When I started this blog it was going to be for my local customers, but has slowly morphed into a blog that has more of a national and international readership. It has become a way for me to share things that I am passionate about in the horticultural business world. Most likely though this blog doesn't resonate with someone wanting some gardening information for our area.
One of the advantages of doing this blog is I get to hear from some really cool people in horticulture and new media. One such person is Doug Green of Douggreensgarden.com. Doug was a nurseryman for twenty years, and now makes his living online. Doug was nice enough to contact me recently about my blog, his ventures, and the possibilities and pitfalls of the new media. His post Are Blogs the New Garden Magazine is what put us in contact. He also wrote a post My Garden Blog Gets Changed Yet Again, and Why. Check it out as it has some very useful information on search engines, long term vs. short term memory, etc.
Doug reinforced my own feelings about how we (The Golden Gecko) need to get the word out better to our local audience. While my blog certainly gets far reaching interest, my local customers wanting gardening information may be missing out. The Blogging Nurseryman has a great niche following, people interested in the running of a small garden center as well as industry happenings, but not a lot of local garden information here.
To make sure we are not missing our local audience I am starting a new blog that will deal with gardening in the Sierra Nevada Foothills and Mountains. It will be linked to our web page, e-newsletter, as well as this blog. There seems to be an opportunity here for someone to start a conversation about gardening in our area. Why don't we start that conversation? This is a rapidly growing area of California and new people from the Bay Area and the LA area are arriving without any knowledge of how to garden here. They will search the web looking for information and we need to make sure we are right up there in the results.
Is this going to be just more work that I am getting into? No, because I am going to clear the deck of time wasters that keep me from doing what I should be doing, interacting with the customer. The future of advertising is to empower our customers to spread the word via their own blogs, participation in garden forums, customers reviews, etc. Using our web page, e-newsletter, and local gardening blog, our hope is to become a vital online resource for gardeners is northern California and specifically The Sierra Nevada Foothills and Mountains. As soon as the new blog is up I'll let you know.
What do I hope for with The Blogging Nurseryman Blog? It is already doing what I want it to do, which is allowing me to share the joys and frustrations of running our business. It also a great way to meet really cool people.