When this blog got it's start 5 and a half years ago, none of us could have seen where the whole social media experiment was headed. I remember back in July 2006 a nursery trade publication contacted me about the relevance of blogs for nurseries and garden centers. They had been researching the subject, and happened across my earlier post “Plant Traffickerâ€. They had some questions about whether the nursery trade should be interested in blogs. According to them, "the consensus amongst most nursery consultants was there is no relevance, and no reason for nurseries to be interested in blogging, or bloggers.â€
Well, we know how that turned out. Looking over one of those trade publications the other day, it seems that about a quarter of the articles deal with how to use this new medium to help our businesses. I find it amazing how everyone is offering advice on how to do social media now. Many of the same people who said it wasn’t relevant then, now want to sell you on the program. It’s social media, not rocket science. That’s what's so scary to the traditional media, and PR firms. How are they going to make money, when the power of your advertising efforts are in your hands?
It seems many of us are on the same page, at the same time. To get things started a new Facebook group has been created with some friends who are in the independent garden center business. Susan Harris of Garden Rant and Mary Ann Newcomer of Gardens of the Wild Wild West will join me as group administrators. It’s a “secret†group. It does not show up on web searches. It's open to Independent Garden Center people world wide. See if the following applies to you, and whether you would be interested in joining.
“This group is for people involved in the day to day business of Independent Garden Centers and Nurseries. That means people who WORK FOR IGC&Ns. No vendors. No media. No exceptions. If you add any ‘friends’ to the group they MUST currently work directly for an IGC&N. Please help us enforce that! How to use this group? Ask for help about anything. Report successes and failures, especially about your use of "new media". (No one's an expert in how IGCs can best use all these new tools, so we need to communicate with each other!)â€
If your interested in becoming involved you will need a Facebook profile. Once that is done we will need to become friends. You can friend me here. Send me a note requesting membership and we will take it from there.