Are blogs relevant in today's social media world?

I was asked the other day what non-horticulture attributes, or classes have helped me in my blogging. Really, there are few classes that helped with my writing. Looking back, perhaps a journalism class or English class where I paid attention might have been helpful. I find English a more enjoyable subject now, as I am interested in cleaning up my writing a bit. The most important attribute however is passion. You have to want to communicate with others, which was the impetus for this blog. Really, that’s where we stand with all of social media today. To be effective you have to reach your intended audience. At first my blog was geared towards my customers, but it has since shifted to a trade blog. This is important as it has put me in contact with others in our trade that care, and can make a difference.

We are entering uncharted territory. The future is wrought with potential pitfalls, as well as tremendous upsides. The trade is changing before our eyes as unsustainable practices are dropped, and new methods are employed.  The public will be continuing its interest in becoming self-sufficient as the economic conditions continue to deteriorate. We are winding down from 30 years of unsustainable growth in this country, and the winding down is/will be challenging.  That’s where a blog can come in useful for a garden center. People will need information, humor, and a feeling of connection as they traverse this new world. While Facebook and Twitter offer a way to communicate to the customer, its questionable how they will be able to continue as competition and economics come into play. Your blog can be a “home” that folks can come back to again, and again. You can “own” your website and blog, you cannot "own" your Facebook Page.

Taking the Next Step in My Writing

Wanted to pass along some  advice I received via Doug  Greens Blog. Well, it's actually not written to me, but it could have been. Doug Green is one of Canada’s most-published garden writer's. The title of Doug's latest post is, 4 Bits of Advice for A New Writer. I have been  looking to do more with my writing, so the subject is timely. Self-publishing is changing the world. For the first time someone can publish their own books without the assorted baggage that comes with going through a legacy publisher. You have control, which can be a scary thing, but also liberating. It's going to revitalize the book industry, and breathe life into the writers profession.

Doug has done much of the ground work in his own publishing efforts, so its great to learn from someone who is walking the talk. I wasn't going to post today but I followed Doug's advice. If you have thought about self-publishing, or taking your writing to the next level read Doug's post. Be sure to read the comments at Doug's blog for even more information.

Still rings true

2011 is the year that many garden companies fully embraced social media as a component of their marketing efforts.  Conventional advertising such as the newspaper or radio just don't offer the same results that social media offers. In the gardening trade there is no longer the feeling that was prevalent just 5 or 6 years ago that social media has little bearing on the trade, or your business. I pulled up one of my blog posts from 2006, "Garden Center Magazine Interview".  Is it still relevant? While you could substitute the term  "social media" for the term "blog", in my mind the post still rings true.  A link to the post is below.

Thanks for stopping by all these years and joining in the conversation. Happy New Year!

Garden Center Magazine Interview here.

October is support your independent nursery month, in Austin.

Here is a great idea from a garden blogger in Austin Texas, Pam Penick of  "Digging".  This grass-roots stuff interests me  more than that American Express Small Business Saturday effort of last year.  Pam say's, "Dear Austin gardeners and bloggers everywhere, I hereby declare October to be Support Your Independent Nursery Month. Fall is our best planting time in the South, and even though the U.S. recession and Texas drought drag on, we gardeners must get our fix after the long, hot summer. As I was thinking about my fall shopping list, I began to wonder whether the drought and tough economic times were impacting the many wonderful local nurseries with which the Austin area is blessed." Yes Pam, they are having a tough go of it like most small garden centers. Ideas like this will resonate more with people because Pam is a fellow gardener, and respected by her readership. When large corporations like American Express try the same, "local is good" thing it just doesn't resonate. Maybe because American Express was one of the companies that cancelled ours, and many small businesses credit lines when we could have used them the most. Thanks Am Ex.

Do you have a local garden blogger in your neck of the woods? Do they do stuff like this?  When in  your area is the "support your  local independent garden center month"?

Great idea Pam.

Social media is fragmenting

What are we going to do? How can anyone keep up with another social media site? Yes, I am talking about Google+, the new competitor for Facebook. Some people have switched over to Google + and not going back to Facebook. Others are trying to do both. Some like me are just trying to figure out why we need another social media site. My last post, Are you a Flowerdew? reminded me of the time when you could keep track of all your readers in one place.

