European Wine Bloggers Conference

Wine & Keyboard

I probably put too much emphasis on the role of wineries when it comes to the Social Wine Brand in my previous post on the subject, so let me try to address this here, and focus on wine writers – wine lovers, critics, consumers and anyone else who neither makes nor sells wines but creates content about it.

Before I do that, let me say that one of the lessons that I hope will emerge from the EWBC will be a sense that “wine blogging” is not just about a new form of wine journalism for those who love wine but are not “involved” in the process, but that the term “wine blogger” will be understood to also include wine makers, wine retailers and wine marketers. Talking about wine is something we all do, and we have lots to learn from each other.

In fact, this is the point of the Social Wine Brand – we are all talking about wine, so we are all building relationships between wines, wineries, consumers, writers and retailers. In fact, there is a good chance we will all become a combination of all of these and distinctions will be blurred.

So what is the relationship (as I see it) between The Social Wine Brand and wine writers?

Let me return to my proposed definition:

The Social Wine Brand is the sum of all relationships created around a specific wine brand through Social Media channels

Who is creating content about wines in these channels? Who is writing the reviews? Who is making the videos, taking the photos and publishing the interviews? It is the passionate wine lovers with their blogs, tasting notes, youtube channels, flickr streams and so on. No matter what a winery does, or a retailer wants, they cannot control this process. It is therefore the wine lovers who are really building the social wine brand of a particular wine.

We are a LONG WAY from the ideal situation where a winery would be switched on to this and could “frame” the discussion by creating its own blog, providing materials, offering content, joining conversations with bloggers and consumers and responding to feedback.

In reality, most wine reaches consumers without any Social Media support from the winery. In this case any and all content online is created by the wine lovers themselves. The Social Wine Brand for that particular wine takes a life of its own, both for good and ill, being supported and promoted or criticised, improving or reducing sales accordingly.

Bloggers have a great opportunity to focus on wines they consider have interesting stories, made by genuine people and maybe also from unique regions of the world. In some cases, the content they create might be the ONLY content about that wine that is generally available (via the magic of Google Search algorithms). This is a blogger’s opportunity, and their responsibility – to create meaningful, honest as well as entertaining content.

Of course, wineries and retailers will eventually realise the value of this and start inteacting with (wine loving) bloggers to increase the chance of being reviewed, to spread the good reviews and address the negative feedback, and hopefully (for them) to lead to greater sales success and customer satisfaction.

This isn’t to say that the bloggers who write about the wines need to worry about generating those sales – they have their own missions to achieve, whatever they might be. However, they should understand that because they CAN influence sales, they will attract the interest of other wine bloggers and wine industry people, and this is when we get into the thorny issues of objectivity, transparency and ethics.

So what can be achieved at the EWBC that will improve the role and influence of these wine loving bloggers? We need to enrich the conversation between bloggers, not just in terms of the quality of what is written, and how it is presented, but by improving our understanding of other bloggers goals, and the issues they face in their countries. Meeting face to face can help to overcome all sort of issues of language and culture that simply take too long online – there are some things that real meetings will always be better for. It also means that we can have what is a necessary conversation “offline” and keep the content of our sites focused on our target audience – about wine itself.

It will also be interesting for writers, photographers and video enthusiasts with a passion for wine, to meet those who share that passion, but make their living directly from the industry – wine makers, marketers, retailers and journalists. Bringing everyone together will enrich our circle of contacts and ability to produce better content, promoting great wines and helping the wine industry survive, develop and evolve.

Next, how might switched-on retailers find ways to capitalise on the relationships and loyalty that are created through social media and generate additional sales?

[UPDATE 01 May 2009: If you want evidence of the amazing power of the social media brand in practice, watch this video (Rap Chop), then imagine what passionate wine drinkers could do for a wine brand they love/like/are amused by:

So far over 600,000 have watched this video, and it is still spreading]

Photo “Computer + Wine = Yay” courtesy (Creative Commons) of Mint Imperial

Related articles by Zemanta

• How do you measure Social Media? (cruvee.com)
• The Most Influential Wine Blogs (acanmedia.com)
• Wine Blogs Spotlight (wannabewino.com)