Abstract

Many people utilize social media for keeping up with personal relationships, but it is also an effective form of advertising. Our objective was to assess the utilization of social media by equine professionals in marketing their business. Surveys were disseminated to horse professionals to gather data on the use and preference of social media within the equine industry. Most participants surveyed utilized social media in promoting their equine businesses (84.4%) and agree that social media has a positive influence on their business (93.1%). Facebook was the primary type of social media utilized by professionals surveyed. Breed show professionals were most likely to use more obscure types of social media to market their business and were more likely to use print media as compared to website marketing. Professionals who have been in the horse industry 19 or more years utilize social media the same as their newer to the industry competition. Results suggest equine professionals perceive that social media benefits their business, including those with traditional barriers to social media usage. Results clarify types of social media preferred by specific horse industry professionals (84.4% use Facebook) and give some insight to perception of type of social media use.

Keywords: Business, Equine, Marketing, Social media