Social. Media. You can’t go one day without hearing those two words. They are everywhere. Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, MySpace, and YouTube … the list goes on and on. Our lives are
beginning to revolve around social media, whether we like it or not. For farmers, utilizing these
incredible tools for marketing and raising awareness can either be a dream come true or a
technological nightmare. In this article I hope to demystify social media and give tips on the best
ways to use specific social networks to market, promote and raise awareness of your farm and organic
agriculture as a whole.
Facebook
Facebook is a perfect place to start with social media. Once you have created a Facebook page you
can begin to share posts, create events and connect to other social media outlets like Instagram,
YouTube and Twitter. In order to gain more followers or likes on Facebook you can easily just ask
people you are personally friends with to go and like or follow you. But the way to reach a broader
audience is through Facebook posts. Sharing photographs, links or stories is the best way to draw
people in. When you draw someone in with something interesting, they can then also share your post,
reaching a larger audience, therefore pulling in new customers.
Here are some great tips for the best Facebook posts or tweets:
Instagram
Instagram is becoming one of the most popular social media outlets right now. The best part about
Instagram is that it keeps things simple. Being able to only post pictures and videos allows you to
get creative and show people who you are. It is a perfect way to let people into your world and
create a visual image of your farm. Also, gaining followers is quite easy. The two best ways to get
followers are: 1. Follow other people, and 2. Use hashtags.
1. Following
When you follow others, they are notified and typically they will check you out as well. My
favorite Farmer Instagrammers are
@kneehighfarmer,
based out of Chester County, PA and
@bluefoxfarm, out of Applegate, OR. Both
post consistent and regular content and sometimes even something educational. If your content is
interesting and eye catching, you will most likely get a follow back. Research suggests that for
every 6 people you follow you get at least 1 follow back. So the more people you follow the more
people see you and the more you are suggested to others.
2. #Hashtag
Then there is the #hashtag. They are everywhere these days. But you may ask, “Do they really do
anything?”. The answer is yes. Hashtags are extremely helpful. People can search for different
hashtags and see every single post ever posted with that hashtag in it. So if you put #farming in
your Instagram or Facebook post, it will be seen by anyone who ever searches for #farming on those
sites. Using hashtags properly and responsibly is actually the tricky part. There is a happy medium
between over hash-tagging and really trying to choose the best hashtags for your content. Choosing
highly searched-for hashtags is of course the best bet. Instagram even helps you with this by
telling you how many other posts have the specific hashtag you just typed in. Making up wild and
long hashtag sentences won’t really get you seen but perhaps will make someone laugh. Also
creating your own hashtag for your brand and using it every time is helpful as your followers become
familiar with it.
Perhaps the most important tip for all businesses with a social media presence is to curate a
unique voice and image for each social media outlet. For instance, if you are actively using
Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and you post the same content on all three, your followers are more
likely to unfollow you or lose interest. But if you were to share uniquely different information,
photographs, links or stories on all three, that will keep people engaged and excited to see more
from you.
Regardless of which social media outlet you choose to use, having a presence on social media is
crucial for marketing your farm and products. Keeping people engaged with consistent and honest
content should always be your top priority. It may seem unnatural to put effort into all this
technology - as farmers we tend to enjoy our time in the sun more than staring at a screen. Even the
smallest effort on social media will make a big difference for your farm. And don’t forget to have
some #fun with it. Be creative. Be smart. Be you.
If you liked this article, and want to see more like it, enter your email in the subscribe box to the top-right of this page and we'll send you new blog articles as we publish them.
Patrick Dunn has been farming for over 9 years and his experience ranges from production
scale market farming to community based urban agriculture. He studied at the Center for
Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at UCSC and co-founded Emerald Street Community
Farm and Master Street Farm in Philadelphia, PA. When Patrick isn't farming, you can find
him dangling from ropes high on the granite walls of Yosemite or jetting off to the
mountains for solitude in the wilderness.
