To find out more please call 01202 669090 or visit brightblueday.co.uk

Victoria Keeble Head of Social Media

Agree/Disagree? Let Victoria know: victoria.keeble@brightblueday.co.uk

Our view on social media and the wine industry

Wine has always been a very social drink. If drunk without the social aspect, people would question whether it’s more of a problem than a hobby. Then social media came along and all of a sudden it’s fine to drink it alone, as long as you’re cramming your tasting notes into 140 characters or less it doesn’t matter that you’re drinking from the bottle in a darkened room with the blinds drawn wearing only your pants.

Social media has opened up the world of the

sommelier from its elitist trappings to something much

more inclusive, and knowledge-on-the-go sources

like the Berry Bros & Rudd Wine List iPhone/iPad app

allow everyone to carry an opinion in their pocket, no

matter where they are or what they’re drinking.

The traditional wine-world triad of the vineyards,

critics and distributors no longer has the monopoly

on influencing consumer behaviour, but this doesn’t

appear to be to their detriment. Increased wine

knowledge, growing public interest in how products

are made and the trend for local produce have opened

up different wine markets and given the public new

reasons to buy. Indeed, according to the 2010 vine

variety data, total hectarage given over to growing

wine grapes in the UK has risen yet again this year

to satisfy the increasing interest in British wine.

Despite its reputation for stuffiness, the wine

industry has adapted to this new social world with

relative ease; ‘new style’ distributors such as Naked

Wines and Snooth have thriving online communities,

while Bottle Apostle (one of the best wine shops

I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting) promotes

user-generated content in the shape of their annual

online label competition.

When it comes to the larger wine retailers, however,

it’s hard to see how they are using social media to

engage with consumers. Although retailers such as

Waitrose’s Wine Club and Majestic have a steadily

growing number of followers on Twitter, most of the

established high street wine merchants still aren’t

taking part in the conversation, and if they are, it

looks more like a token gesture than a strategic move.

Like many industries where the big players are

watching each other, there is a certain amount of

keeping-up-with-the-Joneses and the resulting

social media activity levels the playing field rather

than forges a new path. Creating a Facebook

presence for your brand, however brilliant and

engaging, is still only doing what competitors have

done previously. The smaller, more agile brands that

have been leading the way are the ones the bigger

retailers need to look to.

With a new breed of social-savvy producers and distributors and more people than ever sharing their opinions online, the balance of power in the wine industry is shifting. As these newcomers establish themselves, are the big names in danger of being left behind? And where should they be looking for inspiration?

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but an overview of the key areas

where the wine industry needs to focus in order to get the most out of

the opportunities afforded by social media.

Extend the world of the product (take note from other industries) – The

film, music and gaming industries often create a back-story for their

brand, which allows them to extend the world of the product and create

multiple touch-points for the consumer. It’s not uncommon for gaming

companies, like PlayStation and Xbox, to introduce the audience to a

character, their history and their world before the game is even available

to buy. Likewise, film directors like J J Abrams create back stories to

their forthcoming movie releases before they have even finished filming.

In the world of wine, Stormhoek, the South African producer, uses its

Facebook profile and blog to inform users of where the wine is in the

production process and when it’s going to be hitting the shelves as well

as providing some great content along the way.

Taking this even further is the brilliant and much-talked-about Some

Young Punks, a wine brand as fashionable as it is beautiful. With a site

that reminiscent of PlayStation’s Dirt 2 and pulp fiction-inspired labels,

the brand is a heady mix of sex, wine and rock ‘n’ roll. People want this

wine because it looks great and knowing about it instantly makes them

100% cooler. As for the wine in the bottle? No idea, the gorgeous label

doesn’t have room for such details.

Target your audience – Social media, like all marketing, can be

incredibly wasteful if there isn’t a well-thought-out and targeted

strategy behind it.

Campaigns can be leaner and more effective if you understand:

who your customer is

who they could be

where they are

what they want

when they want it

how they want

Just by doing the most topline sweep we can see that the number of

people on Facebook who ‘like’ wine tasting events stands at 100,500.

Of these, 5% are in the UK so perhaps running UK wine tasting events

for these people wouldn’t be worthwhile in terms of ROI, but running

virtual events across the world might yield a much better return. Okay,

this might be a flimsy example, but the point is that there are many tools

(and lots of them free or very cheap) that brands can use to measure

and target their specific audience.

