Building a Horticultural Web Community
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Building a horticultural web community by Nicola Gammon, Founder & CEO of Shoot (www.shootgardening.co.uk) for the Institute of Horticulture October 2013. Nicola Gammon is the founder and CEO of Shoot (www.shootgardening.co.uk), a pioneering membership website for gardeners with 70 000 members. Shoot was named the Garden Media Guild’s ‘Website of the Year 2012', and is a previous winner of Gardening Which? Best Buy for garden design software and a Smarta100 award recognizing the best small UK business start-ups. At the IOH Conference 2013, Nicola Gammon set out to show how Shoot is using web technologies to connect gardeners in radically new and exciting ways, and how its membership has expanded through constant innovation fuelled by member engagement.
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Building a Horticultural Web Community
- 1. Building a Horticultural Web Community Institute of Horticulture - Oct 2013 Nicola Gammon Nicola Gammon, CEO & Founder - Shoot Ltd. Email: shoot@shootgardening.co.uk Web: www.shootgardening.co.uk
- 2. Confusion and Uncertainty My own frustrations led me to launch Shoot A different perspective but common goals 1. Educate gardeners 2. Inspire activity and confidence 3. Grow the horticultural industry
- 3. What is a Horticultural Web Community? 70,000 + Members
- 4. My Own Gardening Problems I wanted a beautiful garden...but 1. My plants were dying 2. Couldn’t remember plant names 3. Forgot how and when to care
- 5. Starting Point (No Community) 500 Plants Plant Lists Monthly Plant Care Reminders Garden Design Software Paid Memberships
- 6. Largest Plant A-Z Online 15,000 + Plants Requested by members Added by horticulturalists
- 7. E-Commerce 90 + Shops 8,000 + Products
- 8. How do we present Shoot?
- 10. 90 + Shops
- 11. Community Growth
- 13. Industry Collaboration Vectorworks Landmark Facebook Integration Garden Tillington Centre Group Adding of GCs Group Forums (Wyevale) images
- 14. Social Media
- 15. Meet some of our 70,000 members “I'm trying to identify my inherited plants just now at my new house.” "Shoot Marketplace gives us access to an ideal target market“ Anne Doble Newbie Member John Paisley Wych Cross Garden Centre Marketplace Shop “A perfect platform to reach gardening enthusiasts.” Elspeth Briscoe MyGardenSchool Marketplace Shop "I will continue to use Shoot for the rest of my life or as long as I can garden." Nikki Griffith Lifetime Member Horticultural Web Community “I login to Shoot every day. I love it!!” Judi Samuel Garden Designer Professional Member "I advise all my students to use your site “ “Time and value for money are Shoot’s huge benefits to my business.” Julia Fogg Landscape Architect, Lecturer + Studio Tutor Professional Member Matt Nichol Garden Designer MSGD MBALI Professional Member
- 16. What Members Share Gardening Questions
- 17. What Members Share Plant Photos
- 18. What Members Share Plant Lists
- 19. What Members Share Member Profiles
- 20. What Members Share Garden Profiles
- 21. What Members Share Garden Plans
- 22. What Members Share Designer Gardens
- 23. What Members Share Professional Listings
- 24. What Members Share Plants and Products for Sale
- 25. Upcoming - Community Development
- 26. Upcoming - Community Development
- 30. Innovation & Collaboration Join the Shoot Community!
- 31. Thank you for listening Web: www.shootgardening.co.uk Social Media: twitter/shootgardening facebook.com/ShootGardening pinterest.com/ShootGardening youtube.com/user/ShootGardening My Details: Nicola Gammon CEO & Founder - Shoot Ltd. Email: shoot@shootgardening.co.uk Web: www.shootgardening.co.uk
Editor's Notes
- I am delighted to have been invited to talk to you today on ‘Building a Horticultural Web Community’. My name is Nicola Gammon and I am the founder and CEO of Shoot, an award-winning membership website for gardeners. In 2009 we won Gardening Which? Best Buy for our Garden Design Software, in 2010 we were awarded a Smarta100 in conjunction with Natwest bank as one of the top 100 UK start-ups and in 2012 we won the prestigious Garden Media Guild award for Website of the Year.My goal today is to tell you about Shoot and to show you how we at Shoot are using web technologies to connect gardeners in radically new and exciting ways – including our revolutionary new e-commerce platform for the industry. I hope you find it informative and interesting and by the end of my talk, I hope to have encouraged you to get involved and participate in our Shoot community too. We are also always interested in collaborating so if you have an idea for us for a collaboration please get in touch.
