• Hana

  I agree Jason, many NZ wineries are indeed missing out by not actively engaging in social networking. However, on the whole I think that the NZ wine industry is reasonably active online, especially compared to, for example, the Hospitality industry – the statistics for restaurants marketing and monitoring their brand online must be very poor in NZ.
  People love wine and they love to tweet about wine so social platforms are a great place for wineries to get onboard and develop relationships with their customers, distributors and the wine industry as a whole.
  And the restaurants that serve their wine if they would hurry up and get online too!

  Hana
  @SocialMedia_QT
  Hana Deavoll
  @SocialMedia_QT

  • http://twitter.com/Jayson_Bryant Jayson Bryant

    The great thing about the wine industry and social media is the that it was lead by Gary Vaynerchuk. Love him or loath him, he did wonders in making these tools known to most wineries in the States.
    Wine, in general, is exported as where as restaurants and bars are static, so unless you are visiting the town/city you’re not going to be as engaged as with a bottle of wine found almost anywhere in the world.

    • http://www.twitter.com/SocialMedia_QT Hana Deavoll

      Yes Gary has certainly led the way, as I believe you are now for the NZ wine industry. And true that a bottle of wine has more potential to engage a wider audience. My only concern (from a general social media perspective, not just wine) with the restaurant industry is that they are not monitoring what happy or disgruntled customers could be saying about them online. However I am mainly talking from a NZ south island perspective, I’m sure there is more on the band wagon up in AK.

• http://twitter.com/SiobhanBulfin Siobhan Bulfin

  Good insights there. Two comments: You’re preaching to the converted. Those who are using social media read blogs. Those who aren’t probably won’t get to read this helpful post. Second comment: while I was reading this I tried to put myself in one of those wineries shoes who are busy juggling wine making with marketing and paying the bills and who follow the sometimes dubious advice of NZ Wine by participating in generic shows at (for example) 2k a head. And they hear about social media and know they should be using it, but are exhausted at the end of each day and don’t have the time or inclination to  jump on facebook or twitter. So why not offer them a solution? A tailored package specifically for wineries on social media; where they’re trained, given the reality (i.e as you said, free tools but not free time), trained in best practice, SEO and hand-held during the initial phase. Charge them something reasonable for both your time and their budget (I’m thinking around 5k) with some support time included. You’re the best person to offer them this. You know their business, industry, challenges better than anyone else. NZ Wine should welcome such an initiative and share it with their members.

  • http://twitter.com/Jayson_Bryant Jayson Bryant

    Thanks for the comment Siobhan. I agree that most of the wineries using social media will have read this blog, and those that don’t might not, but may be encouraged to by other readers. 
    I am quite prepared to tailor a package to help them engage and understand what it means to help them ultimately reduce their marketing budgets and speak face to face with consumers and potential distributors/wine media etc.
    It’s constructive comments, such as this, that will ultimately help, thank you.

  • Craig Garner

    Hi Siobhan (and Jayson)

    Thanks to the reach of Social Media I am well aware of your experience and proactivity in
    the new media space so this is to expand on your comment and in no means
    an attempt to correct or educate you.

    Your comment about the time poor, bill paying exhausted souls would be
    applicable to most business people, especially in the current economic climate.
    Everyone who runs a business has too much to do and increasing budget
    constraints. At times like this human nature and time management dictates that
    any new ideas, products or initiatives will be relegated to the too hard
    basket. It is such a shame that Social Media is not given more attention and a
    greater priority. While it will not be an instant fix to much needed cash flow,
    it creates awareness and opportunities for wine brands and their relationships
    with others in the industry (even without consideration to the end user).

    Winemakers are the best advocates of their product, and from my experience,
    often the most verbose when it comes to discussing their brand, individual
    style, qualities and why their wine should be your next purchase. Social Media would
    undoubtedly be, if set up correctly (and with a bit of education), the most
    effective way to engage with peers and end users, to get much needed feedback
    and in some way influence buying decisions.

    Too much emphasis today is being placed on bargain wine deals thanks to
    the one day sales phenomenon and supermarket pressure and not enough to the provenance
    and significance of our own wine production and craftsmanship. This can only be
    changed by telling better stories – and we “the converted” know what the best medium
    to do that with is.

    While Jayson’s findings about the lack of uptake by wineries with Social
    Media isn’t surprising (though disappointing) it parallels many other
    industries that have an export focus and should be doing much more than they
    are, tourism being a good example. Without a doubt the primary reason (excuse) they
    often give is a lack of resourcing. The reality is they just need to give it a
    go. Thanks to people like you and Jayson and the others here who are
    contributing ideas Social Media is making a difference because our
    conversations, thoughts and ideas are not limited by Social Media because
    thankfully we take these conversations into the real world, and hopefully while
    enjoying a nice bottle on NZ wine.

