[Mike] "What If..." a farm was a social media marketing business?

(energetic music) (playful music) At the Shiloh Farm, they grow flowers, fruits, and vegetables, raise chickens, sheep, and a bunch of other animals.

(sheep baaing) [Noah] Hey.

[Mike] And none of this pays the bills for Noah Young and family.

This is the money maker.

Here's five things that should never be planted together.

Cauliflower and cucumbers are both heavy feeders, so if you plant them together, they're gonna be fighting over nutrients like two toddlers over a juice box.

So by planting them together, you're basically creating a fungal free-for-all.

My name is Noah Young from Kenesaw, Nebraska, and I'm a first-generation farmer/rancher, and I do social media for a living.

[Mike] Millions of people around the world follow The Shiloh Farm on social media for funny, educational videos about Noah's farming journey.

Doug, where is he?

Oh, there he is.

Doug.

You're the star of this one, buddy, and he wants nothing to do with it.

(sighs) Doug.

Child actors and animal actors, you know?

Little bite.

That's like our family tradition.

First strawberry of the year, we always share it, otherwise we fight over it.

(children laughing) [Mike] This started in 2020 when Noah and his wife Sierra decided to turn their small five-acre hobby farm into the foundation for what you might call a marketing business.

I wanted to keep education at the forefront of everything, but I also just love entertaining people and making people laugh.

So I think I tried to blend those two together and it just worked.

Tomatoes and potatoes are in the same family, so they can share diseases like college kids share Netflix passwords.

I need to pause longer.

What I always try to kind of explain to people who don't understand social media income is that we're in marketing.

We're creating advertising, and so just like companies are willing to spend millions of dollars on a Super Bowl commercial to reach millions of eyes, they can do the same thing by coming to an influencer like myself who reaches millions of people every month and we get paid by brands and companies to create advertising products for them.

Oh, yeah, tons of drama-llama.

(playful music) -What state are y'all from?

-Kentucky.

What is your number one ag commodity?

Soybeans.

We sold $1.4 billion worth of soybeans last year.

[Mike] Noah also gets paid to be an influencer at events, plus gets income from the platforms he posts on, depending on the amount of traffic for each video.

Here's a real simple way to hypnotize a chicken.

All you have to do is draw a line straight out from their beak.

Chickens were kind of the start, right?

Yes, sir.

Those were my first videos.

I started on TikTok doing chicken fact of the day.

Are chickens really 364% larger than they were 60 years ago?

Yep, these chickens have grown faster than the pile of dishes in my sink.

There's drama in the garden.

Oh yeah.

[Mike] This video about things you shouldn't plant together.

778,000 views on TikTok and 438,000 on YouTube in just a week.

You ever wonder how... [Mike] 23 million people saw a video he posted a while ago about seedless watermelons.

And this odd set of chromosomes will result in the fruit being sterile and not producing any seed.

Perfect, and cut.

It's totally wild.

Like the idea that people from all around the world have seen my face or the fact that I have more followers than there are people in Nebraska is just wild to me.

It's truly hard to comprehend.

We were walking around somewhere and they'll come and like whisper to me, like, "Is your husband the Shiloh Farm guy?"

Like, "Yep.

I mean, you could go talk to him.

He'd love to talk to you."

Somebody will stop me at a grocery store and they'll be like, "Oh my gosh, I love your videos."

[Mike] So what do people say when you tell them that, "Oh, our family business is being influencers and social media stars"?

Yeah, it's kind of awkward sometimes when people are like, "Oh, you guys are big shots," where really, this is just everyday life for us.

Looks great.

Right after... [Mike] For Noah, Sierra and their four young kids who are also very involved in the operation.

James, come here.

[James] Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

[Noah] She's got a little baby.

[Child] She has a baby!

[Mike] What do you think of your dad's videos?

-I like them.

-I like them too.

The roots are all soggy and the plant's like, "I don't know how to swim."

[Mike] Is he silly sometimes?

Yeah.

You know what else doesn't go with carrots or peppers for that matter?

Is beans.

Good one?

There's one handful left, so you could've done it one more time.

-I give you that.

-But you did great.

[Mike] There's a process to the silliness: research and planning.

A lot of people probably don't understand that influencers script.

-Yeah, well... -Which you do.

Some are really good at just going right off the cuff and pulling out their phone.

I'm not that way.

I need a little bit of time to craft my jokes a little bit.

You're not being overwatered, you're just misunderstood.

You're not being dramatic.

You're just misunderstood.

[Mike] Especially if Noah adds a guest to one of his videos.

Why are you like this?

Mike, what's the deal with this plant, man?

I don't know.

I don't know how to read a plant.

Today, we're gonna figure out how, ah (snaps).

How did I start that last one though?

Oh, just like... See, plants aren't hard.

You just need to check for signs before drowning them in love or abandoning them emotionally.

[Mike] There's a line coming, isn't there?

-And then you'll say?

-"Just like parenting."

I still want them to feel like they're included -in the video and not just... -We're talking to them.

Yeah, but at the same time, it's weird if I'm talking to you and I'm never looking at you.

Even though all plants have different watering requirements, there is a general green rule of thumb.

Mike, go ahead and probe your finger into that soil about one inch deep.

Go on, probe away.

Are we good?

We're still in frame, all right.

Mike, how much water do you drink in a day?

Oh, half a gallon or so.

Okay, add a gallon.

Convert that to Sprite.

And that's what I drink because plants, just like people, have different water requirements.

What about giving 'em Sprite?

Sprite might work for this one, but not for that one.

Now I'm gonna have people that are like, "Where's the Sprite video?"

If it feels wet about an inch down, then you don't need to water.

But if it feels dry, then it's a good idea to go ahead and water.

That's a brown finger.

(playful music) Cut.

And that's a video.

[Mike] That's a video from the Shiloh Farm.

(gentle music) [Mike] It's a business making choices about what to raise based on what's good for content creation.

Yep, go ahead and put it in.

[Mike] But they also consume and sell their product.

Just as important, it allows the young family to spend time and create something together, including content Noah hopes is a positive thing for the millions who follow his adventures.

So what do you hope they get out of it when they see what you're doing?

I want them to feel upbeat and feel like it was worth their time to watch my video and that they actually walked away from that either laughing, feeling better, or learning something.

I hope to just inspire people to look at farmers in a different light.

When they're eating their food in New York City and they have no idea where it came from, I'm hoping that whether it's my face or some other farmer that I've introduced them to, I hope they think about the personality behind the plate and what they're eating.