Lazy Sunday: Social Media

This is a bit long for a Lazy Sunday post, but since not everyone is interested in social media as part of their winery marketing program (Lazy Sunday being reserved for things which some readers may find less interesting), I'm leaving it here.  It's OK to read it on Monday.

Social Media is loosely defined as media which take advantage of user participation and user-generated content (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, wikis, Tumblr, Digg, YouTube, etc., etc.).

Why Your Competitors Are Keeping Customers and Gaining New Ones Through Social Media

has interesting details about a company that cut its advertising budget by 80 percent when the company turned to social media over traditional advertising.

I must also point to Tim Elliott's ACAN Media blog (a social media approach to wine marketing), Udi Barone's BeesAndWine.com (helping wineries use MySpace), Twisted Oak's El Jefe, who Twitters more than any winery I know, and the folks at Inertia who regularly blog about social media.

Donati Family Vineyards has a social media site in addition to their main Web site, created by MyVineSpace.com (the underlying platform is Ning, a Web-based roll-your-own-social media-site service).

Of course, CellarTracker may be the best example of a popular, wine-related social media site.  If you're curious about what real people (not critics, but wine enthusiasts nonetheless) are saying about your wines, CellarTracker can be an enormous resource.  Go to the CellarTracker home page and search for your winery (e.g. Emeritus) in the search box at in the upper left corner (under the CellarTracker corkscrew logo).

(Also, see my previous post on using Twitter to track people's experiences with your wine.)

If you're interested in the use of social media to promote your winery, you may also find this list of interest: What Blogs Should You Be Reading?

What is your winery doing with social media?  Tremendous boon or waste of time?  And if you're a winery on Twitter or Facebook or MySpace, leave a comment.

Comments

[BrandyBell]

Thanks for the mention of Donati Family Vineyard's WineSpace. We love your blog, especially the lazy Sunday editions.
Happy Holidays!

[Dennis Grimes]

Mike: Re. your Lazy Sunday info call fm wineries implementing social media sites - after attending WBC 2008 in Sonoma we quickly spooled up a unique guest oriented site for our Eagles Nest Winery & Cottage, Boutique winery in Ramona, CA.

Melissa Dobson (Melissa Dobson PR & Marketing, OWC/WBC} consultant for the New York state Finger Lakes wine region stated last week on our winery blog:

"…You have nailed the power of this platform, in my opinion. Intimate engagement with your enthusiasts. And the ability to share news and updates in a fun setting."

Our small winery sought a way to keep in close and timely contact with our valued customers and close winery friends after attending WBC we felt a blog was a promising concept. The members like the fun, humor, and educational aspects.

Several OWC members made favorable comments after reviewing our by-design non-traditional use of the blog site as an intimate, interactive newsletter. A newsletter "on steroids" as Joel Vincent OWC/WBC refers to it.

We also have a Web 1.0 website but we needed the blog to replace an old fashioned, expensive, and time late newsletter. The content generation workload between a blog and newsletter is similar but the timeliness and interactive nature of the (on our case, Ning based) blog hits the mark it for us.

We believe almost anyone with a reasonable IT tech background can implement a blog with the Ning technology. Joel's recent WBC 2008 was fantastic - it opened our eyes-wide to Web 2.0. Cheryl Wolhar (myvinespace.com) was key in assisting us. OWC is a good resource too.

Our blog site is private for invited guests only. However the concept can be viewed on the blog’s home page http://eaglesnestwinery.ning.com

[Mike Duffy]

Dennis: I'm sure that others will benefit from your first-hand account of your experience with Ning and social media. I'm glad to see people experimenting with new ways to involve and expand their fan base.

[Andre Ribeirinho]

Mike,
we've just released a tool that wineries can use to participate more in social media: Adegga Producer Accounts
http://www.adegga.com/producer/accounts

With these accounts wineries can communicate directly with fans who are following them and it integrates with several already existing media: a winery blog or online shop (if they exists).

Do take a look a let me know what you think.

Regards,
André