The Social Gardeners

I started my new job on Monday. I’m still with Penn State, though I moved from Outreach to The College of Agricultural Sciences. Yesterday, the 4th day of work at my new job, I got to speak with Master Gardeners about Social Media.

I am delighted to be exposed to these cool concepts as a part of my job. The Master Gardeners Web site explains the awesome:

What is the Master Gardener Program?

The Penn State University Master Gardener program was established to assist
Cooperative Extension in reaching the consumer horticulture audience. The program provides interested individuals with extensive training in many phases of gardening. In return, participants dedicate volunteer time to teaching horticultural information based on university research and recommendations.

SIMPLE

That simple. Volunteer to help out, and they’ll help you garden, armed with arguably the best agricultural research on the planet. Sounds like a pretty good deal.

SORT

The sort of assistance is limitless. All sorts of questions on all sorts of things. It would seems to me that YouTube, Facebook and Twitter would be great venues for this sort of interaction.

WRINKLE

The wrinkle might be that there are (I think) 67 different Master Gardener programs in the state, in every county of Pennsylvania, and every county of every other state from the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters. That’s a lot of identities to have out there and locality (localness) is key.

Facebook, if anything at all, was the clear favorite of the group. That’s a great venue, in my opinion, for the variety of interaction and content that could be ballied about. MG’s and… anyone really, could share photos, videos and audio and could utilize the Discussion Forum and Events infrastructures AND it all has analytics. A Facebook Page or Group (no analytics) would be the way to go. The Page vs. Group argument changes every day, so search Google for “Facebook Page or Group” to read the latest. My take is Page if you have intent and Group if you have altruism.

I took a picture of them as I began the conversation. It didn’t turn out well (the photo, that is), but just good enough to tell that those smiles are genuine. It’s a happy, passionate bunch of good people doing good work. That’s pretty great, and great things do well on Facebook.

A whole lot of stuff is going to roll out and be available in the next year for Master Gardeners, and some notable Social Media gains will be cultivated and nurtured much like the plants at the end of all this. It’s going to be fun to watch.

Oh, and I’ll gladly volunteer my Social Media enthusiasm to the cause in return for help with my garden next season.