Word of Mouth
Janine’s post on Instagram
The Power of Sharing
A couple of weeks ago I was sat at my computer editing, when my phone began to ping and when I looked closer I seemed to be getting new followers on Instagram. Now I had posted a photograph of some some beautiful pink acer bark but it didn’t seem likely to be the cause of that number of pings. The real reason was that Janine Pope had posted this gorgeous picture on her Instagram feed. Do check out @pope.janine.
This is a good time to introduce you to Janine who designed the lovely logo for Our Plant Stories. I had been following Janine for quite some time because I love her embroidery work. So I had contacted her and did one of her online courses. When I began to think about what a logo for this podcast might look like, I contacted Janine again. Luckily for me, she loved the idea and she loves plants and gardens - a kindred spirit. So she designed the flower pot logo.
The point of sharing this story is that it showed me how word of mouth is so powerful. (The 3rd part of the Discoverability Triangle) Janine wrote some lovely words on her Instagram post including a brief description of the idea…’that by sharing plant stories we grow our plant knowledge through the experience, passions and sometimes quite remarkable knowledge of other plant growers’. The perfect way to sum it up in my view. She told people where to sign up for the blog and shared my instagram account: @ourplantstories_podcast. So a special welcome if you are one of Janine’s friends.
It’s a crowded market out there and I am sure like me there are times when we all feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of stuff we are being asked to rate, review, comment on, listen to etc. But I think the reality is that despite all that reviewing and rating, I am much more likely to do something if my friend says - ‘I listened to this amazing story - I think you’d love it too….and here’s where you find it. Some readers may be here this week because of a lovely email that Bill of the ‘Potting Shed Crew’ sent to his gardening friends in the USA - if this is you, you are so welcome. (See December 8th blog about the special group of people in the Potting Shed, who listened to early pilots of this podcast.) My job on Our Plant Stories, is to find, gather and share the amazing stories that I hope you will want to pass onto your friends.
If you hear a story on here that makes you smile or laugh or cry or just makes you want to rush out and take a cutting from a fig tree or plant a mint in a pot, then I’d love you to take a minute to tell someone about it. And if they say they don’t listen to podcasts then maybe you can refer them to the first of these three blog posts because I would love that we make podcasts accessible to more people. (Though remember if they follow here they will get the podcast every Sunday afternoon at 4.30pm BST.)
Thank you for sticking with me through the three parts of the Discoverability Triangle. Thank you to Mark Asquith for so much good advice around how to start and maintain a podcast - if you are thinking of doing it, check him out.