Google+ is the black sheep of social media. The rest of the gang, think Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest garner much more attention. 

While Google+ may not be the most popular, the one major advantage of Google+ is the Google Hangouts. 

Google Hangouts are the perfect fit for your small business--and will offer you a competitive edge over other garden businesses. 

See what a Google Hangout looks like in action by joining Garden Media for our first ebook club discussion on branding! 

Below, we'll detail how to use a Google Hangout and the many ways you can start using Google Hangouts to better connect with your green consumers.  

Presenting new ideas, whether it's to your in-house team, your board, or a green audience at a conference, is your time to shine.

This is your moment to tell a captive audience just exactly why your product or business is the bee's knees.

Yes, public speaking is terrifying, which also means it's exhilarating. 

One of the quickest ways to flourish (or flunk) a presentation is to use visual aides. The next time you're presenting, mesmerize your audience with one of these hip, modern presentation tools. 

Today, images are preferred over text, especially in the realm of social media.

All day, every day we as consumers are inundated by constant text. And, when we log onto our social media accounts, we're bombarded with even more words.

While our eyes and brains have adjusted, most of the time we simply scroll right past that boring old black and white text.

Bring your text to life on Twitter by illustrating and visualizing your text. Watch your social engagement grow off the charts!

Social media has been a big play for over five years. Whether you’re a public relations professional or a member of the garden industry, you know you have to be on social media.

It’s the absolute perfect blend of advertising and public relations. Plus, it’s FREE. Social media outlets of all kinds let you connect with your key demographic on a daily basis. Here, you get to interact with your clientele in a cool, friendly, funny manner.

Managing social media is without a doubt one of my favorite aspects of the job. But, realistically, it’s also one of the hardest. It seems like there’s always another social media site popping up, and to stay trendy, you and your garden business have just got to be on it.

How in the world can one business, especially a new, small, blooming business, manage all of these sites?

First, load up on social media tools. Next, take the advice of the pros at Garden Media Group to make sure the social media element in your public relations media plan is realistic and effective.

Balancing social media is an act you’ve got to learn to master quickly—before you burn out.

Our latest guide for mastering public relations strategies is out!

Growing Your Business with Public Relations explains the differences between advertising and PR, offers tips on creating public relations media plans and how to write a mission statement. It also includes a guide on writing a modern day press release.

Public relations is a powerful tool more businesses should be using to grow their bottom line. With public relations, you can fast track a product, build a credible reputation and drive demand. Our new eBook covers PR 101: how to get started.

We broke down the things we do on a daily basis and chose what were the most important to include in the eBook. Our insider tips will help businesses understand how to incorporate PR into daily marketing operations.

Vine is a beautiful, beautiful app. Video creation is finally as easy as it gets. Now, if they could just make it for Android...

Nonetheless, Vine has amazing implications for the world of public relations--and for small businesses. 

Vine was launched by Twitter in late January; since Vine was made by Twitter, the videos are embedded directly into the social media site. 

Vine has the potentional for an unforgettable pitch; below, we'll detail how to use Vine to create an easy, visually-driven public relations pitch.

We live in a 24/7 world, where there is always a conversation going on Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Youtube.. People are going to be talking about the latest ending of a Phillies game or posting reviews about the newest Modern Family episode.

Memes give the people yet another avenue to express their thoughts; memes are a cultural sensation that have been growing exponentially. If you don’t know exactly what a meme is, don’t fret! We’ll cover that in just a second.

Memes and social media unite us as a nation and as a global community. Here, we’re able to connect, converse, and laugh about the same cultural icons.

Yet, memes can be an extremely valuable tool in your small business. Learn just how easy it is to become the next viral share on social media with a laughable, sharable meme!

As new flowers are blooming, Facebook is attempting to stay fresh as well. The social media platform never stops evolving.

This time around the site is making a few BIG changes that will begin hitting the web in just a few weeks.

As Facebook continues to transform, how your brand utilizes the site will change as well.

To ensure your garden business keeps up with the changes, we're going to outline the upcoming Facebook changes while also looking at how they'll affect your brand's presence on the social media site. 

At Garden Media Group, we approach every single item on our agenda with oodles of excitement.

From the moment we wake until we sleep, we’re laughing, brainstorming, typing like crazy, and working as a team—all with enthusiasm.

If you are a dedicated GROW! Reader, you know firsthand how much we love to show our excitement even on the web. That’s right, exclamation points and emoticons galore! You’ve just got to love it!! We even have an exclamation point in our blog title!

But, what about the times when you’re just pleased and a small smile lurks across your face, but you don’t have enthusiasm exuding out of you.

Enter the Elrey Mark, the newest exclamation mark on the scene. Would you use this new punctuation, made for digital communications in 2013?

Press releases have been on the chopping block. They've always been an integral part of the public relations world, but in 2013, are they still relevant? YES! This medium has been around for so long because their impact is stellar.

But, as with most mediums, the trick is to evolve. Press releases are still an integral part of a public relations media plan, but we need to approach them differently than we did last week or last year.

One of the best ways to do this is to optimize your press release for social media. Social media allows you to easily share your content, so you'll get more eyeballs reading your big news. Sharing on social sites will help boost your SEO, and you'll get to deliver the news right where it's wanted: to the people who follow you! They're craving the news your business has, so give them what they want and share it!

Writing a press release tailored for social media is a bit different, so we'll walk you through it.