Sowing Seeds of Success on Social Media
Eighth-generation farmer Zoe Kent always knew she would return to the family grain farm after she graduated from Ohio State University, but she never expected more than 100,000 people to follow along as she documented farm life on social media.
“When I was in college, I would send everyone Snapchats of what I was doing on the farm and post on my Instagram stories,” Kent explains. “Since I was hanging out with a whole bunch of kids who didn’t have an ag background, they all found it super fascinating.”
Kent Family Farms was founded in 1826 through an Ohio land grant. In 2021, Kent created a TikTok account — and later added Instagram and Facebook accounts — to share information about growing corn and soybeans in Crawford County.
As one of few women in production agriculture, Kent, 30, found an immediate niche. The content she posts on @FarmWithZoe accounts has shifted as her audience has grown.
“It started out as a creative outlet to highlight fun things on the farm,” she says. “As the grain market has gone down, I’ve gotten a little more serious and started talking about the economics of farming and the realities of day-to-day life on the farm.”
Building a social media following has opened up new opportunities. Kent has partnered with big brands to test equipment and monetizing content has helped balance out the ups and downs of grain farming. Social media, she adds, is a lot like grain farming.
“With corn and soybeans, there is no control because of factors like the weather,” Kent says. “Social media is the same. You can have a strategy and do everything with best practices and sometimes it’ll take off and sometimes it won’t.”
Kent still uses skills such as welding and public speaking that she learned in the Wynford FFA. FFA also encouraged Kent to step out of her comfort zone and try new things, which has been invaluable to her success as a farmer and influencer.
“I tried bagging corn for the first time and spraying my crops with drones because I saw people doing it on social media and I was able to ask them questions about it,” she says. “People want to help others in farming, and posting on social media is part of that.”