An Alameda Garden was the blog I linked to for the post. Looking at the comments (all my old comments were lost when we migrated from Blogger to Wordpress) you recognize some of the people.  Back then if you wanted to comment you commented at the blog. Now when we post some comments come to the blog, but also to Facebook, Twitter, and now Google+. To keep track you have to visit each one of these social media sites. Not as easy as it use to be, but a sign of the times.

We have talked in the past about the fragmentation of the garden center businesses. What was once a unified trade has fragmented into box stores and their suppliers, mail order, independent garden centers and their suppliers, etc. Each with its own agenda, and not necessarily aligned with the others. We now see the same thing in social media. Some people will migrate to Google+ and to keep track of them you have to open a Google + account and start monitoring them there. It really is all too much, and likely will speed the fragmentation of the social media world, and the gardening world.

I read a great post at Lifehacker asking, "What Lucky People Do Differently than Unlucky People". According to the post, "Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner, and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through the newspaper determined to find certain job advertisements and, as a result, miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there, rather than just what they are looking for." How relaxed can  you be trying to chase down everyone posting at different places? Soon you find that instead of gardening and writing about that, you spend time focused on what everyone else is doing. "Gee, I put so much time in my social media, yet just don't seem to get anywhere".

This will continue as people will head off to different social media platforms that are comfortable for them. Tired of Facebook adding friends to your lists? Head over to Google + where circles will "straighten" everything out for you! My Klout score has been dropping. What does Klout tell me to do? "Share more content and engage with your network and your Klout score will rise!" So I need to start Tweeting, Facebooking, You Tubing, and Linkedining more. Sorry Klout, but it's not going to happen.

I feel that less is more when it comes to social media. It use to be that you we're told to blog daily so as to keep an audience interested. Stop for just a day or two and the next thing you know you have lost some of your audience. Yet I have RSS feed and know when my favorite sites have posted something new. I actually like sites that post when they feel like it, and post something really worth reading. It may be daily, weekly, or in some cases just a couple of times a month. I look forward to these posts since they are done when the author has something useful to say, and not just trying to raise their Klout score.

There is no way people can keep up with all the chatter going on in these different social media channels. People will pick and choose either the media channel they want to hang at, or who they want to follow. That's OK. As long as your fans have a way of keeping track of you they will follow you no matter which outlet you choose. In the future the ability to choose just one platform, be it blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and do almost all your work there, will be the sign of success since people will have to choose your platform to read your work. It will be a case of less is more.

Are you a Flowerdew?

In my last post we talked about how one survey found the number of people who garden is in decline. It reminded me of a post I wrote in July of 2006. It still resonates for me.  We still don't have our version of Bob Flowerdew, and I suspect we won't. Instead we have hundreds of people on The Internet that are the "Mr. Flowerdew" within their area of influence. It's fun to go back and read this stuff. It's also nice to see the links to the various bloggers still work, and the blogs still active. Finding Mr. Flowerdew?   July 18th, 2006

Just finished reading a post by alamedagarden about a man named Bob Flowerdew. Mr. Flowerdew is a popular garden celebrity on the BBC in Great Britain. He is "the garden guy", as the Washington post say's. "'Gardeners' Question Time' has an audience of 2 million in a country of 60 million. To translate that kind of audience to the U.S. (with a population of 299 million), a gardening guru would have to have an audience of 10 million. According to USA Today, that would be equal to the audience of last week's #2 top-rated broadcast TV show, 'So You Think You Can Dance'".

The article is a fun read as Mr. Flowerdew is a very interesting man. Claire's post laments the fact that we here in the U.S.A. don't have a Mr. Flowerdew and that if there was an American Flowerdew--someone knowledgeable, funny, charismatic, and (it goes without saying) organic--that he could be the pied piper to seduce more of us into taking up the shovel and rake? That he (or she, of course) could actually grow the audience"?

However, further in the article by The Post comes the reason why I don't think one person in The United States will be able to have the influence Mr. Flowerdew does in Britain. The Post says "The notion that Britain is gardening mad is absolutely true, of course." It continues, "In the uncertainty of postmodern, multicultural and rather godless Britain, gardening is not just a shared hobby. 'Gardening is one of the few things holding British society together,' said Sir Roy Strong, historian and former longtime director of the Victoria and Albert Museum".

