Ok, so it’s not really proof, but it’s hard to deny the traction when someone like me makes the top 20 in a list like this. And #14?? Seriously?!? WTF?!??…

There’s probably something cruelly insane about me being more influential than Terry Theise (#60?) and the CEO of Total Wine, but one thing I’ve learned is that wine is, in fact, one crazy business (and according to the article, it was people in the biz who helped named the names). I feel thee are a ton of omissions, all of whom I’d personally rank higher than me on this list, but I’m honored to be in the company of such inspiring people (about a third of whom I have had the pleasure of meeting personally).

Having said all of that, I’d caution about reading too much into lists like this – good for a pulse check, probably bad for anything more substantial than that. My placement/ranking is probably a controversial play (and that’s not even considering the glaring omissions, such as Bonny Doon‘s Randall Grahm), and judging by the Facebook and twitter chatter this week, it’s a successful play.

You can check out the full list of IntoWine.com’s Top 100 U.S. wine industry influencers here. Thanks to Michael Cervin and the IntoWine.com folks for the nod – I’m trying to live up to it!

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at “Proof That Social Media Has Forever Changed The Landscape Of Wine?” from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

I was recently interviewed by WineSpiralProject.com, as part of their series on wine industry innovation, in which they interview personalities in the wine world and ask them to share thoughts on the wine biz and how it can/should innovate.

Yeah, I know, I’m not 100% certain why they picked me either, but what’s done is done so let’s just roll with it, okay?

You can check out the entire series of interviews at this link; I’ll give the the super-short, edited-down-to-the-bare-bones-Cliff-Notes version of my interview right here:

Wineries are amazing at production innovation; Wineries suck at engagement innovation.

It’s not in bottling lines or fermentation vessels that we need an innovation push in the wine biz; we need innovation in adjusting the attitude that most wine producers have towards consumers. What do I mean by “engagement innovation?” Short answer: using the single most innovative outreach platform ever developed in the history of the human race – the Internet – to directly engage the people who buy their shiz. This may sound like common sense to you, but a lot of the producers I encounter seem to need reminding that those consumers – and not critics – are the ones who matter the most…

Yes, critics have reach. They can and do expose wine brands to markets that otherwise might not know they’d exist. But if I were a small-production winery, I’d be worrying a hell of a lot more about how to reach, engage, and keep customers I had (as well as engaging new ones) than trying to get a crazy-good review with critics that have substantial followings in the hopes that those followings will buy up every last drop, allowing them to quintuple prices and retire in the outer Hebrides.

Because that scenario is about as likely as Bon Jovi opening for my band on a world tour. In other words, for most producers it’s a total waste of time. And I am saying this as, in part, a wine critic – because after people do you the honor of following your thoughts about wine, and publicly declare on social media platforms that they are going to buy or avoid a wine that you write about because of what you said – or didn’t say – about it, then for all intents and purposes you are now a wine critic (at least, to them!).

But engaging customers and turning them into potential life-long fans of your brand? That’s happening every few seconds every day on social media platforms. To quote, well, myself from the interview (emphasis provided as published by WineSpiralProject.com):

“Wineries have the ability, through social media, to reach younger wine consumers directly and be just as influential on their buying decisions as Wine Spectator, Robert Parker, or little ol’ me. That is an amazing opportunity and those that do it right are gonna beat the pants off of those who don’t in the marketplace eventually. It takes time, and a long-term view because the influence is done via one-on-one relationships – patience is going to pay off in that case!”

That’s why I think it qualifies as “innovation” (sorry the rationale is coming so late, for those who have been waiting for it): because it’s nearly the opposite approach as compared to what most wine producers are doing in (not) reaching out to their customers right now.

Honestly, I’ve got no idea what producers (especially smaller wine producers) are waiting for when it comes to outreach. Well, aside from fear of the unknown, I mean. In my view, they should stop wasting time complaining about social media and just start using that time on social media to connect with customers already.

That’s sure-as-sh*t what I’d be doing if I made wine right now.

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Where Can Wineries Really Innovate? In Engaging The People Who Actually Drink The Stuff! from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

Can social media be used as tool to drive sales for wine retailers, distributors, and importers?

Yes, I’m seriously asking that question.  Stop laughing, okay?

Despite the fact that even well-attended and publicized retail events don’t seem to be moving umpteen cases of wine, the consensus answer seems to be “Yes – with caveats,” based on a panel discussion I took part in recently in New York.

