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About 9% of all farmers use Twitter, half for business purposes.

Mike Wilson, Senior Executive Editor

July 13, 2016

2 Min Read

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.

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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.

RELATED: Learn more at our upcoming Ag Data Conference, to be held Nov. 29-30 at the Coralville Marriott Hotel & Convention Center near Iowa City, Iowa.

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

How farmers use social media

Total using

Average

Age 35
and under

Facebook

 

40%

56%

Twitter

 

14%

28%

LinkedIn

 

17%

19%

Instagram

 

5%

19%

Pinterest

 

7%

5%

Periscope

 

1%

4%

Flickr

 

 1%

1%

About the Author(s)

Mike Wilson

Senior Executive Editor, Farm Progress

Mike Wilson is the senior executive editor for Farm Progress. He grew up on a grain and livestock farm in Ogle County, Ill., and earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural journalism from the University of Illinois. He was twice named Writer of the Year by the American Agricultural Editors’ Association and is a past president of the organization. He is also past president of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists, a global association of communicators specializing in agriculture. He has covered agriculture in 35 countries.

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