We just do not have the gardening heritage that a place like Great Britain has. The United States, being a place made up of so many different types of people and cultures just wouldn't get behind one person that way. Not to say that we too are also facing our own challenging times, and could use the common connection that gardening has on the psyche of The British.

I believe the reason we are hearing about a decline in gardening is that mass gardening media, and the larger horticultural concerns, have a vested interest in keeping  "gardeners" in their market share. When people refuse to call themselves gardeners, this is of great concern to them. They have spent millions to get the audience they have, and to hear it may be declining is cause for worry. I believe it's more a case of semantics. People may not call themselves gardeners, but will work feverishly to complete that "outdoor room", as the magazines now call gardens. Most people like many recreational activities, and while gardening may be one of them, they may not think of themselves as "gardeners". Lot's of folks just don't want to be labeled, or seem one-dimensional.

Here is my premise. We already have our own Mr. Flowerdew. It's us! People like Claire and other garden bloggers, and readers, are our version of Mr. Flowerdew. Instead of learning from one man on the television screen, we are learning from hundreds and soon to be thousands of people blogging. Why watch another boring garden show on HGTV with a paid celebrity when we can share with so many others, ideas that are so far ahead of anything we are seeing in mass garden media.

I believe we are witnessing what will be a renaissance in gardening, or what ever it's called. With the power of The Internet you have the potential to reach hundreds, if not thousands of like minded gardeners with your passion. As more and more people find out about garden bloggers writing and sharing their gardens, and garden ideas, they will want to take part. When you live off the beaten path where no one can see your garden you often wish you could share it with people. Now you can. Sometimes you get a following of people who are really interested in how that tomato is doing, or your experiences at the garden center. When you do you will become even more enthused about your garden and gardening because you don't want to let your "fans" down. Talk about your beautiful plant, but don't show pictures and they will let you know.

We are only at the beginning of this renaissance and it may not be noticeable to many. Just like bloggers who are a big part of why the big news networks are loosing market share, I feel the same thing will happen in gardening. I could be wrong, but for me it has become more important to check out whats going on in the blogosphere than read a garden magazine, or watch the television. I still read the magazines and sometimes watch the television shows, but the internet is where I get the real "dirt".

Stuff happens

This is a post meant to let you know that I am still here, and the blog lives! A fellow nursery person and friend wrote today asking if I was OK, as I had not posted for a while. Everything is fine. Like so many in our trade we just find ourselves tired and burned out  after a long spring and summer. It takes a little while to get enthused again, and in many cases the cooler weather of fall often helps. We have been fairly busy at the nursery with changes we are making. It's all good stuff and we feel fortunate that we are still in business with so many other local garden centers folding. I hear that in California we have a 12% unemployment rate. Wow! It's most certainly is not business as usual in The Golden State. We are thrilled with the support we have received from the community, and glad to be here to help people with their gardens.

Stuff happens! Like the drunk driver crashing through our front gate Labor Day night. 76 feet of fence, and  landscaping destroyed. It also took out a large part of the children's playground at my wife's daycare, the day before school started. Fortunately they have insurance, and we are now in the process of trying to get the insurance company to pay out.  Some people only seem to be able to visit the nursery by driving through the fence in the middle of the night.

A summer of less blogging is turning into a tradition for me. Rather than just put out a post everyday that is less than interesting I would rather wait till my muse arrives. My muse sometimes enjoys taking a vacation during the summer. Lucky muse! It just takes friends to remind me that I have been a bit remiss in posting. Thanks!

Where to use (insert buzzword)

A month ago I wrote a post titled, "I love my new (Insert Brand Here)." It seemed to hit a nerve. Lot's of different brands, bloggers, and others  jumped into the fray. Some thought my analysis of the social media scene in the horticultural world a bit harsh. Over at Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void Blog there was a guest post today from Kathy Sierra, who Hugh describes as the worlds most famous ex-blogger. Kathy use to have a wonderful blog titled, Creating Passionate Users.  Today's guest post at Hugh's was titled, "Pixie Dust And The Mountain of Mediocrity". Look's like Kathy has many of the same insights, but perhaps explained in a more articulate manner than myself.  The theme's of our two posts are the same however. Check out the graph she uses with the title, "Where to use (insert buzzword)". This is must reading if you are interested in using social media as a tactic in your overall marketing strategy.