Survey: Facebook is social media king among farmersSurvey: Facebook is social media king among farmers

Facebook is by far the most popular social media used by U.S. farmers, followed by Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr and Periscope. That’s according to a Farm Futures survey of 1,550 farmers conducted earlier this year.

In general, younger farmers tended to use social media more than average. About 46% of U.S. farmers use Facebook for personal reasons, according to the survey. Of those, 56% were age 35 and under.

About 9% use Facebook for farm business reasons, while 21% of those age 35 and under did. Just less than 10% use Facebook to advocate for agriculture; that number jumps to 21% for the 35 and under crowd.

Facebook is by far the most popular social media used by U.S. farmers. (Photo: givaga/Thinkstock)

Facebook is also the most popular social media platform worldwide. The number of active Facebook users globally has grown from 500 million in 2010 to 1.5 billion in 2015.

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About 9% of farmers use Twitter, with half of those using the social tool for business purposes. Just over 20% of farmers age 35 and younger use Twitter, and 14% of that group says they use it for business purposes. Interestingly, 26% of farmers age 35 to 46 use Twitter, with 16% using it for business. Of those, 12% use it to advocate for agriculture.

Twitter is an online service that allows users to send and write short, 140-character messages, or tweets. As of 2015, there were 500 million Twitter users worldwide.

About 17% of farmers report using LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking service, and 6% use it for farm business purposes. The largest age group to use LinkedIn, at 16%, is 36- to 45-year-olds; 11% in that age group report using it for business purposes.

While only 5% of all farmers say they use Instagram, nearly one-fifth of the 35 and under crowd use the online photo and video-sharing network, and 7% of those young farmers use it to advocate for agriculture.

Source: Farm Futures Jan. 2016 survey, 1,550 responses