Should A Winery Blog? Probably Not.

The worth-a-read new (free) white paper from VinTank on the state of wine industry social media answers the question thusly:

With all the activity that you need to do online do you really have the time to blog? We at VinTank believe in blogs, all types even winery blogs. However, with the limited amount of resources, with the amount of work it takes to build audience that differentiates you, and with all the other activities you need to do (e‐commerce, interact with customers, social networks, etc, etc) we feel that a winery blog is last on the list of marketing tactics (and we have been a loud opponent of winery blogs for some time). Approximately only about fifteen winery blogs even show up with traffic in Compete tools.  

Moreover, we have heard consistently [from] blog readers complaining about infomercials and conversations about terroir, the weather, or a picnic that they had. If you do pursue a winery blog then commit to it. Find a voice or multiple voices at the winery that create interesting and meaningful content. And all the best of luck but send us your blog and we promise to add it to our RSS feeds and comment when we can.

In short, "Not unless you've got all your other marketing taken care of," which is equivalent to "No," since most wineries are chronically short of time and resources.

Frankly, this makes me sort of sad.

I do agree that there are marketing activities more important to a winery's success than blogging.  I'm not convinced that those more-important activities include Twitter or Snooth, though.

And I'm not convinced that Compete's analytics will do much in the way of turning up any niche-oriented blog, since they are sampling a population of 2 million users that may or may not overlap well with customers of small wineries.  I'm sure this blog doesn't show up, either.

Certainly, the vast majority of winery blogs could be more focused and interesting.  We're not all Stephen King or Jon Krakauer when it comes to telling gripping stories.

Still, the past Best Winery Blog nominees really are doing something special, and I'm glad they spend the time doing it.  And I'm glad that others have been willing to take a stab at blogging about their winery and wines, even when every post isn't a gem.

So, if you're a winery blogger, take a long moment to think about why you're doing it.  Some of you know, quantitatively, that your blog is increasing your sales (otherwise, why do it?) by engaging our customers and potential customers.  Some of you enjoy the writing, even if no one reads it. 

The rest of you have permission to stop.

And don't even think about starting one. <grin>

Comments

[Paul Mabray]

Duooh. Thanks for the read Mike. I am sad too, I want more wineries to have stronger e-business foundations and then the opportunity to blog.

Make no mistake, some wineries are doing GREAT and inspirational work through blogging and we applaud them and hope more will enter the arena. But we HIGHER hopes for more wineries going digital to help increase their direct sales and putting more energy there as opposed to blogging.

Keep inspiring wineries though, we want more successes in all things digital for the wine industry (including winery blogs). You're doing a great job helping with your blog and we appreciate and respect all of your efforts.

Thanks again for the post and reading our tome of wine social media.

[Marco Montez]

I keep reminding myself to blog about things that my audience can find interesting, mixing it up as much as I can. One post is about the vineyard/winery, the next is about something quite unrelated to the winery - well, that's the goal, it doesn't always work out this way. It's not easy to keep the balance being that I'm so deeply involved in well... the winery. It takes time and effort, especially when English writing is not your forte. With that said... I can tell you that starting my winery blog (before I was even officially a winery) was one of the most important steps I've taken to date. Today, Google Analytics tells me that my blog is the second highest traffic source to my main winery's website, second only to google searches. Mre importantly, I've recorded sales at the winery that I can directly associate with the blog. That's worth it.

[rick]

Hmm Well it's hard to penetrate the buzzword on the vintank site but take solace in this Mike...

Your site has as much traffic as theirs: http://siteanalytics.compete.com/vintank.com+winerywebsitereport.com/

:)

[Iris Rutz-Rudel]

Well, in France, we don't think that it's waisting your time to have a wineryblog. Visitors of the next VINEXPO edition in June at BBORDEAUX will even have the opportunity to meet 19 winery-bloggers from France, Portugal and Italy at our OFF Event: Les Vignerons Blogueurs.

More information (in French:-) here:

http://blogsetvignerons.over-blog.com/

So come to meet us, taste and see, our wines will be there too!