Melissa Dobson PR & Marketing

Chris Brogan & I at SM2Day Conference

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m a huge fan of Chris Brogan and the book he co-authored with Julien Smith entitled “Trust Agents.”  (And Chris’ blog,  newsletter…) Okay, I know I’m gushing.

This isn’t meant to be a blatant push for Chris and Julien or their book.  But one of the things I believe you come here for is my opinion on discoveries that can help you to grow your business and keep you on track to continue to engage with and build a community of enthusiasts for your winery brand.  I understand that your days are busy so I love to bring you resources to help you to do that.  Being a solopreneur affords me the flexibility to watch out for things for you that I strongly believe can help you to tell your winery’s unique story to those who want to hear about it the most and will in turn tell their friends about you.  “Trust Agents” outlines best practices for using the web to build influence and teaches you how to earn trust and build relationships that can benefit you and your community.

If you’ve been reading my posts on social media, have attended workshops or webinars but still feeling like you’re not sure what to do next or if you can improve results on what you’re already doing out there on the web, Chris, Julien and “Trust Agents” offers guidance and actionable steps.  And there’s a really cool story about J Vineyards and Winery in Sonoma and how one of their staff members won the trust of tech blogger Robert Scoble and got him to buy a case of wine from the winery after winning him over.  Plus, there’s a bit on Gary Vaynerchuk and how he makes us want to buy his products.

The book was also recently listed as one of the recommended books for those interested in digital marketing for the wine industry by Paul Mabray, founder and Chief Strategy Officer at VinTank in a post on John Corcoran’s Think Wine Marketing blog.  If you’d rather listen to an audiobook version, there’s one available via Amazon.

Have you already read “Trust Agents?”  What are the takeaways that resonated most that can be applied to a winery’s business plan?

Do you ever read a blog post and want to shout out loud, “Yes, exactly-what he just said!” while you eagerly devour each word to the finish?

That’s how I felt, although I didn’t shout it aloud, when reading a post titled, “Ways to Be Human at a Distance” by Chris Brogan, Community and Social Media thought-leader and co-author of New York Times Bestseller “Trust Agents.” Like many of you, I’m challenged every day to keep in touch and up-to-speed on my clients and fellow bloggers virtually with very little face-to-face time.   Being human, showing my face as much as possible on Twitter and Facebook primarily and on my blog is one way that I stay “in touch” with my clients, prospective clients and colleagues.  Just how well it works or to what degree you should incorporate Chris’ recommendations are up to you and based on your individual strengths and weaknesses.

A couple of key items that resonated strongly with me for you to consider for your own personal branding efforts:

• Chris says, “Faces matter – On all online accounts, use a picture of you, or you with a logo, or you in front of a logo, to represent yourself.”  I encourage my clients and anyone who asks me about social media to please, please show your face instead of just a logo on all online accounts.  I also strongly recommend adding people pictures on your About Us or Our Team pages on your websites as well.   Nothing feels more sterile and unwelcoming than an About Us page with text only. Seeing people’s faces is much more engaging and establishes a layer of credibility.
• Chris says, “Make each conversation unique to the platform – By this, I mean that I prefer individual conversations on Facebook that aren’t cloned into Twitter and/or back again. I believe it’s more authentic to be in one place at a time. Even if you say similar things in both places, I prefer it that way than to blanket automated clatter.” I may be too particular about personalizing things, but when I read that a post or content was pushed out from platform to platform, it doesn’t feel as authentic to me either.  I completely understand that it’s a time saver to hook up platforms to republish content automatically, but it loses something in translation in my opinion.  Months ago, I fed my Twitter tweets to auto-update my Facebook profile.  I was doing this to save myself time but wasn’t considering that some of my friends on Facebook aren’t on Twitter and were reading updates they didn’t care about or understand.  The exception to this is in auto-publishing your blog posts to your Facebook fan page.  For some reason, that feels okay to me and I do it.
• Chris says, “Remember – When someone says their cat is sick, it’s good to make a note to inquire about it later. People like when you remember. It goes far in making a relationship feel two-way, because believe me, they remember about you.”
• Chris says, “Pictures help – I use Flickr to share photos of events, of people I meet, of my family, of whatever catches my fancy. I do this also because they connect us, they give us common experience points, they share faces with we humans (who have a thing for faces, if you didn’t know). Pictures are a strong way to add humanity to what you do.”  Twitter photo sharing and Facebook personal profiles and Fan Pages are great places to “take us along” with you, show us what you’ve been up to and keep us feeling like we’re a part of your business’ successes and challenges.
• Chris says, “Mixing Personal and Professional – I’m for it. People ask me all the time whether they should talk about personal things on their business account. I say yes, absolutely. But be measured. There’s a huge difference between self-aware and self-involved. In my personal case, I’m lucky. I’m my own brand, so if I want to scare you with tweets about my doctor’s office, I can. You might not be as lucky, but please, in the name of all that is holy, don’t be boring. That’s a worse crime.”  People bring this up frequently when I speak to them about social media and I’m for it too.  It has helped me tremendously in the little bit of time since I created my business.  I thought about it before venturing out to pursue my dream of breaking into the wine industry where I knew very few people.  How can I win the trust of the local wineries when I’m an outsider and how do I stand out to my long-distance client prospects and stay in touch with all of the awesome wine bloggers that I’ve met?  Social media posts and blogging about my passion, my family and friends and my hopes and dreams has brought ideal clients to me and repels those that don’t share my outlook or care for my personal approach, saving us both time in the end.  I’ve noticed a sense of warmth and welcoming from the prospective clients who have researched me and read my blog when we meet in person or have our first phone conversation.  It also helps to break the ice for me at the Wine Bloggers Conference each year.  I welcome this because I’m a bit shy when just getting to know someone so breaking down the walls helps me feel more at ease and lets me focus on the person in front of me.

