''A few more photos from Apple picking yesterday! Probably my favorite thing to do at the start of autumn and with temps in the low 60's yesterday, I couldn't resist busting out the sweaters and turtlenecks in celebration. Happy first day of October!''

Instagram / @taza

Take this Oct. 1 post by NYC mom influencer Naomi Davis aka @Taza (462K followers on Instagram) featuring her family at an apple orchard two hours north of the city. The temperature on the day Davis was there was in the high 60s. It’s a bit brisk, but not exactly thick-knit weather. Naomi, girl, aren’t you hot?

Since I have way too much time on my hands, I decided to check the temps during a few of my other favorite fall-themed photo shoots and OOTDs from Tuesday.

One: This #mommyblogger is from Poplar Bluff, Missouri. When she posted this on Oct. 1, it was 92 degrees.

Instagram

Two: This #miamiblogger showed off her #fallvibes. It was a high of 86 at the time of her post. But don’t worry — it cooled off to a low of 79 in Miami.

Instagram

Three: A woman who listed “jet setter” and “lifestyle influencer” in her bio draped herself in a full-length COAT. She was in Portola Valley, California, where it was in the mid-70s.

Instagram

In conclusion, a valuable lesson: Even if the climate has not yet caught up, we can still use social media to perform the festivities of fall. Happy sweating!

How to write an effective sponcon caption

Sponcon is an art form, and there’s a format for the captions. Here’s how you can write your own.

I’m going to use this recent one from a Dallas-based mom blogger (324K followers on Instagram) as an example.

Instagram

You want to invite your followers into your shill with the gentle tug of something heartwarming. In @janenecrossley’s case, it was a cutesy photo of her family captioned with the story of her and her husband’s meet-cute.

“We were set up on a BLIND DATE and married 3.5 months later!” she writes. “SUCH. FUN. MEMORIES!”

''The cutest lil players!! Aaron and I were college sweethearts. We were set up on a BLIND DATE and married 3.5 months later! We lived in a 500 sq ft studio apartment and walked a few blocks up to campus every day. We'd meet up in between classes or sit next to each other in the classes we were taking together. SUCH. FUN. MEMORIES!''

The transition into the actual shill is often clumsy, and you can easily botch it. There are really two options: You can make a slow, wide drift, or gun for a sharp turn. It’s rare you see both together. But here, Crossley combines them nicely.

First she introduces some nice imagery.

She writes, “The kids had fun playing ladder ball + corn-hole games and wearing their sport’s gear” — and suddenly, we've arrived at the shill — "that I snagged all from @Walmart.

''The kids had fun playing ladder ball + corn-hole games and wearing their sport's gear that I snagged all from @Walmart. They watched a bunch of videos of BYU's mascot ''Cosmo.'' Their eyes lit up when I told them my Grandpa Moon was ''Cosmo'' when he was a student many years ago! NEW BLOG POST TODAY with our favorite family tailgating activities and sports gear (linked in my stories!!) Helloirovryrose.com #ad #walmart''

Of course, the post can’t end with the sponcon. No one likes to be taken on a scenic drive where the final destination is Walmart.

So she slowly navigates followers out of the shill. Her kids “watched a bunch of videos of BYU’s mascot ‘Cosmo’. Their eyes lit up when I told them my Grandpa Moon was ‘Cosmo’ when he was a student many years ago!”

And then, sharply, we’re at the big announcement: “NEW BLOG POST TODAY,” she declares. You can imagine it from there.

It’s a great example of a promo twofer, all loosely threaded together by a sports/family theme.

If you’re writing the caption, you can stop here, or you can add even more mentions of other things you care about. Because why not.

If I were writing an Instagram sponcon caption for this newsletter, it’d go something like: “My kids are playing in their @Walmart jerseys as I’m writing this @buzzfeednews newsletter — please continue to like and subscribe. There’s apparently an additional 15% off sale on Overstock.com today — tell a friend. Adopt, don’t shop. And Ukrainian officials were still checking the country’s bank account for US aid for a month after the now-infamous Trump phone call.”

How did I do?

Until next time,
Tanya

Want more? Here are other stories we were following this week.

A beauty influencer is trying to defend the tough “hybrid” job of being an influencer, but not everyone is convinced. Amra Olević Reyes, a beauty and lifestyle personality with over 5.8 million followers on Instagram, is taking a stand against what she's dubbed constant "influencer slander."

The not-so-secret life of a TikTok-famous teen. Vox profiled Haley Sharpe, the 16-year-old who’s “a little bit famous” at her Alabama high school because she’s cultivated a huge fanbase on the nascent app.

The rise of the “getting real” posts on Instagram. The New Yorker tried to make sense of the ironic and sometimes contradicting qualities of a new genre of social media posts.