…Can social media save the day for wineries?
The writer quotes from a Wall Street Journal article…
Alpha Omega, a boutique winery in Rutherford, Calif., has begun using online services Facebook and Twitter to reach out to its customers. The winery three years ago began targeting consumers directly, and the strategy is now paying off; revenue is up 40% so far this year, compared with a year ago, in part because it doesn’t have to share many revenues with a distributor, says co-owner Robin Baggett
…And then the writer comments, “Call me a skeptic, but I fail to see how the winery’s 296 friends on Facebook, 407 followers on Twitter and no blog can really help them move their wines.”
Our answer: Well, a blog would help, but the skeptical writer at DrVino.com is giving up on social media too soon. Perhaps he hasn’t seen how 296 friends can turn in to 2,960, and 407 Twitter followers can rapidly grow to 4,070, if the tweeting and Facebook-updating business is providing tweets and updates that go beyond the shallow and banal and help engender a sense among those on the other end that they are part of a conversation (it’s an interactive medium, after all) or even a community or are, at the very least, getting something valuable or exclusive in return for spending some of their precious time following the business on Twitter and Facebook.