- From my perspective it is quite amazing that I am here speaking to you at all. I am not a horticulturalist… and you are the leading group of horticultural experts in the UK. So what am I doing here?Eight years ago before I launched Shoot I was just like many millions of hobby gardeners. I wanted to create a beautiful garden, but I became frustrated by the lack of information and support available to me. That confusion and uncertainty is what inspired me to launch Shoot.Despite our different backgrounds and levels of expertise we all have a common goal – to educate gardeners, to help them to feel confident in taking action in their garden and thereby growing the gardening industry.
- So exactly what is a ‘horticultural web community’?Some people dismiss communicating on the Internet as an odd introspective activity with technology, something for geeks! But connecting online with people is really just like any community. It is real people speaking to each other about common interests. People solving problems and discovering new things, ideas and contacts through each other. The exciting thing about the web is the number of people you can connect with, finding people you don’t already know with common interests to yours and the speed with which you can connect with them.Some staggering stats:400 million tweets per day500 million Google searches per dayAnd Facebook has 845 million active membersLike it or not - that is the reality of the world we live in. And it is not just the reality for the younger generation either – it is changing the way everyone – and that includes gardeners - lives. My mother who is now 74 will Google a plant she sees featured in a television program or in a magazine. I’ve made many real world relationships through the internet. Clare Holt who is the lady who produced our new video from Nice Tree Films contacted me on Twitter. I’ve met garden bloggers through our Pinterest page. I hope at some stage to host a garden party with Jo from a company called the Gin Garden who I also met through Twitter. So my point … is that the internet simply provides a new way of developing real relationships with real people.Without a penny spent on advertising we have now have a built an online community of 70,000 members and growing.
- When I launched Shoot 8 years ago, I didn’t set out to build a ‘horticultural web community’. At first I wanted something to solve my gardening problems. I had great plans for how beautiful my new garden was going to be, however the reality wasn’t so great. :• My plants were dying• I couldn’t remember the names of my plants• I didn’t know how or when to care for my plantsI found gardening time consuming and intimidating. I am not alone. Gardening Which? Surveys suggest that:• 50% of gardeners have had a plant die within one year of purchase• Plant labels don’t provide enough information. Some QR codes take you to Dutch site and simple terms like ‘herbaceous’ aren’t explained properly.• It’s hard to find knowledgeable staff in-store to help. Homebase – paint expert was called in to help with plants.
- When I started out, I wanted to create a database of plants and useful software to help to gardeners to design, manage and care for their garden online. There was no tool on the web offering this service for gardeners, and other than Shoot there still isn’t. So, in the early days we didn’t have a community, only rich content for members to access. It is important to explain that although we started out as a free website we are not a free website now like Facebook, Twitter and Google which sell access to their membership to advertisers. We are currently free of advertising and members pay us directly for our services on an annual subscription basis.From day one we have listened very closely to the feedback from members. We have always wanted to know what more they would like to see on Shoot, how they use the site, and are constantly innovating to inspire our members.
- Our database of 15,000 plants has grown primarily based on our members’ requests for new plants to be added. If they cannot find a plant in our A-Z they can ask us to add it for them. We hire horticulturalists to add the data for us to ensure our content is credible and formatted consistently.Members using Shoot can identify a plant, and then receive information on when and how to prune and propagate it. Members build up a personal list of plants and refer online to their own month-by-month programme of what they should be doing in their garden. Building a community around these services became core to us for member referrals and as a tool to encourage future members to get involved with our website.
