226 Measuring Agricultural Means of Influence on Young Adults Via Instagram in the United States

Abstract

Abstract The way society consumes information has changed drastically, and the agricultural industry is fighting to remain a part of the media landscape. With the gradual death of print news and the rise of social media (SM) consumption by young adults (Twenge et al., 2019), this leaves the questions of where do young consumers get new information and how do pro-agriculture voices successfully communicate scientific agricultural topics with them? With extremist activist voices on Instagram gripping the attentions of young adult SM users, opposing voices of influence sharing scientific and pro-agriculture messages seem to be missing. Social media influencers (SMIs), of which can be found on the SM platform Instagram, serve as “third party endorsers” who impact the feelings and opinions of audiences such as young consumers or SM users through content shared on SM. We sought to perform an evaluation of the impact established agricultural SMIs on Instagram can have on changing the perceived knowledge of participants regarding several different agricultural topics. Participants were recruited through the platform ProlificTM and were asked to complete an anonymous survey. Survey questions were asked both prior to participants being shown example images of agricultural SMIs and afterwards. Data collected were analyzed utilizing SPSS to compare pre-image and post-image results to determine the impact of contents on perceived knowledge participants on subjects relating to agriculture. Results indicated significant differences (P < .05) between the pre-image and post-image perceived knowledge results, as well as between different forms of reported engagement willingness. Future research should be conducted to determine what forms of content best reach nonagricultural target audience members and best practices for interacting on SM with those users.