• http://twitter.com/drumsara_pinot Drumsara Pinot Noir

  I wonder if we [Drumsara] qualified as active? After a number of years having all of the tools (e.g. locked in user names for facebook page, youtube channel and twitter) we are just starting to ramp up our level of social media engagement. I think that the more intuitive tools and integration between
  various social media channels (e.g. using twitter login to post this comment) means that its all a little bit easier now that it was a year or so ago. This coupled with a social media strategy as part of an overall marketing plan helps provide focus in what can be quite an unstructured place at times.

  Hopefully we will be active in all of the social media channels the next time you take the temperature
  of our industry social graph J

• http://twitter.com/GreystoneWines Angela Clifford

  Shhh Misha- personally I’m totally OK with the fact that only 38 other New Zealand Wineries are active on Twitter! But seriously, do agree with CJPask that it’s not a “free” platform. I think the lack of take-up is a hangover of a production focussed industry which is only just beginning to get it’s head around resourcing wine marketing properly. After all, social media is just one aspect of an overall marketing strategy. For that reason we lag behind countries such as the US & Oz. Not for long though, I suspect!

  • Lyn

    Well said Angela – resourcing wine marketing is essential and NZ doesn’t do this well on a general basis within the smaller resources of wineries.  Socia media definitely another tool in the marketing mix but I think wineries really need to determine what the objectives are they want filled in the use of the medium.  Again this links back to strategic marketing and if they don’t have this right then social media won’t help them either.

    • http://twitter.com/Jayson_Bryant Jayson Bryant

      I say that the tools are ‘FREE’, obviously the time taken to engage/use is not. I would say this however, that the time to sett these tools up and start using them is minimal and that it takes less than a minute to tweet or respond to a tweet, update a facebook page. It does tae longer to upload a video, and given the rural broadband, it does take commitment to optimise a Youtube channel enough to make it viable.

• http://twitter.com/NZWineDirectory John Bartlett (JB)

  Hi Jayson

  Great article – I agree with Misha – there is a huge opportunity for NZ Wineries to embrace social networking as one of many marketing tools available – and they will eventually, as they see the success of others already on board – We and other #nzwine tweeters are all doing our bit to promote #nzwine, and using the tools available, collate those that are, and encourage those that are not.There are at present 390 peeps in my “NZ Wine Tweeters” list” – we have over 1000 #nzwine related links in the NZ Wine Directory, and several hundred Facebook pages we like too. I’ll continue to collate and share these resource lists as more join the #nzwine online community.

  Just doing my bit for #nzwine
  Cheers, JB

  • http://twitter.com/Jayson_Bryant Jayson Bryant

    The problem is that most don’t update their info/status/ tweets enough to make it a viable channel for marketing.

• CJ Pask Winery

  Agreed, social media is free/cheap advertising to the core of peoples lives, no brainer for us too. However it’s still something that requires strategy, time, and resources to be done properly. More wineries will come on board in time, I think we are well ahead of other industries!!

• http://twitter.com/MishasVineyard Misha Wilkinson

  I think most NZ wineries are missing out.I liken Twitter to being at a tradeshow all day every day – in every country you export to and every country you don’t export to – without the cost and without the sore feet! It’s a no brainer! Wineries all know it’s about networking in the wine business but what a lot don’t realise is that tools like Twitter are networking tools – they’re just a new version of it, enabled by the internet and thus a lot more scalable. The business benefits we’ve found on Twitter mean that if you gave me an option of being at a trade show all day or being on Twitter – I’d choose Twitter as I’d get a lot more business done than at a tradeshow – and we have tangible proof of it. But the thing is to balance a variety of the ‘old fashioned’ ways of marketing with the new marketing tools available. I’m doing the social media seminar at the upcoming NZ Wine Exporters Forum and hope to convince a few more NZ wineries to take the plunge and embark on their social media strategies! 

  Great post Jayson. Thanks for giving the NZ wine industry a rev up. The thought of being beaten by the Aussies should be enough for us take action en masse!

  Misha
  Twitter: @mishasvineyard:disqus
  Facebook Misha’s Vineyard

• Lois Dongray-Jones

  In my opinion social media is critical at this stage and it would be a shame for New Zealand to drop behind.  I have been drafted in from London where twitter and facebook is so “the norm” we barely talk about it anymore.  Here, it is just starting to take off and definitely time to jump on the bandwagon ladies and gentlemen.  This level of communication moves so quickly you have to be on the ball and I hope everyone gets involved enabling us to push out NZ wines to a global audience.  Plus, it’s fun, exciting and freeeeeeeeee! 

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