Project: Social Media

Social media is important to putting information out for the public to see. My main project is to help improve the presence of Marigold Market and the Athens-Clarke County Extension Garden on Instagram and partially on Facebook. 

The first thing I did was reference my own Instagram, and see what has previously worked on it. For me, I post mainly on my story with polls and questions for people to respond to, and that helps with the engagement on the profile. Also, I make a post every now and then, and at the end I ask a question to get people to comment on the post. In addition, on certain days I take time to engage with other people's posts such as liking, commenting and even sharing others' posts with polls or comments about them. These are some things that have worked for my Instagram, so I created a social media strategy for the Marigold Market and the Athens-Clarke County Extension Garden Instagram.

The strategies show what to do on that day such as post, story or engagement. I made a strategy each day of the week, and then at the end added hashtags that can be used for the posts. 

I will start with the social media strategy that I created for the Extension Garden's Instagram. On Mondays, there will be a story (or multiple stories) about Clarke throughout his day. On the stories, Clarke can add a question sticker, and he can answer questions that people may have personally or on the story. On Tuesdays, they could make a post about the garden with fun facts or about what is going on, and on Wednesday, they could post on their story about what is going on in the office or garden. Then, on Thursday, I said to do a story or post about highlighting someone in the office or a Master Gardener because I believe it is nice to know the people that work in the office and talk about them. On Friday, I said to do another story highlighting the farmers markets that will be going on in Athens. This would help people know more about the markets, and hopefully get more people to the markets on Saturday. Lastly, I said to do engagement such as liking, commenting and sharing on Saturday because the weekends are for resting from all the work done throughout the week which is also why I said to do nothing on Sunday. I added different hashtags they could use on their posts that pertain to Instagram. I included the strategy that I presented to them, so you all could see what it looks like. 

Furthermore, I also created a social media strategy for the Marigold Market, and it looks a little different than the Extension one. I added catchy names for each day of the week to help remember what to post. As you can see on the image below, I said Mondays are Monday Making, and on Mondays to post a recipe that can be made with produce or products from the market. For example, they could post a zucchini bread recipe for all the people that purchased zucchini. Then, on Tagged Tuesday, they would do some engagement which would be going to tagged posts, and commenting and liking on other people's content that they were tagged in. Next, I called it What Wednesday. What Wednesday would be a story about what they are up to in order to get ready for the market since it is the middle of the week. In addition, I said to add a question box to answer any questions people may have. Thankful Thursday could be a story or a post about a vendor, and say how they are thankful that the vendor chooses Marigold Market instead of another farmers market to spend their Saturdays at. Next is Don't Forget Friday, and it is a story reminding people to come to the market on Saturday. They could do a countdown and/or highlight the vendors that will be attending the market. Unlike Extension's, I added to post a story throughout the day on Saturday showing how the market is going. Hopefully, people seeing the story will get up and visit the market. Lastly, Sunday would be a story or a post about the market in review, and thanking people for stopping by. Also, I added hashtags that would be useful for posts.

To the right is an image I created on Canva to use for the Marigold Market Instagram. They posted it on their story on a Friday to show what vendors would be at the market on Saturday. It is something simple, and there is not too much going on. 

Moreover, the strategies are things that have worked on my Instagram, and these are suggestions. Everyone has different ways of running their social media, but I find that engaging with followers helps raise awareness about your profile and what you do. 

In addition, I enjoy creating social media strategies and things to post because it helps communicate with the community on what is going on and fun things related to you/the Instagram profile. This project relates to my field because I want to be able to communicate with the community about agriculture, and raise more awareness about it. Also, I want people to know about how it is behind the scenes of some things such as running a farmers market. I love learning about the ins and outs of the office and the farmers market.