We are seeing more and more garden center blogs popping up. One new blog by a garden center mentions “this blog is intended to be for garden-related topics only, so please do not post any offensive, adult-content or commercial posts. Your cooperation is very much appreciated.”

I am glad they mention this as my first inclination was to post some obscene content. Who are they directing this warning to? If I am the type of person who sends adult or offensive stuff to peoples blogs why would the warning deter me? Why would I be at this blog in the first place? The only people reading a garden center blog are potential customers or people in the horticultural trade.

The fun of a blog is the unexpected! What is the post going to be about this time? Who is going to comment today? Maybe the topic won’t be about gardening today but about something fun happening in town for which our business is involved. What about the new employee that everyone is excited about. Tell us more.

The nature of blogs is to attract people who are looking for what you offer, not miscreants that post obscene material. By the way those people will find you anyway and you will have to use the delete comment button occasionally.

The garden center with the warning can be forgiven since blogging is a fairly new thing for nurseries. We have all gone through a learning curve and still are. One way to solve the unwanted comments is to turn on “comment control”. The comments can then be viewed by the blog owner before posting. Or just don’t allow comments, which is no fun. Since this is a garden center blog most likely the “garden-related topics only” warning would have been heeded anyway.

The web is a hard thing to control. If you want control use a business web page that offers little or no customer interaction. If you’re going to blog then I feel interaction is what you want. Let the consumer question you about whatever they want. Your answers will show them what kind of business you are.