In my hours away from the world of marketing and web
development, I write a wine blog called Vinotology. Since I started my blog, I’ve become pretty
active in the wine blogging and Twitter community and have had the opportunity
to observe the way that a lot of wineries are using social media to market
their businesses. There are some
wineries that are doing a great job of using these tools, but there are a lot
of others who aren’t.
The wine business is a perfect case study for the use of
social media. This is an industry that
is built on a social product, making it ideally suited to marketing via social
media. Additionally, the largest growth
market segment in wine is among Millennials, a demographic that was practically raised online and one that spends a good deal of time using social media. The
wine industry is really just starting to work through the growing pains of social
marketing. Most wineries have only
recently begun to experiment with tools like Twitter and Facebook, and a lot of
their experiences can be informative to people in other industries. So what have I seen successful wineries doing? In this post I want to look at the planning that goes into a successful social media strategy.
Going In With a Plan
Back when I used to work for a financial services company,
one of the mantras that they used to teach us was, “People don’t plan to fail,
they fail to plan.” The same thing
applies when it comes to social media.
There are so many different tools out there, including Facebook,
Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube, just to name a few.
If you don’t develop a strategy, you can waste a lot of time on a tool
that isn’t really suited to your needs, or possibly your abilities. You don’t want to get analysis paralysis, but
you do need to think through your approach to social media. Here are some good questions to ask when
deciding on the social media tools that you will use –
·
Am I trying to do too much?
You only have so much time in the day, so
don’t spread yourself too thin. Pick the
tools that are going to provide your business with the most value. It’s probably best to find one or two
platforms to start with, and then you can expand out from there as you have
time. It’s always better to do a few
things really well, than to do too many things poorly.
·
Are my customers really using this tool?
If your customers aren’t using MySpace, you
would be wasting your time getting involved in that community. A lot of businesses will probably find that
Facebook and Twitter are a good place to start.
These tools have a wide user base, and offer a lot of opportunities to
interact with your customers. Think
about the customers that you are trying to reach, and pick your technology
based on where they are.
· 
Am I wired for using this medium well?
Gary Vaynerchuck, one of the rockstars of
social media, is constantly talking about following your DNA. Vaynerchuck has really practiced what he
preaches. With a high energy and
charismatic persona, he is ideally suited to take advantage of the medium of
video blogging, and has done a great job of it on his Wine Library TV site. Not everyone does well on camera though. Although I’ve messed around with video some
on my blog, I’ve found that I do much better with a written blog. Think about your strengths, and pattern your
use of social media around them.
·
Do I understand how to use this tool
effectively?
Before you dive into any social media
endeavor, do a simple Google search to find what people are saying about how to
effectively leverage it. This doesn’t
take very long. It may take some time to
really get comfortable with using Twitter or to really hit your stride with
blogging, but at least you can enter the fray with an understanding of the
ground rules. Other people have already
made the mistakes for you, take advantage of their experience.
·
How do I intend to integrate my social
media tools?
One of the awesome things about many of these
tools is that they all tie in together.
Your website can link to your blog, to your Twitter user page, and to
your Facebook page. A lot of blogging
platforms allow you to automatically send out updates to Twitter and Facebook
when you make a new post. If you post
videos on YouTube, you can embed them on your blog, post them on Facebook, and
send out a tweet with a link to the video. The key is
to think through the integrations that will provide value to your followers.
There are certainly other questions that you can ask as well, but just asking these will put you ahead of where a lot of people start out. The main thing is to approach your social media campaign the same way that you would any other marketing efforts. Just because these tools are free, doesn't mean that you should rush into using them without a plan.
In my next post I will be looking at some specific examples of how I've seen wineries effectively using social media, as well as some examples of what not to do, and I'll talk about how these same rules apply to your business.