The Winery Web Site Report

Secrets Of The Twitter Master

You think you know how to use Twitter for your winery?  Take a look at Guy Kawasaki's explanation of how he uses Twitter.  Highly instructive.

Now, Winery Lifestreams!

Evidently, blogging has become passé.

Now you need a lifestream, like PR maven Steve Rubel.

While I'm poking a little bit of fun at the idea, I think Rubel's workflow is worth a look if you're interested in the idea of creating a lifestream for your winery, a central feed of everything that you want to communicate to your fans.

As always, one needs to evaluate new developments with this in mind: it's always about selling more of your wine, whether it's a Web site, a blog, Twitter, Facebook, or a lifestream.

Lazy Sunday: Freakonomics on Wine

For those of you who enjoyed Freakonomics, there's a New York Times blog written by the same fellows, along with guest writers.

A newly-added guest economist, Robin Goldstein, writes about wine and the wine industry.

On The Internet, No One Can See Your Tongue

On June 8^th, I wrote about what I felt was a missed customer service opportunity by Chateau Julien.  After they received some "negative comments" on what they had intended to be a "tongue in cheek" post, they've asked their readers to "make the call" as to whether to remove the original post altogether.

(you can read the comments on their original post here)

On the one hand, I feel badly for having called attention to Ch. Julien's gaffe.  They made a common beginning blogger's mistake and experienced the wrath of anonymous commenters.

On ther other hand, it's instructive to others who write winery blogs (and blogs in general) that written humor is sometimes elusive.

I guess my bottom line is that there was probably a better way to have written the original post.  For example, here's one from El Jefe.

If you have comments, please leave them here, and give Ch. Julien a pass this time.

Thinking as a winery owner, would you remove the comment?

Facebook For Wineries (the blog)

"JD in Napa" has started an interesting blog on winery marketing through social media, which deserves your attention: Facebook for Wineries

And I would say that even if he hadn't been nice enough to mention this blog in a couple of hist posts.

Joe Bob says, "Check it out!"

Thinking About Making A Commercial?

Instead of hiring an agency, consider hiring your users.

Twitter Search For Your Winery

Twitter Search is the best way to keep tabs on what's being said about your winery/wines on Twitter. You'd be surprised.

Here's a quick introduction from the nice folks at CommonCraft:

Each Twitter Search has its own RSS feed, which means you can keep tabs on lots of distinct searches using your blog reader (e.g. Bloglines.com)

If you've got some additional Twitter Search tricks, please leave a comment.

Our Wines Are In The Wine Shop, But Why?

Paige over at Erath Winery invited me to take a look at their new Web site.  While it will take me some time to look around and do my "winery Web site evaluation thing" (much as I did for Twisted Oak recently), looking at their site navigation prompted me to ask this question:

Why do wineries have main navigation elements for both Our Wines and Wine Shop?

Lots of sites do this, but it seems like a false dichotomy: we describe our wines over here, and you can buy them over there.

Maybe I'm missing something, but Amazon (who arguably knows a thing or two about selling stuff online) doesn't describe books in one place, and make you go somewhere elseif you want to buy them.  There is no Our Books and Book Shop in their navigational scheme.

So, winery Web site owners (and designers), what's the rationale behind this split?  Please leave a comment!

Sites Which Are Blogs

I have a number of alerts which help me find new winery blogs for The List, and one of them turned up the Hawkes Wine blog. 

What makes Hawkes Wine worth mentioning is that their site (like the original Stormhoek site) is a blog, built using WordPress.  In other words, the front page of the Hawkes Wine Web site is the home page of their blog.

Any other good examples of this type of site?  Leave a comment.

Help!

I've had a pretty good run of posts lately, but the well has temporarily run dry (in part due to business travel earlier this week).

So, Faithful Readers, I turn to you.

Do you have a question or need advice related to your winery's online presence?  If so, please leave it in a comment.  One way or another, I'll answer it (either in response to your comment, or as a whole post here).  Think of it as Dear Abby for your winery Web site.

(you can also drop me an e-mail if you'd like to keep our exchange confidential)

...And thank you for your support!