Can Social Media Sell Wine?

Steve Heimhoff asks the question "Has social media ever sold anything, besides itself?" It's a great question and has prompted a good discussion on his blog.

There is a lot of evidence that making social media a strategic part of a winery's overall marketing mix makes good business sense. I've been working to create a concrete ROI for social media's use in wineries and in my research thus far I've have found a lot of evidence that a dollar spent on social media can be much more effective than a dollar spent on traditional media.

According to Nielson online we trust the recommendations of friends (90%) and online reviews (70%) a lot more than traditional media (62% and lower). A good wine review from a friend is going to influence me more than a good review by a known wine critic. Forrester's recent Social Technology report found that the prime wine buying demographic of 35+ year olds grew their online participation by 60% last year prompting them to conclude:

"... marketers can now safely create social media marketing for people ages 35 and older."

In a recent survey by Viralvines.com on Twitter use in wineries, in answer to the question "How has your presence on Twitter helped your business? 96.4% responded that "It has helped us engage more with our customers"

Furthermore the conversation about a winery's brand is happening even if a winery chooses to ignore it and that carries a real risk of negative effects. According to Nielsen BuzzMetrics 25% of search results for the worlds largest brands are links to user generated content. This extends to niche brands as well and a bad review without the appropriate response can have long lasting effects.

Forrester's Social Media Profile Tool

Last week Forrester released this fun social media Consumer Profile Tool.

The tools lets you query their 2009 data by age, county and gender and shows the percentages of participants in each of their defined participation categories: creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and inactives.

This reinforces the point that any social media strategy should start with a good understanding of your customers and how they communicate.

See Social Technologies Ladder for an explanation of the categories.

Thanks to Forrester for providing this fun way to access their data.

50% of Online Adults Use Social Media Networks

According to a new research report on "The Broad Reach Of Social Technologies" by Sean Corcoran at Forrester 1 in 2 US online adults are in a social network and 4 in 5 use social media at least once a month.

Interestingly the 35 and older group saw the most growth at 60% over last year with 38% visit social media sites regularly. In the 35+ somethings group with 1 in 5 are creators and 70% spectators. The conclusion:

"... marketers can now safely create social media marketing for people ages 35 and older."

This should be another signal to wineries whose primary segment is the 35+ that the time is now to invest in social media marketing.

Wooldridge Creek Winery Introduces Keg Wine

Wooldridge Creek Winery has become the first to offer their wines in kegs for distribution in restaurants. According to wine maker and owner Greg Paneitz the savings is considerable and the wine quality is higher. The kegs keep the wine fresh as opposed to old opened bottles. The kegs also eliminate the need for bottles, corks and labels saving cost and the environment.

Are You Ready For Socialnomics?

Some very enlightening statistics on social media in this video from Socialnomics-Social Media Blog posted by c.net. While social media is possibly at the top of the hype curve there is no denying that it is driving a fundamental change in how corporations sell and how people make buying decisions.

Good News For Facebook Page Managers

Here's some good news from Inside Facebook for all of us that manage Facebook Pages. The API for updating them is now open. This means that you will be able to update your pages from clients like Tweetdeck and Seesmic.

"Today, however, Facebook is adding full Facebook Page support to the Open Stream API. Now, Page owners can use applications like Seesmic, TweetDeck, and others to post updates and content to their Facebook Pages. All you have to do is authorize an application to publish on behalf of the Page, and you’re all set."

Here's the details.