Leverage Wine Experts to Create Social Media Content for your Winery
Experts > Influencers
To be clear, I’m not bashing anyone who is or believes themselves to be an influencer. I firmly believe that leveraging the right influencer to funnel traffic to a brand’s social page — with the goal of the brand then carrying the relationship — is a valuable tactic.
If you’re marketing your wine brands online, one of the most important things to do is to create content. Creating good social media posts can be a time-consuming process. There are various ways to go about this, including using employees or freelance writers; however, neither of these options is particularly effective.
My partners and I have been entrepreneurs, journalist and designers in the wine business for many years creating compelling content such as:
- experimental live wine events (“Kanye West’s music interpreted through Spanish wine”),
- blogs and articles via I like this grape,
- unique video content with celebrities & wine, and
- a book series aimed at giving millennials confidence when visiting a wine region (first book Drive Through Napa)
Using experts in your industry is not a new idea, such as expert blogs on prestigious sites, but leveraging subject matter experts for social media posts can amplify the quality and potential reach of your content.
Use wine experts with experience creating compelling content to create your content
Whether you need content across multiple channels or just one, using wine experts who understand the nuances of the product, the breadth of the industry and your unique brand message will be the best way to create content.
Last year many sommeliers, journalists and wine professionals were thrown unexpectedly out of work. Many of them create compelling content that speaks directly to the allure of wine. These subject-matter experts are the people you should look to when seeking content for your winery’s social media sites. Some advantages:
- It’s Efficient. You don’t need to educate them about the world of wine, varietals, wine regions, etc. They come to the table knowing this info intimately.
- They’re in Rhythm. They are already creating wine content frequently. They’re coming to the table in rhythm and in stride. They understand how to describe a wine’s attributes in ways that savvy consumers relate to and even when to post.
- They’re Trained Storytellers. Their professional careers in wine require them to be great storytellers — from sommeliers at a restaurant selling customers a bottle of wine that was made with grapes picked by hand on the steep hills of a vineyard to wine writers who do the same on pages of magazines or books.
Think of it this way: it’s more efficient and compelling to have a marijuana user who is also a subject-matter expert lead the content creation for your marijuana product over a social media agency or young hire.
The marijuana experts know marijuana, so you don’t have to explain it to them; they use marijuana so they know the differences between products and brands; and more importantly they know the culture of marijuana.
Experts across any category can speak deeply, intelligently and with more passion than freelancers or $20/hr. hires.
Social media has never been more powerful as a marketing tool. Wineries are paying more attention to their digital marketing channels with the ultimate goals of increasing DTC sales, creating a force multiplier with existing customers and creating/deepening loyalty.
One challenge that remains, even in an airtight social media marketing strategy, is creating compelling content
As the social media expert Neil Patel bluntly puts it,
“Boring content doesn’t get shared or read. For your content marketing to be successful, you must produce interesting content.”
If you want a quick way to raise your exposure level, it may be time to tap into the expertise of wine experts.
If you’re a winery and want to discuss how my team and I can help, just click here to schedule a time to discuss your social media strategy and how we can effectively and efficiently help.