The title of the thirty-minute sessions was Wine Marketing in the Digital Age – I shared the table with with Jody Rones from Thrillist.com (a daily email marketing blast with a ridiculous number of subscribers), Lindsey Johnson from wine PR mavens Lush Life Productions, and Gregory Dal Piaz of Snooth.com (Editor in Chief for the one of the largest wine websites in the world – he chaired the session).  The panel was part of a sponsored event by Wines of Chile, who concurrently put on a pretty kick-ass grand tasting of something like 300 Chilean wines, of which I had time to taste about twelve before having to hoof it to Penn Station to catch a train back to the ol’ dancin’ waters of Philly.

Thirty minutes isn’t a lot of time to cover such a potentially diverse and broad topic, but it won’t surprise 1WD readers that I said “screw it, I’ll try it anyway!”…

A major theme that came out of the discussion (attended mostly be those ITB – in wine sales, distribution & importing) was that treating on-line engagement (via social media) as somehow different or alien to off-line engagement is, of course, the wrong way to go. As in, one-way-towards-the-collapsed-bridge-with-no-breaks wrong, or horror move oh-god-don’t-go-in-the-basement-the-evil-homicidal-maniac-IS-DOWN-THERE-WAITING-FOR-YOU-I-can’t-look-tell-me-when-it’s-over! wrong.

Thinking out loud about this here… I continually find myself surprised by the fact that people are surprised by that fact.

Which isn’t to say that I’m somehow smarter than anyone else, it’s just to say that I don’t understand why engagement with people – which really is the whole point of being on social media tools like facebook or twitter – should be any different on-line than off.  We’re still talking about people on the other end – it’s just that instead of being on the other end of a handshake or telephone call, their on the other end of a tweet, facebook wall post, or email message.  In fact, most of us who are old farts… ahem… more matured than the majority of the Millennial generation have already gotten used to this kind of human-interaction-at-a-distance as done through email.  It’s not like once someone is on twitter they suddenly are monkey alien beings from another galaxy or something.  That more-or-less sums up the gist of what I tell people when I’m asked how I built up a following for the blog around the topic of wine – I didn’t really build up a following, people passionate about wine built up a fun community and 1WD happens to be one of the convergence points.

Get out of the way, facilitate, don’t force it – and let it happen naturally as a result of engaging those passionate peeps.

The caveats, of course, are that work has to be done one-one-one, and the payoffs are longer-term (loyalty and high-quality interactions via an organic, slow growth of a group that might not be extremely large, but wants to engage with you).  And, if you want to stand out among the crowd, you need to get as geeky as possible on the things that really differentiate you, because the on-line world is not kind to generalists.  If you specialize in Hungarian table wines, then you need to be the most kick-ass, geekiest Hungarian wine-lovin’ fool out there to stand out and provide value to the people most interested in what you have to offer.

I’m no Nostradamus either for bringing up these ideas, by the way. Tons of social media and marketing gurus have said this for a few years already. But people always seemed surprised to hear them.

And, I’m find more an more often, relieved.

A example: After the panel, I was approached by a attendee who makes his living in the wine sales world, and over a glass of very decent Chilean wine from the grand tasting, he told fellow panelist Jody Rones and I that our discussion helped him to realize something.  What he said he realized was that the on-line world is just a vehicle for reaching real, off-line people – some of the specific rules of engagement are different on those platforms, which might be why people make the mistake of, at first, treating them as somehow fundamentally different than off-line engagement; but it’s just good old-fashioned one-on-one engagement at the end of the day.  And he was already pretty good at doing that.

“I can do that!” he told us, clearly invigorated (or maybe buzzed… or both!).  Here’s a guy who’s been successful doing that over luncheons, meetings, telephone calls, and email – of course he could adapt those successful tactics to engaging people directly on twitter or facebook, given enough time.

I told him that, to me, he’d hit on the key point, the real takeaway gem of the discussion.  The brief exchange made me happy – it gave me hope and some reassurance that I was earning the paycheck I’d receive for sitting in on the day’s panel.

He then told us about someone he works with for whom various favors were done, such as providing her person’s company booth space at wine industry events, gratis.  She never offered any favors to his company in return, and never said “thank you,” which (rightfully) pissed this guy off.  “We’ll never work with her again,” he said, “neither will anybody that we work with, either.”

“Imagine how fast that negative word would get out about her company on twitter and facebook,” I added – same issue, same violated human expectations of shared benefits and mutuality, just a different (albeit faster) platform for getting the word out (even if the word is negative).  Nobody likes to work with ungrateful people – and if you’re ungrateful, you no longer have the benefit of lag time before people call you out on it; the word is gonna get out about you really, really fast on-line.

When we parted, I just thanked him for his comments and said goodbye – I didn’t need to wish this guy good luck.  I figured, if there’s only so much luck to go around, then I’d better reserve for the people who aren’t (and maybe never were) even close to this guy in terms of “getting” the concept of engagement.

