CASE STUDY: A PHOTO IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS: USING INSTAGRAM FOR EXTENSION EDUCATION
Dan Macon, Livestock and Natural Resources Advisor, University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources
Introduction I have been a full-time or part-time rancher in Northern California since 2005. My family and I, along with a partner, currently operate a part-time commercial sheep operation near Auburn in the Sierra Foothills. In 2011, I also joined the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) office in Placer and Nevada Counties as a Community Education Specialist. In 2017, after completing my master’s degree in integrated resource management from Colorado State University, I was hired as the UCCE Livestock and Natural Resources Advisor for Placer, Nevada, Sutter, and Yuba Counties. In 2015, I initiated a social media project on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter I called Sheep 365 . Every day for a year, I posted a photo of something related to my family’s commercial sheep operation in California’s Sierra Nevada Foothills. Beginning wit h the day we turned the rams in with the ewes (October 1, 2015), and continuing until the night before we started the cycle again (September 30, 2016), I recorded a year in the life of our ranch, tagging each photo with #sheep365. The project, which culminated in a photo exhibit sponsored by our local arts council, made me realize the educational possibilities of social media – and of Instagram in particular.
Instagram Basics Instagram is a mobile photo and sharing social network/application owned by Facebo ok. In addition to using photos and video from a smartphone’s photo library, users can employ the application to shoot and post photos, video, and stories that include accompanying text (posts). The application has the ability to edit photos, through application-provided filters and tools. There is a “Live” video feature (similar to Facebook’s Livestream feature). Instagram also provides access to IGTV, the platform’s answer to YouTube. Instagram does not permit users to post “live” links in text that accompanies a photo or video post. However, since the platform does not have the kinds of character restrictions imposed by some social platforms (including Twitter), the application is popular for “micro - blogging.” The Instagram profile enables users to incl ude a single live link. However, many users of the platform optimize their Instagram profile by adding a third-party application such as Linktree, which enables links to multiple sites to be routed off a single link. Instagram provides a desktop version of its application for browsing, but posting is done on the mobile application. Instagram recently added a “Create” function, which enables users to create content without photos or video, through the use of stickers, drawings, and text. The platform also provides some interactive features - including simple polls - to increase engagement on posts.
While Instagram does have a tablet application and website, it works best when posting photos from a smartphone.
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