I have been on facebook for a while…maybe a year or two. Several friends dragged me after I had already spent time assembling a MySpace page…also a year or two ago. At first it seemed like a great place to semi-connect with friends and family through photos & messages. Fast forward to today. In addition to the hundreds of friends I have on my personal facebook page, I (co) manage a Fan page for Hahn Family Wines, Cycles Gladiator and Santa Lucia Highlands Wine Artisans. I am fascinated to watch as people become fans, contribute photos, discussions, questions, and as the content fills out on these pages.
Did you know there is a Fan page for facebook? It is packed with great information, it is easy to sort through and essential if you are an administrator for any fan or group pages. We’re all still collaborating and working together (within the wine company and among fellow wineries) to figure out how best to use the facebook group and fan pages. What kind of content is interesting to the fans? What keeps them coming back to the fan pages? And why? How will these virtual gathering places bring value, content and wine interest that wine lovers want, need and keep current in their lives? And the bniggest question: Will they buy wine as a result?
This is the first post in a series on facebook in the wine industry. I have been to the facebook offices and met with my new friend Andrew who built News Feed for facebook (thanks Cortney Erin). Andrew and I are working on a conversation for the Wine 2.0 event on April 2 to answer questions and walk wine industry guests through the “how to’s” and “why for” on facebook for wine lovers. We know Gary V and facebook’s Dave Morin are hanging out …and further, facebook and Wine Library are in a partnership. LOVE THAT! Once again, anything that brings wine to a wider audience I am in favor of, indeed! And leave it to Gary to convert the unconverted. He has successfully uncorked facebook…there are no limits.
So the whole point of this post is to set up musings about facebook for businesses, groups and the wine industry…asking why? What do you have to say about how you use facebook? Do you participate in groups? What for? Community? Information? Facebook is doing an awesome job of staying ahead of the curve…redesigning the home page, adjusting status updates, offering feeds from blogs, twitter, flickr, and so on. And what about facebook connect? What will that mean for facebook interface, blog commenting, posting, etc? We’ll find out much more about facebook connect when we sit down with Andrew on April 2 in San Francisco.
I see a lot of potential here, both for users and for wineries on facebook. Yet, a lot of the functionality, value and interest will be (like most successful Web 2.0 sites) user generated. So is the wine community interested and engaged enough to participate on facebook when it comes to groups and fan pages? That means both the industry, providing the fan pages and intital content AND the consumers, adding interest and content as they become more engaged. Is there enough content and need or desire to bring people back to the Fan/Group pages again and again? The great thing about wine is that it engenders social activity, conversation and participation. Our industry is uniquely positioned to partner beautifully within social media, to inform, educate and connect…all in conversation about wine. There are already dozens of wine groups and fan pages. Check these out and let us know what you think. And share additional wine group or fan pages in the comments section here as well. There’s a lot we can learn from each other as we sort through this new meduim. I find more to learn and additional ways to connect through social media, so I am thrilled the wine industry has found its way here. Because as we have heard before: “Better relationships drive better business, period.” (Amber Naslund)
Cheers!
Photos courtesy of facebook and my Blackberry Storm and ICanHasCheeseburger.
I have run hot and cold on facebook for a while. Currently I am feeling pretty good about it. I recently started a group to support the Tempranillo Advocates Producers and Amigos Society (TAPAS) and in just a few days membership has grown to almost 400 members. Are all those members actually interested in Tempranillo wines? Probably not. But when you join a group it shows up in your friends’ news feed, and so it can blossom to those who are. We already have a great discussion started on possibly hosting a tasting event in So. Cal., a completely unexpected but very welcome result!
At the very least, a facebook group offers an alternative form of opt-in communcation to email – with the added benefit of two-way and multi-way conversations. And sharing photos, videos, and experiences.
(One thing I am unclear about, however, is whether a group or a fan page is the best approach. The last time I did anything with a fan page I found that I was unable to share photos I had already posted to my own profile – you had to upload again. That has kind of put me off of fan pages. What do you think?)