- As our plant database grew, we were getting a lot of feedback from our members that they also wanted to buy plants and other related gardening products and services. Instead of becoming a retailer ourselves, we decided to extend our community into a network of wonderful, homegrown plant nurseries and shops. We now have a one-stop shop with over 90 stores and over 8,000 plants and products.
- What is Shoot today? This is a preview of our new site coming soon in which we have simplified the website navigation into 4 main sectionsMy Garden, Plants, Community and Marketplace Shop The My Garden section is the place members can go to manage everything to do with their own gardens. They can design their garden online and create lists of plants I have and plants I want. For all the plants in their ‘Plants I have’ list they get a personalized bespoke email with what they should be doing in their garden that month. That advice is tailored to them – so they only get the advice they need on their plants. Furthermore they can opt in and out of plant care activities. For example if they don’t plan to propagate any plants they can deselect that type of gardening activity from their care calendar. Later on if they then wish to learn to propagate they can add it back to their own list of to’dos Plants are a very core part about Shoot as in order for our care advice to work we need to have a plant record. We now have over 15,000 plants and 90% of them were requested by our members as they are plants in their gardens. We will add any missing plant for a member and then email them once it is added for them. Our plant pages have a lot of content on them and a lot of opportunity for connecting with other members with the same plant. More on that later on. We have recently added ‘Plants to buy’ and the new navigation will have deep links to each plant category for sale. This is our Community section. We now have 70,000 active members including professionals. We have active forums and a thriving social media presence. Again more on these later on. And finally I have touched on it already, a new section on the Shoot Marketplace with deep links to buy.
- We are really proud of this new development – the Shoot marketplace of over 90 shops selling over 8,000 plants and products. We have over 3,000 plants for sale and a wide range of other products and services from garden tools and furniture to clothing and accessories. We also have gardening courses on offer now in partnership with MyGardenSchool. Of the 90 companies opening with Shoot Marketplace, 45 either grow or manufacture their products in Britain. Shoot Marketplace is highlighting their British credentials with a stamp of approval on the companies’ homepages and on their product pages. Similarly, there are stamps for Peat Free and Organic growers for the eco-conscious buyer Customers can buy from dozens of companies through a single secure checkout with options for both home delivery and ‘click and collect’ from participating shops.
- Our aim is to support existing community of shops already selling fantastic range of plants and products, but without the e - commerce and marketing muscle to compete with the large established retailers. We want to give these shops a platform to tell their stories and to shine a spotlight on them. As independent community managers, rather than retailers ourselves, we want to foster real relationships between our members and these shops Shoot Marketplace features supplier profiles so the interested buyer not only finds the product they want, but also gets to know the story of the company behind it. Chelsea Gold medal winning growers Knoll Gardens, Claire Austin Hardy Plants and HW Hyde & Sons have signed up, along with Barnsdale Gardens, Land Girl, Athelas Plants, Shady Plants and relative industry newcomer Withypitts Dahlias. Now I’d like to play a short 2 ½ minute video we have produced which shows you how we position the website to new visitors.
