In another week, the “Really Goode Job” contest will close, and the American Idol-like weeding out of the contestants begins. It’s likely that by the time the successful candidate starts work in mid-August (by no coincidence in time for crush), few will care; in fact, the Good Grape opines that the contest has worn out its welcome. Yes, the contest will fade, but the effects are here to stay.
I’d imagine that the contest has many wineries out there thinking “Whoa, that’s really getting them (M-G) some attention. We need to consider this social media thing”. One might ask what all the wine blogs and Tweets and such are about if wineries are asking such a question. I follow quite a few blogs, and have yet to see even one from a winery.
Look at Winebusiness.com’s list of the almost 50 blogs that their editors follow, and it certainly appears that none are authored by wineries; most are by critics, pundits, PR folks, retailers and the like. Do note that I follow and comment on many of these, and enjoy them. But where are the wineries? Winebusiness.com does have a page of winery blogs (about 25 of them), but it seems like they are relegated to second fiddle, rarely if ever appearing as Editors’ picks. At Mike Duffy’s The Winery Website Report, he shows that of the 2,700+ wineries he tracks, there are 191 with active or inactive blogs; so maybe 8 percent. And that’s just the blogs; Twitter and Facebook participation (or lack thereof) are another thing altogether.
Since the social media/winery issue is of interest, I took a look at the dozen wineries operating under the umbrella of my wife’s employer, and found two on Twitter, six with some kind of Facebook representation, and virtually no blog activity. In today’s communication environment, this, to me, is a problem. I believe that a winery needs to integrate all three platforms, and being in only one (or none) doesn’t help your cause.
Based on feedback from my friends in the industry, it seems that many wineries are interested in social media, but don’t know where to start, how to allocate the time, or how to get people to pay attention to them. I follow the blogs of PR pros Tom Wark and Jo Diaz, and imagine that they work at moving their clients to social media, but not everybody has good or progressive PR folks to guide them. What to do, what to do? Well…
This blog will explore the exciting new world of social media as it relates to wineries. I’ll review the various blogs and Facebook Pages, and follow the Tweets as I find them, highlighting the good stuff (by name), as well as the “needs to improve” (anonymously). I’ll discuss platforms, technology and tools than can be used in order to make the world of social media easier to understand and utilize.
Hang on; it should be fun.
Next: why wineries need to embrace (ok, accept) social media.
JD, this is a welcome blog for wineries. You’ve got it right, many or most of them don’t have a clue where or how to begin. And it can be intimidating for an older owner. They need all the help they can get to jump off the cliff into the social media ocean.
Thank you, Steve.
Thanks for taking this on, JD – I look forward to what’s to come. And a special thanks for the links to the wine and winery blogs. I’ll have to sign up for some of those feeds – along with yours!
Really good(e) stuff here, JD! I’ll be checking back often to see how we can all help escort wineries into social media together.
As for the Murphy-Goode correspondent search, an update for your readers that the Top 10 will be announced on Tuesday, July 7. As one of the Top 50 myself, I think we can all say that the winding down of this campaign is quite welcomed.
The Murphy-Goode correspondent needs to get geared up for harvest and the most qualified applicants who don’t make the cut need to be snapped up by other progressive wineries that are ready to dive into social media. And we should all be checking in with each other and with ‘Facebook for Wineries’ to bring as much success as possible to the industry…together.
Thanks for all your hard work here.
Yo, Todd! Best of luck in your quest to be the “Goode Guy”! I’m going to check out your video entry. Yes, come back to visit often, and give your views on SocMed and wineries. We’ll have to organize a tweet-up after the Really Goode News is released, one way or the other.
JD