WDG – I’m SO glad you did this post. I’ve been listening to many podcasts where wine professionals discuss social networking and wine and HATE on Facebook. It blows my mind. It makes no sense. But then I realize: they aren’t in my generation.
I’m a member of the Millennial Generation AND in the wine industry and I’m telling anyone who will listen: if you care about Millennials as consumers, you have to get on facebook. If you don’t care about them, you’re wasting your time with facebook and don’t bother.
I say this because it is a straight-up fact that most people not in my generation utilize facebook for old high school friends and other things, but don’t truly “get” facebook the way my generation does. Remember, it was developed for us as college students and spiraled out from there.
In generalities: we LIVE on facebook. In specifics, almost anyone I know (around my age), when they get into work signs into their email (80% google, btw) and into their facebook. It is how we know who broke up with who, and who got married. Who is going out this weekend, who’s birthday it is, and who just returned from Africa. Facebook IS word of mouth.
Coincidentally, that is how the Millennial Consumer approaches wine: by word of mouth and experimentation.
I could go on and on about this, but I’ll stop. I suppose the best way for me to put it is: Just Trust Me On This.
Thanks for the interesting post. I’m a Boomer who is interested in how social media can work to sell wine to other Boomers, as well as to the obvious (see Leah’s post) millenials. I put together a Group Page for Back Room Wines in Napa, where I work the Friday night tastings. So far, it’s a one-way street, where I do the regular posting and updating, but have precious little in obvious response. So I have more to learn. I’ll check out the Fan page you provided and see if I can step things up. For Leah, this is second nature, but a bit of a paradigm shift for us old guys.
)
I hear ya. Would be fascinating to have a few Leah’s come in and chat and connect with a few JD’s (over wine tastings of course) and see what’s missing on both sides.
The other super interesting thing is that as buzz services (they analyze all digital postings on a brand…way beyond Google Alerts, but like that) all MISS facebook…or rather DON’T have access to facebook as all internal facebook content is proprietary, locked, and inaccessible! That’s a LOT of buss to be missing out on. So while we may not be able to monitor facebook mentions of say, wine, in the same way, we can certainly make sure we are there in the conversation with people. Which is ultimately what it is all about anyway…participating & connecting.
Facebook has a lot of potential for building brand and moving cases, but I see a few challenges. One inherent to the technology, and one to the wine business in general.
I’ll start with the last first. The fractious nature of the wine business makes it nearly impossible to reach critical mass for one individual winery. There are already a lot of fan/group pages out there for wineries, but with few exceptions, they don’t see much traffic. Add to this, the fact that one consumer is unlikely to fan up hundreds of winery pages and you are left with something of a yawn.
The technology challenges have to do with Facebook’s user interface. There is still a lot of confusion on the part of users as to what the differences are between group and fan pages. In addition, a winery is limited in scope on what it can do on its Facebook page. Until they can offer a more robust experience for the winery to present and the user to consume, there isn’t much “there” there.
I think that will will probably see some more effective tools to promote companies (paid and otherwise) in the future. But for now, Facebook marketing is still a relatively minor part of a winery’s social media strategy.
Just my $.02.
That better not be a picture of Amy’s cat getting into my wine again while I am out here in California!
[...] to WineDiverGirl for her great post on this topic to which I responded with a comment that was FAR too long and realized I needed to [...]
WDG and JD –
I just came back to this post to link it to one of my own and saw your comments. I’m DOWN to continue the conversation (esp over wine), this is something that I feel very strongly about.
I realized with my INCREDIBLY long comment that I had a lot to say on this, and so I went and wrote a post about it on my own blog, http://millennier.wordpress.com , if you’re interested you can see it here
WDG, I threw a shout out to you on the post, but want to thank you for this great post and for getting the wheels turning.
YES! Leah…thanks. Love the forums both blogging AND facebook…oh, and twitter too. I think this is where the excitement, buzz and interest is generated for people to get out there, connect and find out more about wine, whether at a tasting, or an educational offering or just at a wine bar with friends.
Nice blog post too, BTW.
L
[...] to WineDiverGirl for her great post on this topic to which I responded with a comment that was FAR too long and realized I needed to [...]