Social media

“Blogs allow businesses to talk to their customers.”

“Social networking is not about the sale.”

“But you will do your customers a disservice

if you don’t tell them about it.”

Involved

LearnLearn

Share

“Social networks allow customers a direct link to the brands, experts and even business owners of their favorite products and services.”

Flickr is a revolution in photo storage, sharing and organization, making photo management an easy, natural and collaborative process. Get comments, notes, and tags on your photos, post to any blog, share and more!

According to Flikr.com

Picasa

You Tube

Seeing is

knowing

Micro-blog = 140 Characters

Tweeting• growingyourown Vegetable gardening: How to control weedshttp://bit.ly/b3TTFv

• CostaFarms T-minus 3 days and counting left in our #Cacti or #Succulent #Facebook Photo Contest http://ow.ly/2v7tF

• HollyHillFarms Heller's Japanese Holly Plants from Holly Hill Nurseries for http://conta.cc/bn3bfa via #constantcontact

• Melodiegardens Thanks for the suggestions! Based on the ingredients that I had here I'm roasting Cornish game hens with a fig onion ... http://tmi.me/QajD

RELEVANCE

Tell me what I want to know and show me what I want to see or shut up and go away.

CONSISTENCY IS ONLY A VIRTURE IF YOU ARE NOT A SCREW UP

PERSISTENCE

Twitter Things You Need To Know

• #Hashtags• #FF (#FollowFridays)

• RTs (Retweets)• DMs (Direct Messages)

• Twitter Lists• URL Shortening Applications

• Third Party Twitter Management Apps

• Etiquette– Don’t Be Pushy– Be Nice– People Have Names– People Have Short Memories

– Give Credit– Selling Is OK But Not All The Time

– Personal Stuff Is OK But Not All The Time

WHY?

WHY?

WHY?WHY?

WHY?

WHY?

You get it.

Brand recognition.Communicate directly to your customers.

Increase your search engine rankings.

SEO benefits.

Social media content is now integrated with search results.

Brand monitoring.

Generate website traffic.

Find new customers through your social media friends.

Find new customers through your company profile.

Niche marketing.

THE NUMBERS

53% of adult females use social media at least on a weekly basis.

Their top interests are entertainment, food, health/wellness, and recipes/cooking.

Fashion/beauty and shopping comes in fifth.

34% of women use social networks to get information, while 20% of women are looking for advice and recommendations.

• Over 50% of the worlds population is under 30

• 96% of them have joined a social network

• The second largest search engine in the world is You Tube

• 90% of the people that can skip DVR ads do

• 24 of 25 of the worlds largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation

• Facebook– 500 million active users

– 50% log on every day– Average user has 134 friends

– People spend over 700 billion minutes a month on Facebook

– Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events

Facebook

More Numbers• The average social

network user is 37 years old.

• LinkedIn, with its business focus, has a predictably high average user age; 44.

• The average Twitter user is 39 years old.

• The average Facebook user is 38 years old.

• The average MySpace user is 31 years old.

Twitter Numbers• Twitter started out

being more popular with adults, before it caught on with younger users. 

• The fastest growing segment on Twitter is among people 24 and younger accelerated faster than older folks.

• Twitter use is growing faster among young people mostly due to celebrities increased use of Twitter.

Social Media Stats

• There are 200,000,000 blogs• There are 500,000,000 people on Facebook

• There are 4,000,000,000 pictures on Flikr

• There are 300,000,000 users on YouTube watching 120,000,000 videos.

• There are 50,000,000 tweets per day on Twitter.

Your customers want you to be social.

93 percent of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85 percent believe a company should not only be present, but also interact with its consumers via social media.

Despite the fact that the average customer wants to interact via social media, 30 percent of companies don’t have a program in place to handle the demand. 

The Yankee Group study found that nearly 60% of customers feel company outreach via social media would improve their loyalty to a company.

70% said they want and trust company information that comes to them through social networks and most respondents said companies should monitor social media for customer feedback.

On the other side of the login, 70% of the employees surveyed felt that their company didn’t have the proper tools, stats and protocols in place to make social media useful and manageable.

Social media isn’t going away.

The companies that succeed will be the ones who set down proper policies and procedures for

marketing and dealing with the consumer feedback across all of

the channels. 

Garden Rant

“On a garden center's website I think these essential bits of information are super-useful, and will create reader/customer loyalty to the site - and the company.– Specials - because as loyal as they may be to supporting local, family-owned businesses, customers still really want to save money.

– Arrivals of new plants in the store.– Upcoming events of interest to gardeners in the region (whether in-store or local tours, Master Gardener events, etc)

– Blurbs about "What's new on our blog"– A meaty resources section full of gardening how-to's.”

Garden Rant

“So what WOULD you like to see on your garden center's blog?  Here's what I'd like to see: good writing, photography, and gardening advice.  Profiles of local public gardens and gardeners, nearby Master Gardener projects. Write-ups of workshops and talks by the garden center's own experts or others in the region.  Whatever is useful as hell”

Garden Rant

“Facebook especially is proving to be a terrific medium for keeping in touch with customers, and even a way for them to ask questions of the business.”

“Twitter, too, though extremely annoying to some, is the preferred medium for many younger customers, so needs to be used, at least minimally.  I think garden centers should update Facebook and Twitter about events, specials and their new blog posts, but I wouldn't expect them to be chatting and updating all day.”

Bringing It All Together

Calloway’s Nursery

Pike’s Nursery

Bob’s Market

Ready To Catch The Car?

Integrated Offline and Online Advertising

Customized Brand Message

Local Business Listing

Events, Contests and Discounts

• Help build your community• Drive sales• Reward loyal community members and customers

• Creates buzz or can go viral• Bring people together to accomplish something worth while

• Pay attention to Terms of Service

Other Location Based Micro-blogging Sites

• BrightKite• Citysense• GyPSii• MobiLuck• Loopt• Plazes• Whrrl• iPling

The Possibilities

• Foursquare Mayor eats free.• Check-in and get free nachos.• Check-in 10 times and get a free African Violet.

• Bring a friend, show us their newbie badge, and get a free dessert.

• Watch check-ins and when someone checks in nearby, sending them a text offering them a special discount on a purchase in the next hour.

• Offer a discount to customers when they check in at your competition.