- So we are a small team with big a vision and mission and a big network of interested, involved members. We have achieved a lot already and have even bigger plans for the future. This slide is a snapshot of our growth over the past eight years. You’ll see we have enjoyed hockey stick growth in memberships with the website. We have also been successful in extending our community out through social media such as Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. Our Marketplace Shop is also growing with new shops joining up. Stats: Shoot forums 16,000 + messagesTwitter 16,000 followers and 9,000 tweetsFacebook 1 600 followersPinterest 28,500 followers; 234 boards; 5,500 pins and 19,400 guest pins Since 2005 we have been constantly innovating our community. Way back in 2006 we started to allow members to share their garden profile and to share a personal profile about them and their gardening interests. That was also the year we allowed professionals to have a listing in our directory. Then in 2007 we started our first forums. At the start these weren’t too active and it was important that each member forum post was answered quickly so we initially hired horticulturalists to help us answer members. Now replies in our forums are almost instant. In terms of wider industry collaboration we have always been open to ideas since our inception. In 2006 we licensed the Garden Centre Group (or Wyevale as it was known at the time) the use of our plant A-Z. We had 3,000 plants at the time and they paid us a licence to use our data in their own website. We did the same with 4 retail members of the Tillington Group in 2008 and that licence is still active. So if you visit Squires website for example you will find plant data powered by Shoot. And in 2011 we formed an integration partnership with Vectorworks or their Landmark 2013 software. This was a result of our garden design members wanting an easier way to import their plant lists into Shoot for their clients. There is now a simple two click export and import in order to populate a ‘My Plants list’ for a client. This save designers a lot of time and is seen as a really value add for their clients. It also helps to further increase our community.
- So we are a small team with big a vision and mission and a big network of interested, involved members. We have achieved a lot already and have even bigger plans for the future. This slide is a snapshot of our growth over the past eight years. You’ll see we have enjoyed hockey stick growth in memberships with the website. We have also been successful in extending our community out through social media such as Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. Our Marketplace Shop is also growing with new shops joining up. Stats: Shoot forums 16,000 + messagesTwitter 16,000 followers and 9,000 tweetsFacebook 1 600 followersPinterest 28,500 followers; 234 boards; 5,500 pins and 19,400 guest pins Since 2005 we have been constantly innovating our community. Way back in 2006 we started to allow members to share their garden profile and to share a personal profile about them and their gardening interests. That was also the year we allowed professionals to have a listing in our directory. Then in 2007 we started our first forums. At the start these weren’t too active and it was important that each member forum post was answered quickly so we initially hired horticulturalists to help us answer members. Now replies in our forums are almost instant. In terms of wider industry collaboration we have always been open to ideas since our inception. In 2006 we licensed the Garden Centre Group (or Wyevale as it was known at the time) the use of our plant A-Z. We had 3,000 plants at the time and they paid us a licence to use our data in their own website. We did the same with 4 retail members of the Tillington Group in 2008 and that licence is still active. So if you visit Squires website for example you will find plant data powered by Shoot. And in 2011 we formed an integration partnership with Vectorworks or their Landmark 2013 software. This was a result of our garden design members wanting an easier way to import their plant lists into Shoot for their clients. There is now a simple two click export and import in order to populate a ‘My Plants list’ for a client. This save designers a lot of time and is seen as a really value add for their clients. It also helps to further increase our community.
- So we are a small team with big a vision and mission and a big network of interested, involved members. We have achieved a lot already and have even bigger plans for the future. This slide is a snapshot of our growth over the past eight years. You’ll see we have enjoyed hockey stick growth in memberships with the website. We have also been successful in extending our community out through social media such as Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. Our Marketplace Shop is also growing with new shops joining up. Stats: Shoot forums 16,000 + messagesTwitter 16,000 followers and 9,000 tweetsFacebook 1 600 followersPinterest 28,500 followers; 234 boards; 5,500 pins and 19,400 guest pins Since 2005 we have been constantly innovating our community. Way back in 2006 we started to allow members to share their garden profile and to share a personal profile about them and their gardening interests. That was also the year we allowed professionals to have a listing in our directory. Then in 2007 we started our first forums. At the start these weren’t too active and it was important that each member forum post was answered quickly so we initially hired horticulturalists to help us answer members. Now replies in our forums are almost instant. In terms of wider industry collaboration we have always been open to ideas since our inception. In 2006 we licensed the Garden Centre Group (or Wyevale as it was known at the time) the use of our plant A-Z. We had 3,000 plants at the time and they paid us a licence to use our data in their own website. We did the same with 4 retail members of the Tillington Group in 2008 and that licence is still active. So if you visit Squires website for example you will find plant data powered by Shoot. And in 2011 we formed an integration partnership with Vectorworks or their Landmark 2013 software. This was a result of our garden design members wanting an easier way to import their plant lists into Shoot for their clients. There is now a simple two click export and import in order to populate a ‘My Plants list’ for a client. This save designers a lot of time and is seen as a really value add for their clients. It also helps to further increase our community.
