Special Events to Promote Your Business

It's summer time and there's a wealth of events scheduled almost every day of the week. In the Blue Ridge region of Virginia, there's wine festivals and music festivals each weekend. During the week, there's art shows and business networking events. In the evening, there's workshops and lectures, and music seems to be in the air every where. The food events are as plentiful as the harvest, with farmers markets, tastings and daily specials at farm to table eateries.

Special events provide opportunities for small businesses to reach a new audience. It is the topic of our How To Worshop this evening. We're going over the pre-event, event and post-event tasks that can impact the visibility of a business. The series is FREE and we invite you to give it a try. Our workshop is held at the Salem Business Center, 1390 Southside Drive, Salem, VA from 5:30-7:30pm. If you would like to attend, call 540.384.1815 or email nablueridge@gmail.com.

Blue Ridge Green Media will continue the How To Workshop Series in September. Check back for details.

Earth Week Giveaways from Natural Awakenings Magazine of Virginia's Blue Ridge

We are celebrating Earth Week every day this week. In the April issue of Natural Awakenings Magazine of Virginia's Blue Ridge, you'll find a page of Earth Week events (page 5), along with a profile of our Roanoke Earth Day leaders, Polly Branch and Bill Modica (page 12). It is a time to come together as a community, celebrating the impact of our daily local actions on the bigger global Earth.

This week we're having a series of giveaways, Monday through Saturday. Enter by subscribing to our email newsletter on our Natural Awakenings Magazine of Virginia's Blue Ridge website. Our newsletter is weekly, and covers our most recent news, local events, links to community businesses and organizations of interest and much more! We will be at Roanoke's Earth Day Celebrations on Saturday with all the giveaways for pickup from the winners PLUS a fabulous Gift Basket giveaway. It's our way of saying thank you to our readers, far and wide, and our wonderful advertising family.

Each day this week, Monday through Friday, at 12Noon, we will announce the day's giveaway. The first giveaway for Earth Week is from Misty Gregg, sharing her Shaklee Basic H2 Cleaning Solution.


"This little 16 oz bottle creates an unbelievable 48 gallons of super-safe, really powerful, all purpose cleaner. We challenge you to use it up any time soon to clean everything from spilled milk, to bug guts on the window, to splattered spaghetti sauce." 

It is SPRING cleaning time and we're offering some healthy tips on greening your products. Trying to choose more healthy products when cleaning your home and office can be a challenge. Our Healing Ways column in April's issue provides some answers. Find the article "Household Cleanse, Banish These Five Chemicals for a Domestic Detox" on page 25. 

Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter this week to be entered in our daily giveaways for Earth Week!

Business Branding ~ Tell the Story with Pictures

Marketing and branding have taken leaps in the past few years. Social media and services like Facebook, Twitter and now Pinterest offer the opportunity for businesses to tell a story in a single picture. If the right picture moves people, it can be spread far and wide and have a real impact on a business.

Blue Ridge Green Media is seeing the impact of using images with our own digital marketing presence. We have several boards on Pinterest (imagine a wall of bulletin boards, each with a theme or focus on a topic) which share our service area, links to Natural Awakenings Magazine of Virginia's Blue Ridge digital issues, events we are attending, and our advertisers websites and communities. On Facebook, when we include pictures, our views, comments and shares increase. On Twitter, we get replies and RTs (retweets or shares) when we include a picture or link.

In May, we will be launching a series of How-To Workshops for local businesses. The first will share the best practices and strategies for using pictures or images to tell the story of your business. We will focus on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, with an introduction, orientation to each service, how and when to post, and how to measure results. At each workshop, a take home check list will be available.

The workshops will be held at our Salem, Virginia location at 1390 Southside Drive. The How-To Workshops kick off on Monday, May 20, 5:30-7:30pm.

How-To Share Stories with Images will cover

• introduction to using images on social services like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+
• resources for adding text to pictures and creating infographic images
• measuring impact of using images for marketing
• planning a marketing campaign integrating images into text based messaging

Consider how pictures that tell a story in an instant have touched your life online and how images have moved you to action. Be part of the conversation in the comments here, or in our social media communities. Attend the workshop and become the storyteller with your images!

Register by email nablueridge@gmail.com or by phone with Bonnie Cranmer, Marketing Director of Blue Ridge Green Media 540.598.6731.

May brings flowers and focus on wellness

The May issue of Natural Awakenings Magazine of Virginia's Blue Ridge is focused on Women's Wellness. Taking a holistic approach to living a healthy and vibrant life keeps things interesting. Women and men face many demands on their time these days, and offering access to up-to-date information and resources make the best use of the time available.

Blue Ridge Green Media is supporting the businesses of our region with marketing options. Natural Awakenings Magazine is our print publication, distributed in 15 counties and at over 360 locations. We are offering new All-in-One Marketing packages for 12-months and 6-months advertisers who want to integrate print advertising with digital media marketing. Each package has been created to give businesses the most impact for their specific budget. Our deadline is fast approaching for the May issue (Wednesday, April 10). Request the pdf file for the All-in-One Marketing Packages by email here.

This May's issue we have a special offer specific to Farmers Markets and Growers.

Local farmers and growers in the Blue Ridge region produce high quality, fresh produce, eggs, meat, fruit and other edibles for residents and visitors to our area. 

The people looking for those delicious, locally grown and crafted products are exactly who read our magazine and visit our online communities. We are producing a Farmers Market and Farm to Table section from May through October to meet the demands of our readers. These are the months that residents and visitors to the Blue Ridge region get a taste of the freshest seasonal offerings and we want our readers to know where they are and when to buy.

Space is limited to 8-12 Market Listings and offered on a first-come first-served basis.

 We're offering farmers markets and growers to participate and receive;

• 6 months Basic Listing, including Avatar or Small Picture, Contact Name, Phone Number, Address, Website, Scheduled Hours of Operation and 10 word description of products consistently available

• Promotions in our social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and on our Pinterest Board for Farmers Markets

• One News Brief during the 6 months, promoting an event, product, service or spotlighting a vendor

• Calendar Listing in our Ongoing Events section each month

• Package Price is $300 for 6 Months, May to October 2013

• Additional Advertising for events or openings is discounted with this package

Contact us for more details and space reservation by Monday, May 8. 

Welcome to Blue Ridge Green Media

We're a fairly new company with lots of experience in green business and tourism. Our team consists of journalism professionals, graphic artists, advertising professionals, marketing strategists and entrepreneurs who all live and work in the Blue Ridge region of Virginia.

Right now, we're working on the April issue of Natural Awakenings Magazine of Virginia's Blue Ridge, including the Health and Sustainability Directory 2013. It is a huge responsibility to include everyone in the process, the businesses, events and leaders in our area who are living lightly on our planet, at the same time they are creating jobs, sharing resources and having fun!

If there is someone you know who should be in our magazine, let us know! We're always on the lookout for new people, places and businesses we just haven't found yet. Call 540.384.1815 or email Tracy Garland at tracy@blueridgegreenmedia.com.