Social Media for Garden Businesses: LinkedIn and Networking

We often talk about how fantastic Twitter and Facebook are for connecting with customers, but LinkedIn is best for connecting with fellow professionals.

LinkedIn is the platform for expanding professional contacts; you and fellow members of your garden business can make meaningful connections with fellow innovators.

Below are 6 quick and easy steps to maximize your garden industry connections on LinkedIn.

Establish Goals
Alright: make professional connections… but, to who? Potential employees? Potential business partners? Future clients? Have a clear idea of why you and garden business are on LinkedIn. The more specific your goal is, the better you’ll be at achieving it.

Pen a Rich, Interesting Summary
Your summary should be focused on your unique voice and role at the company. Don’t just copy/paste the about page on your website; how bland! Instead, use your 100-250 words to create a memorable image about who you are as a person and an employee.

Add a Crisp Image
Nothing says “I just don’t care about this” quite like the facial silhouette that’s given to all social media profiles. Here’s your chance to pair your name with a face. Upload a professional, sharp headshot. If you’re uncomfortable sharing your image with everyone, change your privacy settings, so only your connections can see it.

Post Statuses
Now that you've got a profile you're proud of, let the world see it! Posting statuses will increase your views on your page. Statuses can be specifically about good news in your garden business, or you can share content that you know fellow professionals, the ones you want to connect to, are likely to read.

Connect Carefully
It's not how many connections you have, but how many valuable connections. Be a bit picky when accepting connections; it's ok to turn a few down. Your network is only as valuable as the strength of your connections. Try to connect with individuals you may work with through one avenue or another.

Join and Participate in Groups
This is the golden tip for using LinkedIn to its full potential! To begin, return to your goals. Then, identify three groups that align with your LinkedIn mission. If you can't find a group that's just the right fit for you, start a group! Groups are the best way to truly foster a conversation with connections on LinkedIn. It is here you can seek answers, ask questions, or just soak in the knowledge!

To get even MORE tips for how to use LinkedIn in the garden industry, download our e-book!

Use LinkedIn To Grow Your Business in the Lawn and Garden Industry

Having a LinkedIn account, not only for yourself, but also for your lawn and garden business is key in today’s garden market!

Essentially the professional’s Facebook, LinkedIn is known for its ability to connect and showcase companies, associations, garden centers and individuals across the globe with 160 million members and counting.

In our free e-book "Networking 101: Garden Marketing Tips and Tricks for Using LinkedIn," companies in the lawn and garden industry can learn how to create personal and company profiles, tips for getting started, and the extra features LinkedIn offers to extend business brands and engage with key audiences.

LinkedIn has built such a vast community of professionals and provides so many tools to help members engage and interact with each other. Our Garden Media office uses it every day and has made some valuable connections. The trick, however, is taking the first step and investing your time to make it productive.

The e-book teaches professionals that it’s not just about creating a company profile. We give insight what important information should be included in your profile, how to connect with customers and other professionals in the industry and how to get invaluable recommendations.

Tips on how to stay active in LinkedIn Groups, status updates and discussions are included in the e-book as well.

Breeders, growers and garden centers can connect directly with customers through groups, answering questions and offering calls to action. From soil health and seed companies to garden centers and landscape designers, there are groups for just about everything. Search for keywords like “garden” and “seeds” in groups and join away.

Through this e-book, we aim to educate lawn and garden businesses on the features and tools of LinkedIn, network with customers and professionals, market products and services, and develop successful brands.

To download the free e-book click here.

Social Media: The New EgoSystem Lets Us All Be Popular

Trying to wrap our head around the social networking phenomena has been a challenge for most people. It's mind boggling how much people want to share about their personal lives.

But I've had several aha moments to shed some light on the subject from several sources. The first was from Kyle Lacey who said a dozen times in one day, "Social media, as is 90% narcissism."

WOW! That's it. It's all about me.

How many friends do I have?
How many "likes" do I have?
How many followers on Twitter or connections on LinkedIn?
How many people retweet my stuff?
And, OMG, what's my Klout score? (And, secretly, wanting to know, is it higher than my friends?)

It's enough to drive one to become obsessed! Or even possessed!

I must admit, when I first started "fishing for friends", I made it a game. I'd zero in on someone I liked and admired and then made it my goal to get more friends, followers or connections than they had. It became a social obsession and ate up a lot of time and energy.

But apparently, I'm not alone.

According to The New York Times Insights, 68% of the people who share do so to make themselves "look better"!

And then today I read two great blog posts by Brian Solis, a big name in new media who has extensively studied the effects of emerging media on business, marketing, publishing, and culture. I'm pretty sure he coined the term "egosystem" several years ago, and I've probably been in the dark about it.

But I see the light now. Social media has opened up the floodgates and given everyone, from 5 year olds to grandmothers to revolutionaries, the ability to show off on a big stage and get lots of feedback. Or none at all. But either way, you keep "showing off".

Today I want to share a post from Brian on how big Facebook's reach is - bigger than the population of Europe, with Russia included. And only second behind China in the number of Internet users. It's huge.

The relevance to business, Brian sums it up by saying, "In the face, pun intended, of an important migration from that of a destination web to that of a social egosystem, businesses must rethink their web strategy. No longer is having a centralized www presence enough to satisfy the needs of online consumers. I’ve long maintained that businesses must augment their traditional web site with that of a social home page as well as a mobile experience. Catering to attention where it is focused is the only way to earn relevance in a new era of social consumerism. In doing so, businesses must also adopt a new mindset that doesn’t simply market to consumers the same old way just in new networks, but instead fosters meaningful engagement and connections by providing value…as defined by the very consumers you’re trying to reach."

As Adam Kmiec, head of Walgreens social media said in a post in 2009, "The rise of social media has simply given everybody the ability to stroke their own ego in public. And let’s be honest, it’s no fun stroking your ego in the comforts of your own home and without an audience."

Brian goes on to say, "This is your time to not only earn Likes, but also make them count now and in the long term."

WOW! It really is all about being popular!

Suzi
Garden Media Group