Facebook is a wildly popular social media site that boasts over 500 million users. That is larger than the population of the United States! As you can see, Facebook has the potential of bringing thousands of gardeners together on one site.
Almost anyone that is anyone has a Facebook profile or page, and this includes gardeners of all types. Facebook can be a very powerful tool to connect with not only the every day gardener, but businesses and celebrity gardeners as well. Many businesses use their Facebook page to announce special sales events and promotions. You can stay up to date with celebrity gardeners on the latest gardening trends and advice. The possibilities of connecting with thousands of gardeners is virtually endless.
It would take a complete website in itself to discuss all the features of Facebook, so I am just going to mention a few to get you hopefully started in the right direction.
Now let's find out how we can find some of these fabulous gardeners on Facebook.
Sign Up
If you don't already have a Facebook account, you can easily sign up for a free account in just a few minutes.
Once you have signed up, or signed in, you will be taken to your Live Feed page. This is a page that features what your friends on Facebook are saying. It will show any recent posts, comments they make, photos they have added recently, and so on. You can also comment, "like" their feed items, or share by using links at the bottom of each feed.
You also have a menu at the left side of the page to get you to other sections of Facebook. There are links for any Groups you might be a member of, any Pages that you may have become a fan of, a link to your photo albums, and so on.
Finding Other Gardeners
The best way that I have found to find other gardeners is to use the Search bar at the top right area of the page.
You can find other gardeners with this search function several ways.
You can type in a general keyword, such as "vegetable gardening" or gardeners".
You can type the name of a specific person to find their Facebook profile or Fan Page. You can type in "Gardener Guy" to find Paul James, or "Joe Lamp'l" to find his profile.
For the purpose of this demonstration, I will perform a search for "vegetable gardening". Once my search is complete, Facebook has found these Pages and Groups that match the search.
You will see in the above image that the search found two vegetable gardening Pages, and three vegetable gardening Groups. A page is generally set up by one person (usually a website, blog, or business) to promote themselves, their brand, or their product. A group is generally a collection of people with similar interests in what the group is about - in this case vegetable gardening.
You can click the View All Page Results and View All Group Results links to find more groups or pages in the search. If you find one that interests you, you can join the group (or fan the page), or you can click the name of the Page or Group to view it.
I am interested in checking out the first Vegetable Gardening Page in the search results, so I click the link for that Page.
This will bring you to the Vegetable Gardening Page's Wall. This is where you can view items the Page owner has shared, and where fans of the page can also share their own comments or photos.
Let's say that you have decided to become a fan of this page. First, you may want to introduce yourself. You can do this using the "Write something" box near the top of the Wall page. This will put your comments, questions, or ideas on the Wall where all the members can view it and comment on it.
Using this, you can introduce yourself to the page owner and to the other fans of the page. You can add a photo of yourself if you like.
Become Part of The Community
Once you have introduced yourself, you can scroll down the page and see what everyone else is discussing. If you find a topic that interests you, join in on the discussion by adding a comment.
Each time someone posts to the Wall, the post will have three links at the bottom - Comment, Like and Share. If you would like to add a new comment to the discussion, click Comment. If you just want to tell the author you liked their post, you can click the Like link, if you would like to share this post with one of your friends, simply click the Share link.
You can also find out who else has fanned the page, check photos that the page owner and fans have submitted, and any videos the page owner has added. This will be on the left hand side of the page.
Join Thousands of Gardeners on Facebook Today
Becoming involved in the Fan Pages or Groups on Facebook is a great way to meet new gardeners, discuss your favorite gardening topics, and find out what other gardeners are doing in their gardens. I enjoy discussing gardening with other people on Facebook, and hope that you will too, if you haven't already. I hope that you will take a minute and check out the Veggie Gardener Facebook Fan Page, and become a fan. Please feel free to stop by, and introduce yourself. I'd love to meet you!
If you missed the introduction post for this series - Use Social Media To Connect With Other Gardeners.
If you missed yesterday's post in the series about using Twitter - Use Social Media To Connect With Other Gardeners - Twitter.
If you missed the post on gardening forums and communities - Use Social Media To Connect With Other Gardeners - Forums & Communities
