You don’t have to be a Jessie Jarvis to effectively tell the public about your farm or ranch.

Starting is less daunting than it may seem because each farm and ranch is unique and every operator has a knack for a task that can help kick-start the storytelling, said Jarvis, recent winner of the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation’s first-ever Social Media Influencer Award. Moreover, consumers are more interested in the information than many producers realize.

IFBF gives the award to those who “go above and beyond to not only support agriculture, but to share agriculture,” information division director Joel Benson said during the group’s December annual meeting, at which farmers and ranchers were urged to tell their stories.

“Focus on your gift and your skills,” Jarvis said in an interview. “If you are skilled at writing or speaking, or short or long forms of either, do that. Start with it. Don’t overcomplicate it.”

And don’t avoid telling your story because you think the market is saturated, she said.

“Every livestock operation and farm has a unique and important story to tell,” said Jarvis, a third-generation rancher based near King Hill.

She hosts the Leaders of the West podcast and owns Of the West, a job platform for agriculture and Western industries. Earlier, she directed communications for the Idaho Cattle Association.

Discussing big issues affecting agriculture has helped several producers grow their audiences but is not a requirement for success, Jarvis said. Connecting is paramount.

Photos and videos — even those that capture seemingly mundane life on the farm or ranch — can engage the consumer effectively, she said.

“Consumers find that incredibly interesting,” Jarvis said. By connecting in this way, “agriculture now is something they are around every day, like we are.”

“I wake up and go feed cows, take the kids to school and my daughter says something funny,” she said. “Or I’m going from ranch life to business life really fast and make a joke about taking a meeting in long johns. That is relatable to someone having a lot of irons in the fire.”

Kitchen-based imagery of a rancher preparing meat is another example.

“Those everyday mundane things are not as mundane as we think they are,” Jarvis said.

Regardless of content, “if we want more people to feel connected to what it is that we do, we have to share,” she said.

Partly because the number of farmers is declining even as the world’s population is growing, “more people are disconnected from agriculture, so we as people who are in agriculture to make sure those consumers can be connected to our way of life,” Jarvis said. “The way we are able to do that is by sharing.”

“We need more people in our industry to create connections so the consumer feels connected,” she said.

“If we want more people to feel connected to what it is that we do, we have to share our stories,” Jarvis said. “We need to share the work that we are doing and the contributions we make not only to America, but to the world.”