- Image via CrunchBase
Not to beat a dead horse, since this is not the first post on twitter help for wineries to come along, but there are some major gaps in the effective use of twitter that I want to fill.
Most posts focus on twitter etiquette: what not to do and how to better engage. And while ideas like “be human” and tweet about other things than just yourself are useful, they are just the first step.
I have Tweetdeck installed on my machine, and with its many columns, I’ve seen several behaviors from wineries that need to change if you want to leverage Twitter correctly.
Accounts: You need at the minimum 2 accounts. You are a human, and your winery is a business, so start with two.
Winery Account
- @Bodegas(fillinthename) Make sure your winery is represented with your name, or a small portion of your name. The name should be no longer than 10 characters! Remember, on your twitter profile, you can give your full name and link to your site.
- Go to http://twitterfeed.com/. Since you’re on twitter, I assume that you also have a blog, flickr account and facebook fan page. Link up some of your RSS feeds to direct into your twitter stream. Now, when you post a new pic of the harvest on flickr…BOOM, it shows up on twitter. You can also link in videos from Youtube, 12seconds.tv, and more!
- Start Talking. Talk about your country, wine region, neighbors, weather, travels, and more. Remember the 80/20 rule: talk 20 percent about you and your wines, and 80 percent about life and your place in it. You live in Rioja, tell me about the big tasting taking place at Rioja Forum, the latest treats you’ve devoured on Calle Laurel, or the current harvest conditions. You don’t need to mention yourself, I already see your linking to your own site. Those that fail the 80/20 rule end up in my “all friends” column, which means that I’ll gloss over you among the thousands of other people.
Personal Account
- Make an account for you: @ryanopaz, @gabriellaopaz or @somethingaboutyou. Again, keep it short, and when you put a link in your profile, make sure to link to something with your name or face on it such as: a page on your winery website about you, a post you’re proud of, or maybe your linked profile, something that makes me know the real you!
- Go have fun with this account. Talk about heading to work, family events, travel, stuff that has nothing to do with your job. Why? Well, because my friends have lives outside of work, and their work is one aspect of it. I love my friends for all of their activities, and those that work in wine, talk about it in appropriate amounts. They talk about their jobs like humans, not marketers. If you are a marketer, then go throw your text books in the garbage and realize the world has changed. I want you, not the crafted you. But this does not mean giving up your privacy. Share what you want, make friends with people your close to or make friends with everyone. Either way, be you.
Fun Tips
- Sync your phone with flickr, twitpic, 12seconds and you are now a mobile twitterer. You can feed all this content into your stream.
- If you celebrate victories, and show weakness, your followers will continue to listen. Cheerlead to much and you’re that annoying guy at the party that no one wants to talk to.
- Ask questions, lot’s of questions, and if no one answers, ask again! Or change the question.
- Answer questions with @ replies and not Direct messages (@DM). Replies keep the conversation public, while making it private just closes you off.
- IMPORTANT – If you’re a winery, tell me about the wines that inspire you!!! You are in a world with diverse wines everywhere, share that experience. By linking to a wine that is not yours, you will not sell less, and I’ll trust you more!!!
- Take a break and don’t worry about “catching up”. When you’re gone for awhile, walk back into the stream as if it were a crowded bar. Find a conversation that interests you and go with it. If you walked into a bar and tried to figure out what everyone had been saying for the past hour, you’d go insane! This equally applies to twitter. It’s a stream of conversation, join it, don’t swim upstream.
- Turn off once and awhile. You don’t need to tweet everyday. Take a day off, or a week, and let the autotweets from your website or flickr photos go up. But when you get back on send out a tweet like “Hey everyone I was taking a break, enjoying x, y or z…What’s up?” and watch people welcome you back.
Have fun.
’nuff said.
Cheers,
Ryan
@ryanopaz and @catavino
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- 10 Tips for Wineries on Twitter (acanmedia.com)
