Let’s meet one of the columnists for the United Soybean Board’s Expert Advice. She’s our good friend from AgChat, Michele Payn-Knoper. You can find her first Expert Advice column now on the United Soybean Board website. I spoke with Michele during her recent travels via Skype to learn more about how she got involved in the project and what she will be “teaching” soybean growers. Michele founded Cause Matters Corp., a company designed to give a voice to the people who feed the world using social media. Here’s an excerpt from her first column:

Farming the Online Community: Your Guide to Social Media

Facebook. YouTube. Twitter. LinkedIn. Digg. Farmers. Wait – how do farmers fit with all of these new-fangled tools? Welcome to 2009 and the age of social media. Studies show that four out of five online Americans are active in some form of social content at least once a month. Believe it or not, you’ve been a part of the Web 2.0 social media revolution if you’ve been on e-bay, blogs, photo sharing websites or forums interacting with others. Now it’s time for you to tap into social media to impact your bottom line though access to soybean and other market intelligence, technical expertise, discussions with other farmers and consumer thought patterns about farming.

You can listen to my interview with Michele below.