Welcome back to Social Studies!

In this tenth and final installment of our series, we're going to take a deep dive into the world of Instagram Stories.

When used correctly, Instagram Stories are the key platform for storytelling, and gardening brands need to recognize their value beyond mere feed reposts. By utilizing Instagram Stories creatively, brands can cultivate unique narratives on a more personal level. Curious to learn more about adding the human touch to your social presence? Check out our lesson 4. 

If you haven't already done so, sign up for our weekly Social Studies email series to catch up on any lessons you may have missed!

Read on to learn how to utilize Instagram Stories to foster audience engagement and establish authentic connections with your followers.

Meltwater, an online media monitoring company, recently launched a report that shared current trends in social media for 2023. 

The report offered findings from over 1,700 marketing and communications professionals globally. The short: paid and organic social media are expected to increase in 2023. Garden businesses must stay at the top of their game and adapt while also increasing their skillset. 

In the report, social media platforms were ranked by usage and popularity. Facebook is still holding the top ranking, followed by LinkedIn and Instagram. YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok remain relevant while being slightly less popular than the top three. Short-form video is hot right now on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. 

Read on to learn more about how social media has maintained and even gained importance during the current economic development. 

The headlines seem to be everywhere – skyrocketing plant sales, seed shortages, and a cut flower frenzy. On the heels of the pandemic, 2021 has seen a fervor for plants and garden goods that our industry hasn’t experienced in years.

As industry struggles to meet the demands of the massive “plantdemic” gardening trend, many are acutely aware of how limited supplies are this spring.

And this has led to an important question: how much of the “sold out blues” are consumers feeling? 

This spring, many gardeners (including first-timers) arrived at the garden center ready to shop, only to be met with empty shelves and in some cases, unfulfilled wishes. In our visions of worst-case scenarios, we imagine them getting frustrated and giving up – even abandoning the hobby.

Luckily, social media is giving us insight into consumers’ thoughts and feelings…

Read more to find out what they’re posting - it isn’t what you might expect!

If the sight of Christmas decorations next to Halloween candy on store shelves makes you raise an eyebrow, you may want to get used to it – because a trend has arrived that garden retailers can’t afford to ignore.

In recent years, 43% of holiday shoppers planned to start shopping in November. But signs are indicating a major shift this year, and retailers need brace themselves: holiday shoppers are shopping EARLY in 2020, and their preferences have changed.

Read more to learn 3 must-have tips for positioning your brands this holiday season.

With gardens and houseplants shifting from white-hot trend in 2019 to full-blown national obsession in 2020, the faces at the front of the new wave are social media influencers with legions of followers and backyards that make us—yes—green with envy.

Why should businesses in the horticulture industry pay attention to garden influencers, who range from tattooed and pierced ‘plant dads’ to proud grandmothers with enviable backyards? Because they have a direct line to the eyes, ears and wallets of millions of consumers. And the numbers tell us that these customers trust and take their buying queues from social influencers.

Smart companies are asking two questions:
• What are garden influencers doing right?
• And how can we work with them?

Read more to learn the 1-2-3’s of influencer marketing to green industry businesses.

Plantfluencers are taking social media by storm.

These expert gardening influencers are popping up on every channel making posts on everything outdoors/indoors to more niche plant varieties like orchids or carnivorous plants.

Here at Garden Media we love working with plantfluencers. Our clients have partnered on a tremendous amount of video and blog content, co-hosted and sponsored events and worked with influencers to simply grow brand awareness.

Before we jump ahead of ourselves, let’s start with the basics.

Read more to learn about working with plantfluencers.

On our personal Instagram feeds, the accounts we follow fall into a few categories. While we obviously keep up with our IRL friends (and some memes), we also love to double-tap on inspiring indoor and outdoor posts.

And there are some accounts that we could endlessly scroll through and get our inspiration fixes for both.

A few designers and gardeners have a passion for plants that they love to foster within their Instagram accounts. Whether they are photographing their own beautiful gardens or posting curated pictures, they never fail to make our scrolling a little brighter.

Want to see what members of the garden set you need to follow? Read ahead and find something new to like (or double tap.)

While Facebook still reigns queen for gardeners, Instagram is quickly overtaking the demographic. But many users - and brands - have found it difficult to build an audience on the platform.

Why is that? Well, for one, people are more selective with whom they follow on Instagram. It seems to be more personal of a platform. And two, the algorithm keeps your followers from seeing your posts. Yet, Facebook tell us 66% of the audience says Instagram is a place that enables interaction with brands. 

So how do you do it? Well, Instagram's parent company, Facebook, has just published a new report on Instagram titled: How to Connect with New Audiences on Instagram. Pretty smart, eh? So, we read it. 

Read more to learn how to win over Instagram audiences and build an engaged following.

Instagram is shaping up to be THE major marketing platform, compared to it's beginnings as a photo sharing platform. 

With over 1 billion monthly active users, utilizing Instagram for your business has never been more important. They have taken strides to create a desirable space for both customers and business owners alike.

With updates to Instagram stories and creating shoppable posts, it's no wonder engagement is higher there than on Facebook and Twitter. 

Reach on to learn more about what your business can do to utilize Instagram.

Instagram is constantly changing and updating to appeal to their audiences. While there are some updates that have brands and users up in arms, they have come out with one thing that has everyone talking. 

Instagram TV. This update to Instagram's platform let's users post videos from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. Those who have a bigger following can post videos up to an hour. 

With more of the younger generation "cutting the cord" and heading to YouTube, platforms need to keep up to stay relevant. It is projected that by 2021, mobile video will account for 78% of total mobile data traffic. So the media world is changing direction, literally. 

YouTube is all about horizontal videos, where Instagram is vertical videos only. It helps that it is a growth of Instagram stories, which also work best in the vertical format. 

Read on to see how you should be using IGTV.