There are a multitude of social media platforms to choose from these days! The good news is, you don’t have to use every platform to market your farm. As a powerful visual medium and storytelling tool, Instagram is an effective outlet to engage with your audience, connect with the farming community, and convert followers into customers.
1. Set Your Expectations. Who is your audience? Why are you using Instagram? Though it is a great way to interact with your followers, be they CSA members, farmers’ market patrons, chefs or other farms, this platform alone does not always lead to more sales. Be clear and realistic with your expectations and expected outcomes. Pair this with other marketing tools to tell your story, increase brand recognition and expand your reach.
2. All About Your Farm in 150 Characters. Use your Instagram Bio strategically; it provides a quick snapshot into what your farm is all about! Be concise, include your location, add a link (website, blog or ecommerce page), and keep it personal. Convert visitors into followers!
Source: https://www.instagram.com/sweetgirlfarms/
3. Be a Planner. Use a Social Media Content Calendar to plan out your next 4-5 weeks of posts on Instagram, and create a photo library of images to pull from to avoid scrambling for picture-perfect moments. Planning ahead gives you time to produce creative and meaningful posts, helping you breathe easy when you are juggling other pressing farm tasks. You can also create your posts in Instagram ahead of time and save them in drafts, so when you’re ready to post, it’s as easy as pressing “Share”.
4. Be Consistent. Post with reasonable frequency and consistency. Maybe this is 5 days a week, or maybe it’s 2 days a week. Be realistic about this, and integrate it into your workflow.
Source: https://chitchatagency.com/5-instagram-content-calendar-templates-free-downloads/
5. Timing is Everything. It’s important to consider when to post so you get the most eyes on your content. Lunchtime, or 11am-1pm, statistically yields the highest engagement among followers.
6. When to Engage. Comments are a sign that users feel connected to your brand and are engaged with your content. Respond to comments and respond within a reasonable amount of time. This is especially important to do in the “Golden Hour”: the 30 minutes before and after you post. Scroll your feed briefly, engage with a couple posts, post your own content, and then engage again on other posts and any comments made on your new post. This window of time is the most important for engagement to boost your post’s visibility.
Source: https://blog.hootsuite.com/best-time-to-post-on-instagram/
7. #LetsTalkStrategy. Switch up your hashtags depending on content rather than using the same set of hashtags for every post. For example, choose 3-5 hashtags to generally use in every post and add to those depending on content. The Explore feature on Instagram’s homepage shows users new posts that use hashtags within the range of followers from that account. So if you have 3k followers and you want to use the hashtag #flowerfarmer (527k Followers) it’d be better to use #flowerfarmers (25k) as that hashtag is closer to your follower number.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/sweetgirlfarms/
8. Use Your Voice. Personality is everything on Instagram. Our favorite accounts are often those that present a consistent voice, and that we feel we know personally. Let’s be honest – farming is hard and full of challenges! An invested and engaged audience wants to hear about your successes, your failures, and everything in between.
9. Sell Your Story. A big mistake businesses make on Instagram is using it as an advertising platform for their products. You will not cultivate an invested and engaged audience by doing this day-in-day-out. Instagram is a powerful storytelling tool. Use it to talk about your values, the path that led you to farming, how you farm and why it’s important to you. This will pay off when your CSA enrollment opens, or when you share your farmer’s market schedule for the season.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/sweetgirlfarms/
10. Repost, Repost, Repost. Is a CSA member posting proud photos of meals they’ve cooked using your amazing vegetables? Repost it! Did a chef share a Story featuring your pasture-raised ducks and tag you in it? Share it to your Story! Instagram users (especially businesses) love to see their content shared. By crediting and sharing their content, you’ll continue to expand your reach across Instagram, and add value by telling a story and sharing an unsolicited testimonial of why your products are the best out there!
And don’t forget… Get Outside Your Comfort Zone! Instagram is constantly developing new features; Reels, Featured Stories…try them out! Maybe you’ll find that they aren’t all the best fit for your Instagram toolkit, but that’s okay. You may catch the attention of potential visitors or learn something new!
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Looking for Instagram Basics? Check out this resource.
Want to watch a success story instead? Check out our webinar “Creating a Strong Online Presence for your Farm with Instagram” with farm-fluencer Liset Garcia!
More Resources:
(Resource updated on July 2024)
