Christmas is almost upon us and this year there is one thing that business in the lawn and garden industry should have at the top of their marketing wishlist: Content marketing.

What is content marketing you ask? It's valuable content that delivers high-quality, relevant information yielding measurable results without promotional push. It provides useful information to aid purchase decisions, improve product usage, and entertain consumers. And, it's more credible than advertising.

In today’s advertising rich environment, fresh, engaging content has never been as important for businesses as it is today. People use the internet to research, compare and review products, and this information impacts buying decisions both online and in stores. You need content marketing regardless of whether your organization is a B2B or B2C. The one big reason is trust!  Businesses must use content marketing because consumers don’t trust advertising.

Instagram is now a part of the personal realm, but it should also be in the professional world. 44% of American adults have a smart phone, which means they can easily snap a vintage-chic pictures on their Android or iPhone.

Instagram is free and has its own social network—while also easily hooking up to other social media platforms. 40% of Interbrand’s top 100 brands use Instagram, but does it make sense for your business?

Instagram has over 80 million users, and even if your garden business is focused on B2B or consumers, there’s a way to integrate Instagram into your media relations plan.

Below are 4 ways to use Instagram to spice up company announcements!

Finally, it’s that time of year! Christmas cookies baking, trips to the home-front to reunite with family and friends, a fragrant Christmas tree, and on a different note, advertising galore!

The Garden Media Team is always on the look-out for the newest and hottest trends, and recently, we’ve loved watching the holidays go green!

I am a huge fan of using infographics to convey a message.  Whether they are about gardening or technology, infographics always seem to make sense to me, be pretty to look at, and be just enough information to keep my attention. 

Our world is forever changing! Social media and digital communications completely transformed how many of us do business.

While social media may not change how we garden, it certainly changes how we talk about gardening. 

Journalism has changed immensely since the early 1900s. Now, PR professionals and those involved in garden marketing connect and engage with reporters, editors, and journalists on social media.

Wondering just how to best use social media to get your garden business in the media? Well, read on!

Whewf! Here we are amidst the true holiday shopping chaos. Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, but the holiday shopping season is just gaining momentum.

For the next month, we will all be bombarded with Christmas advertisements everywhere we go. Print, television, and digital ads galore!

But, get this: social media is the biggest influencer for customers’ holiday purchases.

Don’t spend oodles and oodles on advertisements! PR has the true impact you’re looking for.

So go ahead, put away that advertising check and invest your time and money in a public relations plan focused on social media.

Drum roll please! Pinterest is finally embracing its role in public relation media plans! Yes, businesses have been using Pinterest to promote new products and connect with customers.

But, until recently, commercial use of Pinterest was actually prohibited! Some rules are just made to be broken! Garden Media Group has been getting a ton of buzz for being one of the first PR firms to properly harness the power of Pinterest.

Now, it’s your turn! Learn the ins and outs of the new business accounts on Pinterest. Apply these tips to your garden business’s Pinterest page.

• Though many competing claims exist, the most familiar story of the first Thanksgiving took place in Plymouth Colony, in present-day Massachusetts, in 1621. More than 200 years later, President Abraham Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving.

• Congress finally made Thanksgiving Day an official national holiday in 1941.

• Sarah Josepha Hale, the enormously influential magazine editor and author who waged a tireless campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday in the mid-19th century, was also the author of the classic nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

• In 2001, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative Thanksgiving stamp. Designed by the artist Margaret Cusack in a style resembling traditional folk-art needlework, it depicted a cornucopia overflowing with fruits and vegetables, under the phrase "We Give Thanks."

Just a few days ago, we were reflecting on the importance of including videos in press releases, but today, we’re going to take it a step further.

After a video is made, it cannot just be used in press releases! It must be mass-distributed. YouTube is the internet’s second most popular search-engine, right after Google. 48 hours of video are uploaded every minute of every day.

With that much content, SEO optimization for videos should be a critical and thoughtful task.