Rural Social Media Queen

Manawatu’s rural Social Media queen Chelsea Millar, 34, is helping the farming sector embrace digital communications and apps like Instagram through her company grass roots media

- Leena Tailor

I joined Facebook in 2008 and it’s funny seeing memories pop up from 12 years ago. Social media has evolved so much and I never thought I’d end up working with it. My job didn’t even exist back when I was growing up on a small Whanganui farm!

Next door was our bigger family farm, run by my greatuncle with support from my late pop, Mel, who gave me my farming genes. I was on the back of a horse at 18 months old. Pop also taught me to fence and shear my first sheep! As I got older, I was usually off horse-riding or playing netball, but I helped him whenever I could.

I had all kinds of career ideas – teacher, weather lady, policewoman – but around sixth form, I started understanding the opportunities in agriculture. I also loved science, so did a Bachelor of Applied Science at Massey University, majoring in agribusiness.

I worked at a sea freight export company in Auckland for almost two years, then returned to Manawatu and worked for NZX Agri, which previously published Farmers Weekly. Then I applied for a role as FMG Publications’ social media specialist, which kicked off my journey into rural social media. I loved it because it was an area that was up-and-coming and had some autonomy.