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\u2026something is still missing. I understand it takes time to get into the social media thing but it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Personally I think that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
~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\u2026there is ALWAYS fresh content. In my opinion it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
~I\u2019m seeing this A LOT and it\u2019s 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 \u201cthanks for Liking our page\u201d it\u2019s annoying to see that on twitter. You can\u2019t like a page on Twitter and it really makes it look like your focus is Facebook and you don\u2019t 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\u2026that\u2019s crap. If you are not active on Twitter delete your account.<\/p>\n
~If all you are tweeting is about how people should come in and taste your \u201caward winning\u201d wine on this amazingly beautiful day you should just delete your account.<\/p>\n
~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.<\/p>\n
~Go through and search your Twitter stream, find interesting content to retweet. Sharing is caring.<\/p>\n
~Engage, chat, talk, help\u2026in other words, be social!<\/p>\n
~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.<\/p>\n
~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 \u201cput a tab on a tweet\u201d in a way. If you hashtag #PasoWine, anyone that has a column titled #PasoWine will see that even if you aren\u2019t following each other. Hahstags have a lot more purpose but I will leave it here for now.<\/p>\n
~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\u2019s cool because it will show you the type of content people are interested in.<\/p>\n
~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\u2019t get into more detail on that right now but if you have questions let me know.<\/p>\n
~Don\u2019t be \u201cspammy\u201d. I know everyone will have a different opinion on this one but you don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
~Be consistent, be active, and do it long term\u2026that is where the value comes in.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s you handling it, an employee at the winery, or someone you\u2019ve hired to handle it for you, it\u2019s a good idea to monitor it and see how things are going. If things seem to be stagnant then reformulate your plan\/ strategy\u2026and yes, you should absolutely have a plan and you should be evaluate things often so you can change things up if you need to.<\/p>\n
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\u2026you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Business has changed. The economy has changed. The customers have changed.<\/p>\n
Have you?<\/p>\n
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\u2026online and off line. Focus on respecting the relationships and your bottom line WILL get better<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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