Archive - 2009

Update on Reaching the Wine Drinker

January 23, 2009 in marketing with 0 Comments

I’m still waiting to see the reaction from traditional wine press sources (if any), but the “Beyond the Trade” Twitter Taste Live event at the Bibendum tasting was a great success.

We had even more participants both at the tasting and at homes & offices around the UK than I expected and the feedback has been incredible.

You can even see one of the many videos taken on the day (thanks to @documentally), just before we kicked off the tasting:

A quick glance at the results shows that there were at least 300 posts on Twitter in the 45 minutes or so we discussed the three wines, and in that time this event become the Number 1 discussed topic on Twitter GLOBALLY (beating Obama himself the day after his inauguration, albeit for a few minutes only).

However, the best part of the event was the numerous comments from non wine experts, but wine consumers, about how they had found so much pleasure in tasting wines, sharing the experience and learning some new stuff, such as tasting varieties or wines from countries like Austria for the very first time.

What better example does anyone in the wine business need, or in any business for that matter, that there are wonderful opportunities out there to engage and educate consumers in ways that are relevant and fun?

I’ll post a round up of comments and feedback soon, but in the meantime, START EXPLORING SOCIAL MEDIA TODAY!

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Reaching the wine drinker

January 20, 2009 in marketing with 2 Comments

LIWF 2008
Image by RobWinton via Flickr

The UK wine trade has lots of events where we pour, taste, buy and sell wine, but the majority of the big events are “trade only” events where professional buyers, writers and winery representatives such as agents, importers and distributors, get together to do deals.

The great news is that the quality of wine being made is arguably as good as it has ever been, and the buyers themselves are also better qualified to choose wines for their businesses.

But someone is missing from the picture. The drinker.

Of course, the UK consumer is always on the mind of wine makers and importers, and certainly of the businesses that will ultimately sell them the wine. Yet, how often do these businesses make decisions based on feedback directly from their ultimate customers?

One of the reasons I bang on about Social Media for wine so much is that it allows all of us, whatever our role in the wine value chain, to hear directly from a whole range of consumers about their tastes in brands and products, including wine. Today, that audience is still somewhat limited to the more technically minded (i.e. geeky) but this is changing VERY fast.

I am very excited, therefore, about the possibilities offered by the combination of wine and Twitter‘s short, focused and public messaging as is being used by twittertastelive.com – in fact I like it so much I am involved in helping to bring this idea to a broader UK and European audience.

I used this in December as well, but this time we are giving consumers and influencers outside the wine trade the chance to give some feedback on wines during one of the most important UK trade events, Bibendum Wine Ltd’s Annual Tasting. I must state for the record that 1) Bibendum is the company that imports the wines I work for and 2) we will be tasting one of these wines as part of the event, namely the Dinastia Vivanco Crianza. However, no-one will be filtering the results or comments so I hope you’ll accept this minor potential conflict of interest.

From 4pm tomorrow (21st January 2009), there will be a group of food, wine and media bloggers gathered together at Bibendum’s physical event (at the Saatchi Gallery in London) and another 8 or more individuals and groups around the country particpating remotely. Each will taste the three wines and exchange tasting notes, comments, questions and desperate demands for refills using twitter. Click here to read more about “Beyond the Trade“.

Follow along on twitter by following me (@thirstforwine) and the others listed below, and look out for tweets with the code #ttl

I’ll report back on the success, or otherwise, later in the week.

The participants will include:

@bibendumwine
@thirstforwine
@documentally
@sizemore
@loudmouthman
@eatlikeagirl
@hollowlegs
@chrispople
@foodstories
@wmjohn
@bigbluemeanie
@jonthebeef
@mackney
@fraseredwards
@rjbirkin
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Can you make money on twitter from wine with breakfast?

January 8, 2009 in marketing with 4 Comments

If you have ever heard of Twitter, whether you have joined or not, you’ll probably recognise the truth and comedy in this (click on the image to go to original site and make it larger):

Tweet Your Breakfast

Tweet Your Breakfast - from wheres my jetpack

In summary;

Twitter is really a waste of time because it is full of people with nothing better or more interesting to do than tell you what they had for breakfast.

TRUE! and FALSE!

Yes, there are a lot of people who are talking about what they are doing, what they like, dislike and want information on. Some of it is trivial, some of it is not. But, and this is a BIG BUT, you would be wrong to assume it isn’t valuable.

First, consider that we are all preening social animals, so what we project on twitter says something about us and how we want to be seen. It is important to someone.

Second, it is a shared activity that builds networks of friends and contacts who might then go on and do what you might consider “interesting”, so there is always a benefit in it

Third, let’s put an entrepreneurial hat on for a moment. If there are around 3-4m twitter users (recent estimate) telling you what they are buying, eating and drinking for breakfast, is this not UNBELIEVABLY useful for breakfast providers: coffee brands, cereal brands, diet snake-oil-salesmen, media companies and more?

