Social Networking for Wine Sales Online
Eighteen months ago this column described social media as the second wave of the Internet and gave some examples of tools that were being used to create opportunities for selling wine. Some of the early examples have become largely irrelevant or have become the home of a specific niche. Other new tools have come to dominate in a way that could not have been predicted. The following is a review of the current set of tools that are gaining traction and examples of how some retailers are using them to grow their business.
Twitter is the tool that is currently receiving the most hype. In some ways it is a very simple utility that is not much different from Instant Messaging. In other ways it has opened up a whole different level of social activity. Amongst all the chatter you will find real time updates from popular events, pictures, 12-second videos and even group activities.

A few creative wine stores have figured out how to raise their profile and attract business using Twitter. Their activities range from providing an ongoing series of observations about working in the industry (micro-blogging) and announcements about featured wines, to staging Twitter-based events with invited hosts that “tweet” as they taste through a selection of wines. Twitter Taste Live (#ttl) is the best organized of these regular “taste-ins” with topics sponsored by importers and a network of retailers that can provide the selected wines.

Facebook (FB) and to a lesser extent MySpace have become open networking platforms where developers can build applications in an effort to attract their huge customer base. FB has grown from a college classmate networking tool to its current demographic mix where more than 50% of FB’s 175 million users are out of college. A growing number of retailers and wineries are taking advantage of the FB news feeds to promote their business. By setting up a group or product page for your store, every time one of your “fans” or members joins your group or responds to an event, their FB friends receive an update of this activity. Consider each of these news feed postings as a tiny ad that carries an implicit endorsement. Curious friends will often inspect your offerings, triggering their own news feed post if they join your group.

The winners of the 3rd annual American Wine Blog Awards were recently announced. Among the winners was retailer Steve Bachman from Vinfolio, for his blog The Wine Collector. The Wine Collector blog is an excellent example of how a retailer can write compelling posts while making sure his readers know the advantages of working with their business. What is equally notable is that retailers are advertising on some of the other winning blogs. Since many blogs are focused on a single subject, they can allow you to target a very specific interest group and gain access to informed consumers who think about what they drink.

Social networking is likely to continue to grow in influence as new tools and activities capture the imagination of your tech savvy customers. These tools are becoming very immediate with the main appeal of Twitter being the real-time interaction. Judge the level of participation for your business based on your ability keep up with the conversion in real time. You may also consider using some of these tools to monitor the conversation about your business. This gives you an opportunity to resolve a customer problem and improve your business image, or just say thank you to a happy customer.