Is your farm vagueposting?
If an average viewer sees your farm’s latest Instagram post, will they know who you are or how to buy from you?
Let’s say your post about Daisy the cow catches someone’s attention in a scroll and the caption is “Another wonderful day to be a cow 🌻” … are you a cow fan page? An ice cream brand? A cheese producer? A local farm? A grocery store dairy brand? With the break-neck speed of social media feeds, readers aren’t in a mental state to figure out what you aren’t telling them.
Most followers will see your post in their live feed, putting your post out of the context of your page, and if they follow hundreds of accounts they may not immediately remember who you are. Even if they do remember you, they won’t necessarily remember everything about you — what you raise, how you raise it, why they should buy from you, how to buy from you…
That’s why every post you make needs to give all the information a brand-new person would need to know to get interested in your farm, and then take action.
follow the Five Ws!
We’ve found a formula that does a great job of doing this for our clients: the “five Ws” of journalism. These are the fundamental questions that reporters use to make sure a story includes all key facts:
Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Why?
Sometimes it’s also known as “five Ws and an H” to include “How”.
How does this apply to farms and social media? If you communicate who you are, what/where/when you sell, and why your farm is special, you’ll make the most of your posts — boosting the return on your investment of valuable time you spent taking photos and writing captions!
Before (vaguepost)
Our favorite breakfast — ham and eggs!
💭 Reader thoughts: Is this a random person sharing their breakfast? Is this a restaurant where I can eat breakfast? Oh, I think it’s that cool farm I follow… I wonder how hard it would be to buy from them? Oh look, there’s kitten video!
What’s missing:
Who we are: a farm near you
Why buy from us: our practices
What we sell: pasture-raised pork
Where we sell it: Albany Farmers Market
When to go: Saturday from 9am - 2pm
See the next post with this information added.
After (with 5Ws)
Our favorite breakfast — pasture-raised ham and eggs! Here on our SW Georgia farm, we raise pigs on pasture, the way nature intended. We believe it’s better for the animals, better for the earth, and better for us 💚
Want to stock your kitchen with our pasture-raised pork? Find us at the Albany Farmers Market this Saturday from 9am - 2pm.
💭 Reader thoughts: Marking my calendar now!
Before (vaguepost)
We’ve just moved our cattle to fresh pasture!
💭 Reader thoughts: Cows are so cool. Except for that greenhouse gas thing. Oh look, there’s kitten video!
What’s missing:
Who we are: a farm near you
Why buy from us: our practices
What we sell: grass-fed beef
How/Where to buy: our website
How you’ll get it/where we deliver: home delivery in Portland, Salem, & Eugene
When you’ll get it: Saturday
See the next post with this information added.
After (with 5Ws)
We’ve just moved our cattle to fresh pasture at our small Oregon farm! We’re committed to sustainability and raising beef in what we feel is the healthiest way possible. The way we farm is not the cheapest way to produce food, but we believe it produces superior beef and we feel good about stewarding the land this way.
In case you missed it, steaks have been restocked! We deliver to homes across Portland, Salem, and Eugene every Saturday. Order grass-fed beef on our website — link in bio. 🥩
💭 Reader thoughts: Kittens… Oh look, beef I can feel good about! Thank goodness. [clicks to website]
Farmers often tell us they don’t want to be too pushy, and they don’t want to sound repetitive. That’s totally understandable! Just keep in mind that by sharing key details in every post, your repetition won’t be annoying. The average viewer isn’t going to see every post you make, and even if they do, they will likely have skimmed dozens or hundreds of others in between. The chances that they’ll remember every detail you shared last time are very slim! You’re helping them out by giving them all the info they need so they don’t have to work to figure it out on their own.
Another way to boost ROI
You put in lots of work to come up with the perfect post, so you might as well squeeze the most out of that investment.
We have one final tip: A “boost” of as little as $5, when carefully targeted, can double or triple the number of people who see your post.
Need a hand? Grapevine can help with everything from turnkey posting to social strategy to coaching you in our proven boost system. Get in touch!
More Farm Marketing Resources
For purposes of this comparison, we’re focusing solely on platforms that will enable you to have both your complete website and your online store together under one roof, so we’re zeroing in on GrazeCart vs. Shopify vs. Square.