Give your audience a voice (and make sure you listen) – Creating a

platform where your audience can talk to you and each other is valuable

in many ways; when done properly it can give a brand a direct channel

to speak to its customers, allow it to observe and collect some brilliant

data and make the brand part of its customers’ lives.

There are two main ways of doing this; tapping into an existing

community or creating your own community. Aligning yourself with an

existing community gives you a ready-made audience, but can be less

engaging as you jostle for a place with the host brand. Creating your

own community can be incredibly rewarding, but competition is fierce –

you must ensure that you’re doing it for the right reasons and have the

time (and money) to dedicate to it.

To find out more please call 01202 669090 or visit brightblueday.co.uk

To find out more please call 01202 669090 or visit brightblueday.co.uk

Questions a brand should ask itself:

What is your reason for interacting?

Why should people come to you rather

than go elsewhere?

Are you able to provide regular content?

Again, strategy is crucial. After all, tactics are

obvious but strategy is where victory truly lies (some

guy said something like that). Becoming a part of a

network has worked well for brands like Majestic,

who have used a content-rich blog to establish

themselves as part of the wine blogging community.

Celebrate the ‘new critics’ – Everyone’s got an

opinion (although it doesn’t always mean they’re

right). Understanding your audience and giving

them a voice is important, but remember that you’re

the expert and as such you have something very

valuable – knowledge. You can use this knowledge

to build a reputation as the ‘go-to’ brand for

information. The Berry Bros & Rudd app is a great

example of a brand using its knowledge to attract

customers. It’s not a new trick (think about how

Starbucks has positioned itself as a coffee expert

since they opened their first store in 1971) but, when

faced with new marketing methods, it’s surprising

how some brands muddle their lack of knowledge

of the platform with their knowledge of the product.

You don’t have to rebrand simply because you’re in

a new environment.

Involving your customers in the conversation is very

important; taking that a step further and rewarding

them for getting involved can be a great motivator

(as long as you don’t cheapen your brand). I’d like to

be able to walk into a real-world wine shop and see

online opinions on the shelves, for example – thus

rewarding customers who participate online with

store space.

Be engaging – You’re competing for space out

there, so you need to give customers a reason to

spend time with your brand. Looking at YouTube

we can see that the most popular wine-related

videos are entertaining and often ridiculous, (Borat’s

Guide to Wine Tasting is one of the top-viewed wine

related videos), but this is balanced out with some

wonderful educational pieces (like Frank Mangio’s

Wine Tasting Tip).

The point is that you need to think about what your

brand wants to say, what it has the authority to say,

and how it is going to say it. Also, think about what

the content needs to achieve and how it’s going to

be promoted. Paying with a tweet is quite in-vogue

at the moment: the idea that you pay for a piece of

content or product not with money but by spreading

the word about it through your social network.

Some musicians have started to embrace this as

a way of distributing tracks or videos, using their

singles as a piece of content that promotes a tour

rather than a direct money-making product.

Majestic is currently running free wine courses

across the country, this may hit some of the people

we identified earlier who ‘like’ wine tasting on

Facebook, but it’s the amplification of this and

the content that could fall out of it that is really

interesting. How many people will talk about the

course on their social profiles and will Majestic give

them the forum and encouragement to do this? What

content will Majestic produce off the back of the

tastings? I’m hoping to attend one so I can find out.

As a consumer the new opportunities to buy, interact

and ‘take part’ in the wine-scene are incredibly

exciting. As more and more opinion-leaders join the

conversation there will be brands that forge ahead

and take advantage of the opportunities as well as

those that will be left behind.

Other luxury industries show us that some elite products’ exclusivity means they don’t need to approach social in the same way as their less exclusive competitors, but ruling it out completely isn’t a tactic I’d recommend. Above all, brands must recognise that their strategy needs to be dynamic and unique, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all model.

Facts about wine on the internetOver 1,500,000 people search for the word ‘wine’ on Google

every month.

The top 10 wine-related searches are:

1. red wine

2. wine making

3. wine online

4. buy wine

5. wine club

6. mulled wine

7. wine merchants

8. french wine

9. best wine

10. wine cellar

Data supplied by our good friends at Folk.

14,260 people Like Chardonnay on Facebook.

6,380 people Like Merlot on Facebook.

6,260 people Like Pinot Noir on Facebook.