- As our web community has grown, our social media presence has taken off too. Twitter: At first I wasn’t too sure why I was using Twitter. But now I see the value for us at least.It allows us to have a very personal connection with gardeners we might not have known about. In an interactive way, social media allows us to connect with new hobby gardeners who become memberswe can tell Professionals about our client servicesand new specialist shops can find us who we encourage to join our marketplace Facebook: has become a great tool for us to pre-announce developments and to get feedback on which developments members want most. Here you can see an example of how we used Facebook to get member feedback on how we might be able to improve our plant search. Pinterest: is a photo sharing website. People use the site to make image moodboards and to keep and share collections of images they like online together.Our presence on Pinterest exploded for us – we only started a Pinboard in 2012 and we already have over 28,000 followers.One of our most popular pinboards is our guest pinboard onto which 20,000 images of Plants and gardens are pinned.Blog: is used by our professional and shops community to add interesting stories and also for us to debate topics of interest. In this case I am talking about how much a garden should cost. Most gardeners don’t have an idea about how to budget for a new garden or garden make-over.
- So who makes up our membership? The majority of our membership is made up of gardeners like me. So hobby gardeners. We have novice gardeners who are just trying to get to grips with their new gardens and more experienced gardeners. We are thrilled that we now also have members which love the site so much they are buying lifetime memberships. We also have a growing membership of professionals.Garden DesignersLandscapersBloggersTeachers and Lecturers These members use Shoot for our community but also we have developed special software for Garden Designers and Landscapers specifically which in turn allow them to provide services to their clients – extending our community further. With a Professional Shoot membership, designers and landscapers can create Shoot accounts for their clients, send them onto them and the client then has everything they need to manage their garden. The clients then get our monthly care reminders. Finally we now also have a community of merchants who can sell plants, products and services through our marketplace. Here are two of our shops – John Paisley from Wych Cross and Elspeth from MyGardenSchool.
- So currently members of Shoot can share Gardening problems and questionsPlant photosPlant listsTheir member profileGarden profilesMore than oneGarden plansDesigners can add featured gardensAnd shops can share plants and products for sale Our forums are very active with over 16,000 messages posted so far about topics such as events and garden designAll of our 15,000 + plant pages also allow members to add a question or to make a comment.
- So currently members of Shoot can share Gardening problems and questionsPlant photosPlant listsTheir member profileGarden profilesMore than oneGarden plansDesigners can add featured gardensAnd shops can share plants and products for sale Our forums are very active with over 16,000 messages posted so far about topics such as events and garden designAll of our 15,000 + plant pages also allow members to add a question or to make a comment.
- So currently members of Shoot can share Gardening problems and questionsPlant photosPlant listsTheir member profileGarden profilesMore than oneGarden plansDesigners can add featured gardensAnd shops can share plants and products for sale Our forums are very active with over 16,000 messages posted so far about topics such as events and garden designAll of our 15,000 + plant pages also allow members to add a question or to make a comment.
- So currently members of Shoot can share Gardening problems and questionsPlant photosPlant listsTheir member profileGarden profilesMore than oneGarden plansDesigners can add featured gardensAnd shops can share plants and products for sale Our forums are very active with over 16,000 messages posted so far about topics such as events and garden designAll of our 15,000 + plant pages also allow members to add a question or to make a comment.
- So currently members of Shoot can share Gardening problems and questionsPlant photosPlant listsTheir member profileGarden profilesMore than oneGarden plansDesigners can add featured gardensAnd shops can share plants and products for sale Our forums are very active with over 16,000 messages posted so far about topics such as events and garden designAll of our 15,000 + plant pages also allow members to add a question or to make a comment.
