3 Ways to Use Social Media for Better Plant Education
July 26, 2019 
Creating a social media-based personality for a plant, such as pilea, can help drive a love of the plant.
Photo by Katie McCoy-Dubow
There are numerous ways to connect with consumers nowadays. Social media is among the most effective tools to get instant feedback on your plants and plant products. If not already, try plugging into these ideas.
1. Pinterest is a great visual search engine. When used properly, it can be the number one driver of traffic to a website. You can benefit from creating boards for each plant you want to promote, with links that drive back to your website. Pins, whether images or videos, should portray a plant lifestyle and should be bright and cheerful. They should also be vertical. Pinterest does not like horizontal images. With every pin, make sure there is either an informative or inspirational caption. The more tips on growing, the better, and when paired with a beautiful image, the shares and eyeballs will come.
2. I’ve seen success in creating social profiles for plants. I love following Pilea Lovers on Instagram (28,000 followers) or the hashtag #MonsteraMonday. Creating a personality for a plant and getting people to find ways to use that plant in their home or garden drives a love of the plant and can lead to increased sales. All of the content doesn’t have to be created by you. You can crowd source images, as long as you give proper credit to the owner. Sharing other people’s images will also help get your profile noticed, followed, and shared. Content should always feature fun and inspirational images. Vertical also works best for the Instagram platform (think phone scrolling), as a vertical image takes up more screen space on your phone than horizontal.
3. Finally, no matter what platform you choose or how you choose to do it, consistency is key. Posting once a day is a ton of work, but the key to driving engagement is to pepper your fans with regular content at regular intervals. Today’s social media landscape is all about engagement — not about likes, but about actual actions taken from a post: comments, link clicks, and purchases. Consistency is the top factor to success.
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