Just a Chapter in the Facebook

Today, I really want to dig into the concept of using Social Media at a retailer or independent garden center level. Last time I talked about how larger growers and seed companies are beginning to use Social Media more, but I think that the area where Social Media marketing could be most effective is at the local or retail level. I will say that over the last couple of years Social Media pages for local garden centers have been popping up all over, the physical pages are out there but it’s not to say the content is. The major problem with this is that owners generally don’t want to spend lots of time updating their social media pages and they don’t truly know what kind of content is appropriate for their business or the Social Media channel they are on.

How IGCs currently use most social media is they throw a couple pictures up and put up a status update about different sales they are running throughout the season. It is a good idea to get your promotions out there, but it is a vast under-utilization. My suggestions for Facebook are: first decide on a plan of action with your FB page. Make the page worthwhile, if you want it to be just for advertising you still have to make the page interesting to keep people coming. For example if your FB page is simply used to advertise a weekly sale why not every week post a few pictures every day of things that are offered in your promotion. However this is kind of the easy way out. Why not go to the next step and put some real content on your page? If you create a page full of different ideas and concepts about gardening you change your strategy to more of a pull rather than the push mentioned above. Both can prove to be very beneficial. However my favorite idea lies in the concept of making your page not just a site to advertise on but a hotline for plant issues. If your customers have questions they just post them on Facebook and  at the end of the day you can check the page and answer them.  We will get in depth with Facebook later on, and next time we will talk about using Twitter as an IGC.

Green is the new Gold!

ALSO Please leave feel free to leave comments, I would love to hear what everybody else is hearing and saying in the Horticultural Social Media world! Thanks!