Take some time to consider these points.  Chris has won my trust and respect by doing the things he outlines in his post.  So much so that I bought and read “Trust Agents” just after release and will be attending the SM2Day Conference in Rochester, NY where he’ll be speaking next Wednesday.  Wouldn’t miss it for anything.

Cynthia, Janelle and I at Red Tail Ridge Winery

It’s not often that I have the opportunity to have a “girls weekend” like I used to before I met Rich, and I definitely miss my girl time.  (Don’t worry, Rich is well aware of this and was brave enough to offer not only to host my friends for the weekend, but also to drive us for our wine tour on Saturday  )

It really is a blast to get together and explore the beauty of the region along with the wines and especially to see who likes and dislikes each of the wines we taste together.  The only things I knew about my friends Cynthia and Janelle’s wine personalities was that they both dig Sokol Blosser’s Evolution, an Oregon State produced, stainless-steel fermented  blend of nine grape varieties: Muller-Thurgau, White Riesling, Semillon, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer, Muscat Canelli, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Sylvaner and that they’re both partial to drinking California reds ranging from Pinot Noir to Cabernet Sauvignon.

We ventured out on what was supposed to be a rainy, windy Saturday afternoon but turned out to be sunny and warm, starting at Red Tail Ridge Winery.  The first thing we noticed was the privacy and beauty of the winery setting.  It’s set back from the road and the tasting room is small and intimate.  This was my first visit to Red Tail Ridge and also my first taste of their wines.  Our group was partial to the whites over the ‘07 Estate Grown Pinot Noir and I explained to my friends that the style of Pinot Noir here is much different than from other regions and that with their palates being accustomed to West Coast Pinot Noirs, a Finger Lakes Pinot Noir would be of a unique style that they may or may not enjoy.

Our overall favorite wines were the ‘08 Estate Grown Semi-Dry Riesling (1.8% RS) and the ‘08 Semi-Sweet Riesling (4% RS) and I mentioned in jest that I’m one of those wine drinkers who professes to prefer dry wines, but in fact I like a bit of sweetness as long as there’s nice structure, balance and acidity which both of these Rieslings have.

Our day included stops at Anthony Road Wine Company from which we posted pictures to our Facebook pages. Anthony Road Wine Company is among our favorite wineries and we enjoy their reds and whites across the board and always highly recommend them to newbies seeking Finger Lakes winery recommendations.   We agreed that the value discoveries to please a crowd were Tony’s White made of the Cayuga White grape ($8.99)  and the new 1.5 liter offering called PN II Red Table Wine (around $15), from pinot noir grapes that are the second selection of the sorting process.  I told the girls that although I’m enmeshed in the wine industry and love and appreciate special bottles like anyone else, I’m truly an everyday wine drinker in that I’m driven to find wines to enjoy of a high QPR and save my special bottles for sharing at get-togethers or to celebrate with.

We also visited Glenora Wine Cellars, where we discovered that Cynthia much prefers sweeter reds and doesn’t like sparkling bruts.  This is where Janelle and I disagreed with her and both chose ‘07 Pinot Noir Rose’ and newly-released ‘08 Merlot.  We had an incredible view of Seneca Lake from the back tasting bar and we had a blast watching Cynthia grab up every pair of Santa Pants wine holders they had out on the floor.

