Archive for Social Media
People: A Wine-Drenched Life: Sue Straight, AKA, The Wine Wench®
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There are people in the Wine Industry that don’t own vineyards or make wine, yet their impact on our business is indisputable. They are the people behind our winery associations, our media and our trade and they’re making a difference. “People” was created to acknowledge their role and celebrate their successes.
Writer: Jim Brumm
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A woman sits across from me at a local coffee shop in Santa Rosa, California. She is animated and upbeat. As usual, she is talking about wine, and as usual, her story ends with a laugh and I can’t help laughing along.
“I think people take wine way too seriously,” she is saying. “I think that wine should be fun.” She goes on to tell a story of filling her bathtub with red wine and bathing in it. I form a mental picture of this . . .
Meet Sue Straight, AKA the Wine Wench®. Sue is not your typical wine reviewer/writer/taster. Sue is not your typical person.
Born in Santa Monica, California, Sue grew up in the San Fernando Valley (and she does a mean “valley girl” imitation). Living on a small ranch with her family, she said she was “riding before I was born.” As a girl she wanted to be a horse veterinarian when she grew up, but that was not to be.
“I’m a failed Jewish American Princess,” she said, laughing. “I was always too bohemian to fit into that world.”
After high school she worked for a while at a veterinarian hospital in southern California and met and married a man who was both a farrier and a musician. Sue trained horses during the day and waitressed at night. She would roller skate down Ventura Boulevard to work each day. (At one point she was offered a chance to try out for the Los Angeles Thunderbirds roller derby team, but that’s another story.)
In 1981 Sue moved to Healdsburg, in northern California’s Sonoma County. One evening, while working as a waitress, a regular customer who managed a nearby tasting room offered Sue a job at her winery. “I thought, okay . . . I like wine,” said Sue, with a smile. She accepted the Read More→
5 Things Every Video Marketer Should Know…Before Production Begins!
Posted by: | CommentsWe recently celebrated the completion of our 175th wine industry related promotional video and had several people ask 
us what the “secret” is to creating something that’s actually effective versus “just another marketing spend”.
Well, the secret is… Read More→
Does Social Networking Sell Wine? Yes!
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It seems that the question most asked these days about social networking is whether or not wineries are actually getting visitors into their tasting rooms or into restaurants and retail stores to buy wine that they have learned about through Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare among others.
It seems that wine consumers are visiting wineries they may not have heard of because of the wineries’ presence in social networking forums. One example we have is from Michel Schlumberger, a winery in Healdsburg, CA, who found this blog from a consumer visiting Healdsburg:
“I checked in on Foursquare that I was in Healdsburg. Foursquare also automatically updated my Twitter account. A couple hours later I get a Twitter reply from the Michel-Schlumberger winery inviting me to come visit; that they are only 8 minutes away. We already had a list of wineries we wanted to visit and they were not on the list. But….Because of the invite I went to their website. We were both impressed with the winery and decided to add them to the list of visits on Saturday. WIN!
Fast- forward to Saturday. We arrive at the winery and I again check in on Foursquare. I am immediately given a coupon for one free tasting because of the check-in. WIN! We sit down for our tasting and immediately fall in love with their wines. So much that we decided to have a picnic lunch on their grounds and buy a bottle of wine right then to have with lunch and another bottle to take with us. WIN! Now guess what. They have two new customers. How much did they have to spend to acquire us? Some time on Twitter and Foursquare and one free tasting.”
The erstwhile visitor – now a connected customer added a great review of the winery to Foursquare and told some relatives who often come up to the area about Michel-Schlumberger.
Michel-Schlumberger uses Foursquare and other social media channels to invite people who may or may not know about their winery to visit and once there gives them reasons to become connected with the winery. For the cost of one free tasting, they began a relationship that they can build on for years to come.
Quite impressive.
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Social Media and Wine…Do They Blend?
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Do you need to get your winery, brand, or business involved in Social Media just because everyone else is?
The better questions to ask are: How do I find out what is being said about us online and how can we use this new channel to build relationships that are going to strengthen our brand?
People are using the internet (and social media) in a very different way than they were even a few years ago. We still research and review online like we did when the internet was new– but now we have large niche networks and communities that provide platforms for discussions about our likes and dislikes, interests, ideas, reviews, and everything in between. These large segregated groups allow us to have “real time” interactions with hundreds (if not thousands) of our “friends and followers” and the outcome from these perceived “word of mouth” conversations can have positive or negative effects on your brand.
If you are not at least following your brand online via tools such as google alerts, social mention or blog pulse you may not be aware that people are already talking about you on a regular basis. The conversations that they’re having about your brand may be good or bad – but not knowing is NOT smart!
You may already have a large thriving online community of interested drinkers, aficionados and influencers who love (or hate) your brand. For those that love it – give them more to love! Engage with them, share your story, and continue to build those relationships. For those that hate it – find out why (even without talking to them or engaging with them by using the tools mentioned above) and then use that knowledge to make the necessary improvements.
But just be sure you are aware of what is being said about you even if you are not actively engaging.
A great passage that confirms this is from the post titled: Old World Winemakers Shun Social Media Grapevine
“Wine is a social beverage and with the social media, I want to be part of the conversation rather than being talked about,” said Cloudy Bay’s Ian Morden, a 41 year old winemaker who has worked in Australia and New Zealand who read bloggers.
His colleague, Nicolas Audebert, 34, a winemaker for Cheval des Andes, is amazed by how extensive social media is and appalled by how intrusive it can be. “My whole life is online, even before I was online,” Audebert said.
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