To me (and feel free to call my old), there’s a way to use the web to augment what you are doing (trying to do) without coming across as too much of an attention whore. Have you ever read Domaine David Clark’s blog ( http://domainedavidclark.com/blog.html )? To me, that’s one of the best examples I’ve seen. It’s not there to market him or the wines – it’s there to enhance, inform and be a part of the entire process. Again, just my humble.

And unlike the creme brulee guy in the NYT story above, these wineries don’t need to tweet about which street corner they will be on every day. In fact, they only have one harvest to report on a year.

It is odd that EaglesNestWines, for example, would have more followers on twitter than many wine consumers combined. Or other advice resources such as the wine columnists for the Chicago Tribune and SF Chron combined. Or more than many wine stores (with an array of wines locally available) combined.

But since one of my newest followers on Twitter goes by SarahHoneyPot and first tweeted 10 hours ago and now is following 799 people, it is about quality of follower, not necessarily the quantity.

Ah, the internets!

Interestingly, Bill Gates publicly quit his own Facebook page over weekend, saying: “All these tools of tech waste our time if we’re not careful.”

http://bit.ly/r6F42

Just my humble.

“Much has been made of how big companies like Dell, Starbucks and Comcast use Twitter to promote their products and answer customers’ questions. But today, small businesses outnumber the big ones on the free microblogging service, and in many ways, Twitter is an even more useful tool for them.

For many mom-and-pop shops with no ad budget, Twitter has become their sole means of marketing. It is far easier to set up and update a Twitter account than to maintain a Web page. And because small-business owners tend to work at the cash register, not in a cubicle in the marketing department, Twitter’s intimacy suits them well.”

So perhaps small businesses tweet harder, not just small wineries.

Wishing best of success to @teusnerwine
@pinotblogger @tasselridge & @MoutonNoirWines

Out

Esteban-just for the record we are HQ in NYC, we make wine in Cali and our wines are in TOP restaurants in NYC. BTW I love being a FREAK!

To that end, I have a personal Twitter account and another account for our wine warehouse but I don’t just indiscriminately follow random strangers from the public timeline – I take the time to search for people in Australia (because we don’t ship internationally) who have a clear interest in wine and never send unsolicited DMs to anyone.

For Denis at Eagles Nest. I wasn’t refering to you regarding my automated followers comment…you use retweets and other methods to build your followers I can see that.

I think people have had the traditional branding model shoved down their throats for so long that to have a connection to the winery and the people behind the wines is a breath of fresh air.

And for us too…it is great to get feedback on products, organise tastings and winery visits and get to know the people drinking our product…if we can use it to share a glass of wine with them in the future all the better.

We don’t try and sell wine via twitter…we soley use it to build relationships…wine is a social beverage and twitter is a conversational, social media….seems like a perfect fit to me.

Cheers

Dave

The big companies theoretically have a leg up here, because the incremental cost of adding an employee to manage social media is significantly less impactful on the bottom line than it would be for a mom&pop shop with few employees. So, financially, it’s perhaps even more surprising that the small wineries are in the lead, and the big wineries aren’t even on the scene.

I’m a grad student at the University of Washington in the Master’s of Comm in Digital Media program. This quarter I’m in a class totally focused on Twitter and organizational communications and we’re writing a book on the subject as a final project.

I’m definitely an outsider looking into this industry, so I’m not catching all of the (competitive) nuances of this conversation, but I have to say that this industry seems to mirror others by way of social media activity. Smaller or relatively unknown companies have a higher (risk) tolerance to social media because they have to. They don’t have the convenience of legacy or reputation so they have to make it for themselves, and social media (Twitter, in this case) is a low-cost, highly effective way to reach potential customers. Still, larger companies (airlines, Comcast, retailers like Best Buy, GM) are also having success because they have such a large installed base of customers that it’s easy to engage them by the masses in social media, like Twitter. Not everyone is on Twitter, but some are, and reaching that audience is better than reaching none, right?

What’s most important is to keep in mind that Twitter is only one part of a social media marketing strategy, which is part of a larger marketing strategy, so we’re looking at an individual tactic. With that perspective, it’s fascinating to see the strong opinions it creates. Of course, for Dr. Vino, it’s a hot topic that draws readers and reader engagement.

I’m in the process of writing a chapter specifically regarding the use of Twitter by the wine industry (including companies great and small, and from all wine regions). If you’d like to participate, please email me at paolomottolajr (at) gmail.com. Thanks!

You’ve hit the nail perfectly on the head in your comments above on how wineries are not using social media to the best effect and need to catch up.

I am currently following about 50 wineries and I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that 1) they do not follow back, 2) [most] do not respond to questions or statements I tweet about their wine, 3) they do not take advantage of the power of twitter by adding #tags and links back to their website or blogs.

I agree, “it’s all about the conversation”… If wineries use twitter to blast out information, like a mini newsletter for their club members, then they will not reap all the benefits.

I have been helping Eagles Nest Winery with their social media strategy, but the execution has been all through their hard work. They are definitely engaging their followers and adding to the general conversation with their tweets and various blog posts on important and interesting wine topics. I applaud their willingness to aggressively push the envelope.

It certainly sounds like you have seen an ROI from social media so far and I am happy to see your comments here to give some other perspective.

“most importantly we have built great relationships with customers via twitter and that is gold.”

Gold indeed! as the relationships that he has established will only increase the lifetime value of these consumers.

My only “ya but” to this conversation is that twitter and facebook are not the only places that people are talking. It is important to discover the other avenues and platforms that consumers are using and engage with them as well.