Our last stop was to Fulkerson Winery.  We’ve consistently been treated very well each time we’ve tasted at Fulkerson and Vincent is one of our favorite red hybrids in the region.  The tasting room is spacious and beautiful with bright sunlight streaming in the large windows.  We had the opportunity to say hello to John Iszard, Wine Sales and Marketing Director at the winery and, of course, the topic of interest among my group of Buffalonians and John was football.  We “admitted” to our love for the Buffalo Bills and I wished him luck in cheering for his favorite team, the Pittsburgh Steelers.  It’s just this type of banter and low-key conversation that I have come to cherish among the members of the Finger Lakes wine community.  During our day, we spoke to a group of out-of-town tourists who are regular visitors to the region.  They reiterated the importance of wineries selling not only their wines but the experience of each winery and their backstory.  More on that in a post to come.

photo courtesy of Heron Hill Winery

If you’re a winery public relations and marketing person or owner who wears this hat, your head may be swirling with questions about how social interactions on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are changing the way we “pitch” bloggers and writers and land coverage.  I know that it’s at the top of my list of things to pay attention to and I’ll continue to share what I discover with you here.

This social media quick tip demonstrates a very simple example of how a local winery’s public relations person posted content onto Twitter and had it picked up by a local wine blogger, landing a photo featured in his blog post within an hour of their exchange on Twitter.

The winery PR person is Kitty Oliver at Heron Hill Winery, who has consistently been one of the region’s most forward-thinking public relations and marketing representatives.  The blogger who picked up the photo and got permission to use it via Twitter is Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes Editor at the New York Cork Report. (Disclosure: I have contributed posts to The New York Cork Report for the Finger Lakes)

The exchange occurred last Friday morning with Kitty posting photos of the snowfall at Heron Hill Winery to Twitter.  Evan spotted the photos, liked one and found it relevant to his post about the effect that unseasonably low temperatures followed by predicted Indian Summer conditions will have on the vines and grape development here in the Finger Lakes. Within a few minutes and via Twitter post, Evan secured permission from Kitty to use the photo for his post.

Kitty shares tips from her experience with using Twitter to engage with wine writers, bloggers and enthusiasts for Heron Hill:

“Twitter has been a great tool for Heron Hill Winery as far as getting information out quickly. We’re connecting directly, if a media person or consumer  needs more information we go from there. Posting pictures has been helpful too, I can show people what I’m talking about, especially when it comes to harvest. People want to SEE the grapes, SEE the crush pad and SEE the people behind the wine. You have to be yourself on Twitter because people can sense sincerity and relate to it. It requires a personal touch and you have to be ready to engage, learn and share what’s really going on. Your relationships will be better for it. It takes time to learn the Twitter ropes, but once you get it, it’s a lot of fun and a great tool.”

Evan’s advice for those venturing into social media:

“Social media starts with being social. Profound, I know. Seriously, though – you’re not going to develop a strong and loyal readership through social media unless you show people you care about them. You read their stuff. You react to their posts. You answer their questions. You show some personality. Over time, we’ve been able to develop a strong following that responds when we have questions or need help. In this case, we didn’t have to ask Heron Hill for photos — they were savvy enough to post them. But had we simply tweeted about a need for harvest photos, I have no doubt we’d have a virtual pile of them within minutes. And that only makes our blog better.”

There’s still some work to be done in my observation.  Some Twitter peeps are showing up just when they need something and to promote their own interests and then disappear without really interacting or helping anyone else.  Although that may provide a bit of benefit, showing up consistently and following Kitty and Evan’s tips lead to much more robust engagement and benefits for you and your brand.

Video Source: WITS YouTube Channel

Here’s a video interview from the Wine Industry Technology Summit earlier this year that addresses some basics of how Facebook can help wineries differentiate their brands.  There’s also some discussion around privacy settings, content appropriate for personal profiles vs. business fan pages.

Key takeaways:

• Emphasis on the importance of telling a story
• Engage with your customers
• It’s not enough to have a good wine product, how will you differentiate your wine?
• Find the stories that consumers can latch onto
• Your ability to communicate with multiple people via social media is greatly increased as opposed to private, individual email responses
• If you’re not sure if you should post something on Facebook, don’t post it.
• Facebook helps you connect in a richer, more dynamic way than traditional channels

I’ve noticed an increase in the number of Harvest reports via video, photos and posts on Facebook and Twitter here in Finger Lakes Wine Country this year.  Are you noticing an increase in interest or conversation around Harvest this year from consumers because of the reports?  Do you expect these Harvest stories to help you sell wine and wine club memberships? Any other benefits to report?