Garden Center Blogger

Archive for the ‘Garden Center Blogs&Blogging’ Category

Super-local online journalism is flourishing, and offering new opportunities for local independent garden centers to reach their customers – at no extra cost!

Perhaps the best known name in this growing field is Patch. Owned and funded by AOL with offices in New York, its high-quality, journalistic website/blogs are in 20 states so far (plus D.C.), and when they cover a state, they cover it.  (My small state of Maryland has 52 of them, and California has over 130.)  Patches are established in towns with populations between 15,000 and 100,000 that are “underserved by media and that would benefit by having access to local news and information about government, schools and business”.  They’re run by professional editors, writers and photographers who live in or near the communities they serve, and I was happily surprised to discover how transparent they are.   Here’s their About Page, which includes the bio’s for an impressive staff.  Click here to find all the Patches (so far) in the U.S.

It wasn’t long after the Potomac, MD Patch launched that their editor contacted the one garden center in Potomac to ask if she could republish some of the garden center’s blog posts on the Patch.   It’s part of the business plan for Patches everywhere to solicit (unpaid) blog posts to publish front and center on all the Patch sites under the headline “Local Voices”, and local businesses with blogs are invited to contribute, too.  Behnkes  Nursery was quick to say yes, and you see their green logo twice here on the Potomac Patch – actually, their very first “Local Voice” entries.  One is a teaser to a longer article on the Behnkes website and the other is an introduction to the garden center itself - what it sells, etc. – the editor asked for that one specifically!

It’s clear from Patch’s guidelines for local bloggers that they’re looking for professional writing, including the use of standard journalistic punctuation, etc.   All submissions are subject to editing, and may be rejected outright if they require a lot of editing or outright rewrite.  Like any respected news source, Patch also cares about copyright law, so both the text and photos in blog contributions need to be in compliance.

How many garden center owners and employees have the time, inclination or experience to produce content like this?  Not many (if any), but you know who can produce it?  Local garden writers, especially if they have experience and proven success at blogging.

Content-wise, what is Patch looking for?  According to the Potomac Patch editor, they want really useful stories, like the “What to Do in May” blog story submitted in full to another Patch site (shown here on the left).   See, it’s fine to either publish the whole story on Patch or just post a short teaser that sends readers to your blog to read the whole story.  The editor also suggested blog stories announcing the store’s specials!  Notice this is FREE to the garden center – not paid advertising.

You can even post the same stories to several different Patch sites, as long as they’re local to your customers.   It’s a way to get great reach for your blog stories for almost no extra effort (it takes 5 minutes or so to post the content to each Patch).

More super-local news sites

Patch is just the largest of many local news sites springing up all over the place.  There’s also Village Connector and Main Street Connect and lots more that are unique to each town, rather than national in scope.   No doubt Patch isn’t the only one looking to republish blog posts by local companies.

I was approached by Pete Mihalek, editor of Lawn and Garden Retailer Magazine, for answers to his many questions about the Mahoney’s blog, which he’d already told us he loved.  So finally, online and in print, my article, in the February issue. Susan

People are asking how Mahoney’s Garden Centers came to launch their attention-getting blog last summer and the answer is no surprise — they were responding to the same advice you’re all hearing about the value of social marketing. You know that customers are getting their information online, that social marketing is far cheaper than print advertising, and that it’s time to get on board.

Writing for the Web

It’s deceptively easy to start a new blog online — it just takes a few minutes. But for a blog to be successful, the blogger needs to know a shocking number of details about writing for the Web, building traffic and even online etiquette. Because Mahoney’s didn’t have a staff member with experience in all of that — not to mention the time to do it — they looked around, saw the blog articles I was writing for Homestead Gardens, and hired me to get their blog going.

As editor, my duties would include making the blog run on time with articles that inform and attract readers, and making sure they were edited, laid out and illustrated for the web, including the almighty search engines.

So what topics are covered on the blog? Lots of gardening how-to, always timely, science-based and environmentally responsible. Profiles of public gardens in the region and profiles of Mahoney’s employees, especially the ones who interact with customers. News of gardening and greening projects in the region. Book reviews. Corporate blogs succeed based on their useful and entertaining content, not their advertorials.

Indeed, advertising or marketing-type content is an instant turn-off to blog readers (your existing and potential customers), who usually click away from it and never return. Promotion needs to be infrequent and subtle, like profiling plants that you happen to sell. The preferable route would be to show them full-size and in a garden. And when it comes to profiles of employees and stories about in-store events, those are okay, too.