In fact, I’d go so far as saying that breakfast tweets (and their like) are the most monetisable elements of twitter. No joke.

If you are a wine producer you should already be searching and monitoring the Twitterverse for mentions of your wines or even your direct competitors’. If they are doing it with breakfast, they are probably also doing it with lunch (#lunchtweet) and dinner … including what they drank (the audience is definitely skewed towards a wine drinking profile, see some stats here)

If they mention your wine, the users are doing your word of mouth marketing, FREE. They are also potentially spreading bad reviews (maybe because of corked bottles or poor retail experiences) or misunderstandings about your product or brand. You can easily address these by responding in a timely way. You don’t even need to spend much time on twitter for this benefit, just set up an alert and you’re done. The information comes to you. This is a fantastic opportunity.

If they are not talking about your wine, why not?

The full benefit of Twitter comes from getting involved and becoming part of the many informal networks. There are wine bloggers, wine merchants, journalists, collectors, wine makers and wine consumers already there. They exchange information, link, reviews, suggestions and advice. There are plenty of opportunities to contribute, for example participating in online chats, online wine tastings, or maybe offering a unique view of your wine region. Could you not afford a little time to contribute and therefore also share the benefits? If you do, please link to me (@thirstfowine) and send me a tweet

Twitter is only a tool, still with a limited reach, but a potentially very useful one.

Things to do NOW:

  1. Search for your brands and key terms on Twitter
  2. Check out some wine twitterers (or visit my page and link off to others that you find interesting)
  3. Sign up for an account – OWN YOUR NAME!
  4. Respond to customers in a positive way – but don’t preach or ‘sell’ (not until you have twitter street cred)
  5. Join the fun. Follow some people and get to see how it works first hand
  6. Spread the word and get other interesting people involved

Image above borrowed from Where’s My Jetpack - check it out!

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Brain Fail

January 7, 2009 in marketing with 2 Comments

Human brain - please add comment and fav this ...
Image by Gaetan Lee via Flickr

I’m sad to report that my Brain 1.0 crashed this morning.

I had crafted a beautiful post about Twitter and the business benefits of participating in it, including witty comparisons, links to all sorts of relevant articles, statistics and images, and even made a few quote-worthy inserts that would allow you to pass on the article to your friends.

Unfortunately, I sat down this morning to paste this article from Brain 1.0 into Worpress and I discovered that this well crafted article had been corrupted (possibly by tiredness or even the half bottle of wine I had last night). I even attempted to reopen the article in my now rather dated Pen-N-Paper interface, and the entire thing seems to have become one wordy, garbled, incoherent and unresearched mess.

Unfortunately it means I’m going to have to start again, and this post is an attempt to re-format those thoughts and find fresh inspiration.

For those of an impatient disposition, the gist of the article was:

Twitter is a worthy additional tool in any business communication plan, but there are several different ways to approach it, and you need to better understand not what twitter IS, but how it is USED before you prepare that plan.

You do not need to participate in it heavily to benefit. You can simply monitor conversations and use it to respond to questions, and most importantly, respond to any issues directly and in a timely way. This is customer service “gold dust” and creates a great opportunity for word of mouth benefits.

However, as with all social media, you can really benefit from the twitter platform by getting involved, interacting with other individuals and communicating your (personal and business) personality. This is something that takes time, honesty, and a degree of openness most businesses find hard at first. However, it could be transforming for the business by creating a truly loyal group of friends, much more than ‘just’ customers.

OK. I’m off to turn that into something a little more useful and rounded, and to see if anyone has yet brought out an upgrade or replacement for my unreliable Brain.

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More BBC Wine Conversations

January 5, 2009 in marketing, wine conversation with 4 Comments

The programme's set, introduced in May 2006, f...
Image via Wikipedia

Must get this post up quickly because I’ve been asked (this morning) to come along to the BBC Working Lunch studios TOMORROW to discuss Wine, Social Media, and specifically the business benefits of Twitter.

Not only that, but I get to share a stage with Annie Mole who will be focusing on the blogging side of things – wow!

How exciting is that? I’d never intended to BE the wine spokesperson on Social Media, only to get to know it to the benefit of the wonderful wineries I work with, and all my wine friends. However, anything I can do to raise the visibility of wine blogging and wine tweeting, then great! After all, this IS the wine conversation.

Of course, one of the main points and examples will be the ongoing developments at Twitter Taste Live

If you are in the UK (or can access the BBC Two), check out the programme that starts at 12:30 tomorrow (6 January, 2009) or watch the iPlayer catch up in the next week.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, if you are reading this before the programme goes out, let me know what you think I should say. Any great examples of where Twitter has helped your wine business – winery, retailer, marketing agency or importer? What about as a wine consumer – has twitter helped you explore wine further? I’d love, in fact am DESPERATE for, your feedback.

Wish me luck!

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