Rincker Law has entered Twitterland! You can follow @RinckerLaw here. Twitter is newly popular form of micro-blogging and is different than traditional blogs because users are restricted to 140 characters (similar to a text message). Twitter is a very different than facebook and is a great way to get a condensed version of news and participate in discussions with those that share common interests such as #agchat and #foodchat. (The # hashtag before any term makes your “tweet” searchable on twitter).
I was tweeting at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (“NCBA”) Summer Conference (#NCBAConf) in Denver, Colorado last week from @CariRincker and finally had the opportunity to meet some “tweeps” in real life (“IRL”)! (The @ symbol is the way folks on twitter communicate with each other and mention people). It’s amazing how social media has given us all a new way to communicate and network with one another.
There are several agriculture commodity groups on twitter including American Farm Bureau Federation (“AFBF”) and livestock publications such as Feedstuffs, Beef Magazine, and Drovers. Government agencies have even been found to tweet including the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service (“FSIS”) and Farm Service Agency (“FSA”), and the U.S. Department of Interior’s Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”).
If you download an application on your mobile phone such as Twitterberry, you are able to get news updates from those you follow throughout the day and have the ability to update your status from the palm of your hand. Some farmers have been even been known to tweet from their tractor on twitter (a.k.a. “the tractor tweet“)!
Twitter might very well be a short-lived fad, but for now it serves as a great way to connect with ag folks around the country and get “breaking news” such as a vote on an agriculture bill from your Congressman’s office. Rincker Law will be tweeting primarily about agriculture law and policy information and hope to find you there!