It’s in the Delivery

Blogs need the right tone. The best blogs are noncorporate, conversational and written by an identifiable person. Better yet, several identifiable people, and not just someone in the marketing department.

So Mahoney’s blog is a team effort. Contributors include not just me but a local radio garden guru, and as many employees as possible. (Employee articles can be simply e-mailed to the editor, who does the rest.)

And the regular “guest bloggers” include regionally known garden writers whose stories create buzz and get promoted via their own networking. Book authors typically contribute free blog stories and book giveaways to lucky readers. Local garden-related nonprofits provide free blog stories that help promote their good works, and then help spread the word through their e-newsletters. Avid customers offer their garden photos featuring plants bought at Mahoney’s.

Guest bloggers are great for making the blog go viral — creating word of mouth on steroids. The networking goes on in the blog’s sidebar, too, where you’ll find links to regional public gardens, gardening groups, local garden bloggers, and more. These links provide a service to readers while helping to get Mahoney’s connected with the local online communities their customers are engaged with. When the Boston Globe’s garden writer praised the blog, she mentioned liking this feature in particular — she clearly understands “link love” and why it’s important to use it.

Consistent Promotion

Besides high-quality content, the other requirement for a successful blog is promotion, and not just at launch but continuously — via Facebook and Twitter, on signs in the store, and by linking to new blog stories in e-newsletters. When sales staff know about a new blog story that features plants in their department, they can mention it to customers. Blogs and other social marketing tools work best when they’re integrated with the company, not stand-alone products.

So, what’s the return on this investment? With good promotion, readership builds steadily and turn-out at events soon improves, but forget about exact ROIs. Social marketing is about becoming part of the online community and creating relationships — things that can’t be quantified and don’t happen overnight. That’s hard to hear, I know, but take heart in the fact that social marketing is less expensive than traditional marketing, and more effective at building customer loyalty.

Yes, there’s tons of gardening information online these days, but sorting through the generic tips and junk websites to find trustworthy information is challenging. Web-using gardeners (soon to be ALL gardeners) already trust you and are grateful to find your expert, local help online. Facebook is great but no place for meaty information, inspirational garden stories or great photos of plants in gardens. You could put that great content on your static website, but blogs are updated frequently and designed to make it easy for readers to comment — to communicate with you.

Here’s the link to the Mahoney’s blog, and click the About this Blog story to see some of the contributors.  To republish this article, contact the author – gardenersusan@gmail.com.

A big thank-you to Boston Globe gardening columnist Carol Stocker for her kind words about the Mahoney’s Blog! She begins:

There’s been an explosion of gardening blogs since I started this one for the Boston Globe three years ago, and one of the newest and best local ones is Mahoney’s Blog.

I especially like the comprehensive directory of links its staff has assembled which will instantly connect you to the websites of local horticultural and to other local gardening blogs such as this one. I hope to post such a directory on this blog soon.

I’m so pleased that she likes the blogroll of local gardens, gardening blogs and more – because they’re kinda new on corporate blogs, but essential for turning the blog into a  regional resource about gardening.  Also essential for using the blog as a tool for networking.   Posting links to these relevant groups and bloggers is called “link love” and it’s gold in making connections online.

Written by Susan Harris as a guest on a terrific blog about social media – Debbie Weil’s Social Media Insights Blog. Here’s Debbie’s introduction:

Kudos to my newest guest blogger Susan Harris for her post below explaining exactly why being a corporate blogger can be fun. She hits all the relevant points (how she coaxes posts out of the staff, how she finds guest authors, etc.). I love her observation that “the networking goes on in the sidebar, too” through a carefully selected blogroll. Read on for the dirt on corporate blogging. Sorry, couldn’t resist.   Susan is best known for her blogging at GardenRant and award-winning Sustainable and Urban Gardening.  She writes for corporate blogs Mahoney’s and Homestead.  Take it away, Susan:

Field Report from a Local Corporate Blogger – Where Viral Meets Local

Anybody out there losing their blogging mojo, like me? I’ve been at it five years now and have climbed to the top of the heap in my niche (gardening), but still there’s almost no money in it. So I boldly offered my “blogging services” to a local garden center, and damn if they didn’t hire me.  Then another.  So suddenly I’m a corporate blogger, no matter that the term conjures up savvy 20-somethings in the marketing departments of big national companies.

But blogging for small local businesses is as different from that corporate world as it is blogging for myself, and the shocker to me is that I love doing it, and not just for the moolah. Here’s what I do. Read the rest of this entry »