following on twitter. That always seems to be the toughest part with me on twitter.

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

I neither follow nor generate hashtags, but maybe I should learn more about them.

[steeringwheelholder]

#agchat. #corn #beans find your favorite grain analyst and scroll through his/her following and follower lists. That'll connect you with many like minded individuals. I would suggest @arlanff101, @indianagrainco, @grainmonster. Look on Fridays for #ff. Favorite follows. See who everyone else suggests.

[knownothingwann]

You can also follow #harvest12 and #plant13.  You just need to change the last two numbers as the years click by.  #agchat is good too.  If you want some entertainment, follow @harmon03 and @pedersoncasey.  Those two are crazy and post lots of pictures and give each other a TON of grief.

Here are some other farmers that I follow that are actively using Twitter:

@cornfrmr - Very open and honest farmer from Nebraska, great insight on a variety of agricultural topics.

@zweberfarms

@agridome

@DarinNewsom
@hayseedmike

@allendale_paul

@cornwuff

@boucherfarms

@huskerfarm

@thefarmerslife - very active blogger as well

@pitstickfarms

@30somthngfarmer

@uigrad92

@indyfarmer

@farmnwife

@shark_farmer - He's hilarious.

@trentbown - cool dairy guy out of Utah

@coryritter

@wagner_farms

@gvjfarms

@bige_563

@BAndersonDTN - weather stud.

@_davehansen_

@weedgirl24

@johndeeretara

And here's my list of people that I follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jwia/agriculture/members

You can follow me, but I use my Twitter account for my day job for a software company talking about virtualization, cloud computing, and capacity management. I mostly use Twitter as a listening platform for news and other topics that I am interested in, but I do throw the occasional picture of my daughter into the ring.  Oh, and I tweeted a bunch about the debate last night.  I'm not exactly what you would call conservative, but please respect my opinions.

I would suggest using some type of aggregator to help navigate Twitter.  I use Tweetdeck and love.  HootSuite is good too.