In the past I have allowed myself to rant (and this may come off as one too) on here about how wineries use social media (or lack of use) and although those posts got a lot of views and often created a lot of conversation…something is still missing. I understand it takes time to get into the social media thing but it’s just been frustrating to hear folks say that they do not have the time or money to put toward the use of social media for their winery.
Personally I think that’s a complete crock but go ahead and keep on with that thought and one day you will realize that so many other wineries have passed you by and have put in the time to gain traction. It will be harder for you to join the party at that point. What I am going to do below is put some examples of things I have seen local wineries do on Twitter (without mentioning their names) that I think are wrong and I will also put some other tips specifically for Twitter.
Examples of what not to do in social media (things I have actually seen done):
~Do not post the same tweet over and over and over and over and over again. If you are posting the same tweets every single day you look like an amateur. Find fresh content…there is ALWAYS fresh content. In my opinion it’s cool to post the same tweet a few times but not on the same day and I would try to switch it up. If you post a tweet on Monday at 8am try tweeting it again on Wednesday at 5pm. My personal rule is to not post the same tweet more than once or twice UNLESS there is an event I am promoting or something like that.
~I’m seeing this A LOT and it’s crazy annoying. Stop pushing your Facebook posts to Twitter. I have several issues with this but I will name two right now: 1) when your post says something about “thanks for Liking our page” it’s annoying to see that on twitter. You can’t like a page on Twitter and it really makes it look like your focus is Facebook and you don’t care about the people on Twitter. This is you being ignorant of how each social networking site has its own culture. There are a lot of Twitter users that do not use Facebook, therefore you are alienating them. 2) If you are going to push your Facebook posts to Twitter and you are not there to respond when someone on Twitter says something to you…that’s crap. If you are not active on Twitter delete your account.
~If all you are tweeting is about how people should come in and taste your “award winning” wine on this amazingly beautiful day you should just delete your account.
Twitter Tips:
~Tweet something every one to two hours. This is my personal philosophy and I know others may have a different idea. I usually post at least once an hour between the time I wake up (5am-ish) until about 10 or 11 pm.
~Go through and search your Twitter stream, find interesting content to retweet. Sharing is caring.
~Engage, chat, talk, help…in other words, be social!
~As a winery there is so much stuff you can tweet: a wine related quote, a link to an interesting story, a link to your new blog post, a photo in the winery or in the vineyard, a video from in the winery or in the video, a question, a wine fact, and even retweeting someone else counts as a tweet. A side note: I think there are good tweets and bad tweets based on how they look, how long the tweet is, the hashtags used (or not used), etc. I will get into a structure of a tweet more another time.
~As I mentioned above, use hashtags wisely. I am a firm believer in NOT using more than three hashtags per tweet, I typically use two. If you tweet an article about a food and wine pairing than use #food and #wine. You can be more creative but I think being too creative takes the potential value of the hashtag away. Hashtags are used to “put a tab on a tweet” in a way. If you hashtag #PasoWine, anyone that has a column titled #PasoWine will see that even if you aren’t following each other. Hahstags have a lot more purpose but I will leave it here for now.
~Use a URL shortener like goo.gl or bitly.com. Not only does this shorten the long URL in order to save room in the tweet (only 140 characters allowed) but through those services you can track how many clicks you get on that link. It’s cool because it will show you the type of content people are interested in.
~I recommend using Hootsuite or Tweetdeck for Twitter. These tools are massively helpful in getting rid of the chaos and noise that can happen on Twitter when you have a lot of followers or are following a lot of people. I won’t get into more detail on that right now but if you have questions let me know.
~Don’t be “spammy”. I know everyone will have a different opinion on this one but you don’t want to dump your message and run. You need to engage with people. Ideally you can use the 80/20 rule. Promote other 80% of the time and yourself 20% of the time. When I say promote I do not mean to be a used car salesman. Be respectful and be a valuable part of the community.
~Be consistent, be active, and do it long term…that is where the value comes in.
There are a lot of right ways and a lot of wrong ways to handle Twitter. For those of you that can take the time to learn the culture of Twitter I think you will find it to be well worth the time invested. Whether it’s you handling it, an employee at the winery, or someone you’ve hired to handle it for you, it’s a good idea to monitor it and see how things are going. If things seem to be stagnant then reformulate your plan/ strategy…and yes, you should absolutely have a plan and you should be evaluate things often so you can change things up if you need to.
One of my biggest pet peeves is the constant conversation of ROI in social media. Listen, I totally get it. As a business you need to know the money coming in and the money going out. You need to know where the best use of time and money is. Can you ACTUALLY tell me what the ROI from that billboard on the freeway is? How about the ROI from your phonebook ad? How about the ad in that magazine? How about the ROI from all the events you pour your wine at? The truth is…you can’t.
Business has changed. The economy has changed. The customers have changed.
Have you?
There is not a single thing more important than relationships. This is a fact. As business owners we can no longer barrage our customers and potential customers with our message. We need to bring value to the community…online and off line. Focus on respecting the relationships and your bottom line WILL get better
Good tips! I agree with the importance of a steady stream of good tweets, though 1x/hour could be intimidating for newcomers. I recommend folks getting started aim for at least 3 to 5 per day. Less than that seems unlikely to give one much traction.
One other suggestion I have for wineries…put your twitter handle on your bottle! I’ve had wineries say they don’t have enough room, but this to me would make it much easier for them to get mentioned on Twitter. One has to be pretty motivated as a consumer to go look up their handle to mention it in a tweet.
David…I definitely see where you’re coming from on both points. Here’s my thoughts:
I think wineries should be tweeting once every one to two hours. Tweets disappear so quickly, it’s good to send out new tweets this often because people keep seeing you and new people will see you as well. It shows people you are active, available, and part of the community. I know it’s hard for some people to find the time but 3 to 5 tweets a day, especially when starting out and you are trying to build the audience doesn’t seem like enough to me.
In regards to the Twitter handle on the wine bottle: some wineries say it will make the packaging look less formal and some worry about putting their Twitter handle on the bottle in case something were to happen to Twitter, etc. I completely agree though that it would be nice to have easier access to their handles, sometimes searching for them is difficult because their handle is not the exact winery name. However, even when you search for them by winery name on Twitter.com, it will typically come up.