- So currently members of Shoot can share Gardening problems and questionsPlant photosPlant listsTheir member profileGarden profilesMore than oneGarden plansDesigners can add featured gardensAnd shops can share plants and products for sale Our forums are very active with over 16,000 messages posted so far about topics such as events and garden designAll of our 15,000 + plant pages also allow members to add a question or to make a comment.
- So currently members of Shoot can share Gardening problems and questionsPlant photosPlant listsTheir member profileGarden profilesMore than oneGarden plansDesigners can add featured gardensAnd shops can share plants and products for sale Our forums are very active with over 16,000 messages posted so far about topics such as events and garden designAll of our 15,000 + plant pages also allow members to add a question or to make a comment.
- So currently members of Shoot can share Gardening problems and questionsPlant photosPlant listsTheir member profileGarden profilesMore than oneGarden plansDesigners can add featured gardensAnd shops can share plants and products for sale Our forums are very active with over 16,000 messages posted so far about topics such as events and garden designAll of our 15,000 + plant pages also allow members to add a question or to make a comment.
- So currently members of Shoot can share Gardening problems and questionsPlant photosPlant listsTheir member profileGarden profilesMore than oneGarden plansDesigners can add featured gardensAnd shops can share plants and products for sale Our forums are very active with over 16,000 messages posted so far about topics such as events and garden designAll of our 15,000 + plant pages also allow members to add a question or to make a comment.
- We already allow you to meet participants in our forums. You can meet any member who has a public profile and who also participates in our forums like Sue here. The member’s name will appear as a green link. If you click that link you will find the member profile page and the business listing page if they are a business listed in the site. We are planning an improvement soon for business members. For any business listed we will also show their business contact details as part of the forum post and also will give them more prominent listing in any featured gardens or articles they submit to us.
- We already allow you to meet participants in our forums. You can meet any member who has a public profile and who also participates in our forums like Sue here. The member’s name will appear as a green link. If you click that link you will find the member profile page and the business listing page if they are a business listed in the site. We are planning an improvement soon for business members. For any business listed we will also show their business contact details as part of the forum post and also will give them more prominent listing in any featured gardens or articles they submit to us.
- So what the benefit for Shoot members of community and why do they participate? For hobby gardeners they can:Get support and adviceTroubleshoot particular problemsAsk for help identifying their plantsGet useful recommendations on plants and products to buyGet help from us on how to use the Shoot siteFor professionals they can:Profile their work by adding featured gardensIncrease their profile by submitting articles and guest blog postsAnd through these and their activity in our forums, find new customersFor plant nurseries and shops:We provide a neutral e-commerce platform which allows them to sell their products and services to a wider community.
- So what the benefit for Shoot members of community and why do they participate? For hobby gardeners they can:Get support and adviceTroubleshoot particular problemsAsk for help identifying their plantsGet useful recommendations on plants and products to buyGet help from us on how to use the Shoot siteFor professionals they can:Profile their work by adding featured gardensIncrease their profile by submitting articles and guest blog postsAnd through these and their activity in our forums, find new customersFor plant nurseries and shops:We provide a neutral e-commerce platform which allows them to sell their products and services to a wider community.
- So what the benefit for Shoot members of community and why do they participate? For hobby gardeners they can:Get support and adviceTroubleshoot particular problemsAsk for help identifying their plantsGet useful recommendations on plants and products to buyGet help from us on how to use the Shoot siteFor professionals they can:Profile their work by adding featured gardensIncrease their profile by submitting articles and guest blog postsAnd through these and their activity in our forums, find new customersFor plant nurseries and shops:We provide a neutral e-commerce platform which allows them to sell their products and services to a wider community.
- In wrapping up, I hope I have given you some insight into how we at Shoot are using technology to connect gardeners of all kinds with each other on a range of topics to build the Shoot web community, and how that community extends into an exciting new e-commerce platform. We are always interested in exploring new ideas, industry collaborations, and in welcoming new members, so please feel free to get in touch with us. We’d be happy very hear from you.
- Thank you for listening.