Harnessing Social Media And Selling On Stories For Equestrian Business Owners
Running an equestrian business in 2025 means having a strong online presence, and social media will already be a big part of your digital marketing plan. Whether you love it or loathe it, social media is an incredible resource for you to reach and connect with clients and customers.
Here’s how to get the most from using the Stories function on Instagram and Facebook, it is a great tool to allow you to make more sales.
Stories are short, temporary posts on social media that disappear after 24 hours. They can be photos, videos, or text, and can be enhanced with stickers, links, polls and questions. Stories appear at the top of the Instagram feed, making them highly visible. Instagram Stories can be shared across to Facebook, or Stories can be created directly in Facebook, although the functionality isn’t as impressive.
Many equestrian business owners use stories as a way of driving followers to their main post. Whilst this was a useful tactic, it doesn’t work as well now. Many Instagram users simply watch stories, and some of your followers will view your posts and your Stories. Meaning that separate content works best.
Here are 5 ways to use Stories to make more sales for your business:
Showcasing Client Results
Nothing builds credibility better than showcasing real client results. Equestrian businesses can leverage Stories to share testimonials, before-and-after transformations, and success stories. For example:
Post snippets of students’ progress.
Customer reviews or messages as screenshots, or user-generated content of products in action.
Show the journey of a client and the transformation you helped them achieve
Such content is very powerful because it acts as social proof, and paints a picture of what someone might experience working or buying from you.
Sticker Tap Stories
Instagram and Facebook offer interactive stickers in Stories, which are a goldmine for boosting engagement. Sticker taps—actions where viewers interact with polls or questions, —provide valuable insights and keep the audience engaged. Here’s how equestrian businesses can use them:
Poll Stickers: Ask followers to vote on their favorite horse breed, riding discipline, or product color. This not only boosts engagement but also provides market research.
Question Stickers Box: Host Q&A sessions about horse care, riding tips, or product features.
Countdown Stickers: Build anticipation for upcoming events, product launches, or special offers.
These interactive features create a two-way communication channel, building a community of loyal followers who feel connected to the brand. By swiping up on the Story in Instagram you can see who has voted, or requested more information, and you can reply to them directly. Don’t forget you need to check this before the story expires.
We use this feature to build waitlists, meaning that we have a list of potential clients and customers ready and waiting to buy.
Creating Urgency
Scarcity and urgency are powerful motivators for sales. Highlighting limited availability—like “Only 3 Spaces Left” for a riding clinic, training session, or exclusive product—can prompt quick decisions from potential customers.
This strategy works exceptionally well on Stories due to their temporary nature. By combining urgency with countdown stickers, or a direct link to buy, equestrian businesses can:
Promote limited slots for lessons, workshops, or clinics.
Announce flash sales or exclusive product releases.
Offer time-sensitive discounts or early-bird pricing.
This approach taps into the fear of missing out (FOMO), driving faster conversions and increasing sales.
It goes without saying that the urgency does need to be genuine, whilst some online marketers do use ‘fake scarcity’ I don’t believe in doing so, and feel that buying can sense this.
Boosting Visibility
Visibility is the cornerstone of building a successful brand, and it can be easy to boost your visibility and reach new followers by showcasing other great businesses and brands in your area or niche.
If you have a geographically bound business you could shout out to the show centres, feed stores, therapists, vets, trainers, grooms and so forth in your area. Screenshot their account, or take a picture when you are next buying your feed. Tag each account, and share why you love their services. They are highly likely to repost this, and then your business name and content will be in front of their audience.
If your business covers a national or international audience, then you can showcase other experts or brands in your niche.
Sell via Case Studies
Case studies allow for direct and indirect selling on stories for equestrian businesses. By asking for ‘case study’ clients or customers, i.e. those who’d like to be featured as a case study, and by sharing the results.
Case studies provide in-depth insights into how your products or services benefit clients. For equestrian businesses, this could mean detailing a horse’s training journey, a rider’s competition success, or how a specific product solved an issue.
It’s time to use the power of Stories
Stories offer your business an amazing opportunity to sell, almost on a daily basis. We create all of our stories inside the Instagram app, and you don’t need to be a tech genius or graphic designer to get going.
So why not start using Stories on social media with intentionality, creating content that sells, and having fun in the process.
Nicola Kinnard-Comedie (Msc, BHSAI Int. SM)
is the owner and founder of NKC Equestrian Training, delivering horse care training to horse owners and business and mindset coaching to equine practitioners.
Nicola is a qualified riding instructor and has over 20 years industry experience, and now uses her coaching skills to assist equine practitioners. Nicola decided to combine her experience of equestrian science, sales and marketing, and teach this to others. Nicola works with veterinary physiotherapists, massage therapists, osteopaths and other equestrians across the world to help them build their dream business. Nicola's work focuses on harnessing the power of your mindset, together with cutting edge marketing strategies to support equestrian business owners to realise the business of their dreams.
You can find out more about Nicola here: www.nkcequestrian.com
This article is from the March issue of Equine Business Magazine
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