"Less Dirt, More Sparkle" -Erin Benzakein
When I think back to how I found myself falling in love with flower farming I recall how I discovered a beautiful web of flower growers through Tarrnation Farm's Instagram account. I was smitten Tarrnation's farmstand bouquets, but the glimpse into life on the farm is the thing that really pulled me in and turned me into a repeat customer who craved the flowers I saw flooding my IG feed.
At the Floret Workshop we spent some dedicated time working with the Floret team on social media marketing for our businesses. For flower growers, Instagram is a big part of getting the word out. Other apps help yield wedding clients (Pinterest) and lead to more website conversions (Facebook), but we learned from Floret that the flower world is on Instagram. Erin encouraged us to look carefully at the kinds of posts that are most appreciated by our audiences. From there, you can identify the trends that appear in your most liked posts. Consider trying a service that can help you identify those trends. Iconosquare offers a free trial period that is great for identifying trends in your account and similar accounts. Or- do some analytics yourself. Look back and see which posts have been most successful. Be intentional about making more posts like them. See what happens. The idea is not to be untrue to yourself or your brand, it is to use the service better and share the kind of content your audience wants to see.
Vanessa of Tarrnation Flower Farm took a moment to pose with me for a photo at the Floret Workshop. The image became one of my lost liked posts from the trip.
The major take away from Floret in regard to social media marketing for flowers was a phrase Erin used to describe their approach. She said, "Less dirt, more sparkle." She shared that the success of her Instagram account was largely due to a commitment to beautiful photography, to taking time to make content she knew her viewers would appreciate, and to maintaining consistency in her account.
Part of making content that your audience will appreciate has to do with letting the flowers take center stage- and that requires that we not distract our viewers with images that make our work more "dirty." It isn't always fun to get a little dressed up at the end of the day, but that's exactly what they do at Floret. They also avoid using filters.
If you need to make an ad with text, a useful (and free!) tool is a web-based design platform called Canva. Canva provides access to professionally designed templates for everything from Instagram posts to invitations. There are options to pay for stock photos or illustrations, but I've never had trouble building out designs I've needed with the free stuff and my own images.
I made this ad for one of our flower CSA options with a Canva template.
I've learned that in the flower growing world, Instagram users appreciate: overhead shots, portraits, and "armloads" of flowers. Take a look at some of your favorite feeds and see if those trends jump out to you. I've found that images of people generally perform really well, and self portraits with biographical information do even better. People want to know you and your story, so make an effort to step outside of your comfort zone and in front of the camera. What do these ideas mean for other growers? See how you can show an abundance of product (@uglyproduceisbeautiful shares lots of overhead fruit and veggie images). Introduce customers to different members of your farm crew or share the individual biographies of animals on your farm. When you see that perfect twilight moment happening, take time to capture it from different perspectives.
A quick overhead shot from last summer. While, less fancy than I would have liked, this rainbow of blooms was appreciated by many of my followers.
And remember- your camera doesn't need to be fancy! Check out @junesblooms. She is a master with a cell phone camera. Play with a light metering/focus feature on your phone and see what you can do. On an iPhone tap the image on the screen in different locations before you take your shot to adjust the light in the image.
An armload of Drumline tulips at Floret Flower Farm. Photo by @junesblooms with my iPhone.
Thanks for reading. If you're interested in learning more about social media marketing for farms or flowers, please share your comment or idea below. I don't claim to now everything, or even very much, but I'm happy to share what I've learned so far.
Best,
