Wilmington, DE: FlowerChat.com, the world’s largest and most recognized online forum and community for the floral industry has announced their immediate merger with sister brand Florist 2.0. After more than 11 years as a premier resource for professional networking, peer support, and informational guides FlowerChat has moved from its iconic FlowerChat.com domain to become the Florist 2.0 Community.
This move is part of a series of consolidations by parent company Strider LLC, under the direction of Strider President Ryan Freeman. “We feel that while each of our online brands was doing an excellent job of servicing their relative niche within the floral industry, the diversity in branding was causing too much fragmentation in the perception of our customers.” Freeman, a 5th generation florist and 20 year internet marketing veteran, also stated he expected better marketing performance with a solidified brand. “Now we can say: ‘Florist 2.0 offers marketing, consulting and educational services to retail florists’ without having to describe the role of each sub-brand and identity. This helps our florists to gain a better understanding of the full suite of services we offer.”
The merger also saw the elimination of the paid Pro-level membership that restricted certain sections of the site to paid members. All content in the site is free to read, but requires registration. “We introduced the Pro membership idea to eliminate some of the noise that online forums create, to keep FlowerChat a professional environment. Now that Facebook has taken on the lion’s share of the idle chatter we can open the gates wide. Florists coming to the Florist 2.0 Community are making an intentional action to go to where the professional discussion happens. That has always been our goal – to be the place where really useful and productive conversations happen.” The Florist 2.0 Community features over 34,000 conversations, nearly 340,000 messages, and almost 5,500 members, along with a newsletter subscriber base of over 12,000 readers.
Advertising options on The Florist 2.0 Community will be made available to interested parties that are relevant to the site’s audience. However, the traditional model of CPM Banner Ads will only play a minor role. “We have a number of innovative ideas we want to make available to the right partners, and I am excited to put them into action. No one else in this space is doing what we are offering, and I think the results are going to be uniquely valuable to our ad partners. I can assure our members that the site will not be plastered with annoying animated ads that distract from the value of the site.”
About Florist 2.0:
Florist 2.0 is owned by Strider Search Marketing, an online marketing firm founded by SEO professional and 5th generation florist Ryan Freeman. Florist 2.0 offers ecommerce web development, Search Engine Optimization and online marketing, print and mail marketing, and educational services. Florist 2.0 has clients in several countries throughout the world. Ryan Freeman is a regular speaker at florist industry events in the USA and Canada
Source: Florist 2.0