Cheers!

(images: facebook.com/winesofchile)

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Social Media As Wine Retail Sales Weapon? (“Wine Marketing In The Digital Age” Post-Panel Musings) from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

Nomad Editions Uncorked might not be the first iPad-designed electronic wine magazine to hit the virtual iStore shelves (that distinction belongs to the relatively-expensive-when-it-comes-to-these-things $4-a-pop publication By The Grape, whose first issue seems obsessively preoccupied with Jancis Robinson), but as far as I’m aware it’s the first one to mention dog’s sniffing each other’s butts.

I contributed an article to Uncorked’s “Sedimental Journies” section for the May 6, 2011 preview issue of Uncorked, titled “Sippin’ And Sniffin’ With Fido (Wine tips from a true connoisseur: your mutt)” which you can now check out for free (I didn’t write that title, by the way – you can tell because it doesn’t explicitly mention doggie butt-sniffing).  You can subscribe via iTunes for $0.99 a month, which seems a reasonable price to me (but hey, look who’s talking, I don’t even own an iPad).  I think what’s supposed to happen now is that you read the article, then write to the editor to tell him how talented and good-looking I am (and we’re both comfortable enough with each other that we can lie that way, right?)…

The publication of Uncorked comes at a timely moment for me, since I am currently in the processes of rehabilitating Brunello, our recently-rescued, ridiculously-oversized, pitifully-anxious Cane Corso / Doberman mix.  Rather, I’m in the process of watching in awe as my wife rehabs Bruno.  Anyway, for those of you playing along at home, things on the rehab front are going… well, okay…

Our huge pup is gaining weight like a champ (over 90 lbs already!), is already housebroken, and is great outside, good with people, and well-socialized with other poochies.  But poor Bruno suffers from a very bad case of house-destroying separation anxiety and is capable of unintended wanton destruction when he gets playful. So the jury is still out for us but we’re trying!  Okay, before this doggie update thing turns into the on-line equivalent of the "picture of the two kids on the desk of the used car salesman," let’s get back to wine…

How does the topic of wine translate to the pixelated iPad page?  Probably better than it translates to immature analogies involving dog-butt-sniffing.  But I’ll need you to tell me, because I’ve steered well clear of the iPad productivity roadblock myself. I’m not saying that the iPad isn’t an amazing content consumption device – it’s the best content consumption device I’ve ever seen; but I am saying that I do way more content creation these days than content consumption, and there’s no way I’m going to spend extra coin trying to turn an iPad into something it’s not (namely, a laptop PC running Windows 7, which is what I bought with my $550 iPad fund instead) just to suit my lifestyle and workflow.

So there you have it: dog butts, iPads, and wine.  And Windows 7.  Right – I definitely need a drink now…

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Sedimental Journeys, Touchscreen Style (The Wine Mag Hits The iPad) from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

Anyway… the pick-me-up takes the form of our latest giveaway: this time I’ve got promo codes for three free copies of the recently-revamped iPhone wine app Pocket Wine, sold by Wine Paradigm (a $3.99 value). This is not to be confused with last week’s giveaway, which is still running until Wednesday. Got it?  I promise no more concurrent giveaways, because I don’t want anyone’s head to explode.

What has been exploding, however, is the volume of mobile-related wine content in recent weeks (see my recent take on VinPass, and another story posting here later this week on iPad wine mags), so today’s giveaway feels timely (to me, anyway).  It also, in turn, makes me feel increasingly older and out-of-date with the mobile scene, since I don’t own an iPhone, a Droid device, or an iPad (hey, Apple: potential sponsorship opportunity here, people!) and therefore have had to request screen prints from the mobile apps that carry my reviews to approve anything they do with my content, since I can’t view the stuff in its native format.  I know… I suck… Whatever.

You know the drill: you comment, and in one week I randomly select winners from the commenters!  There will be three winners, each receiving one promo code each for a copy of Pocket Wine.  Disclaimer: I’m giving away promo codes (here’s how to redeem them in the Apple App Store if you’re one of the lucky winners), not devices – and if you’re a winner you have to redeem your promo code by June 13th (or it turns back into a pumpkin… or at least stops working).

One thing I like about Pocket Wine is that it has (or seems to have, based on the screenprints!) a focus on developing and tracking your own personal taste preferences (see inset pic) – and we all know that I’m a pretty big fan of that approach, because it’s how I learned about wine in the first place.  But it’s a player in what seems to be an increasingly crowded field of wine-related mobile apps.

So our topic for the comments: How do you feel about the plethora of mobile wine apps? Handy tools? Or just crapware taking up your precious mobile phone memory?  Got any faves?  Shout it out for a chance to win!

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Goin’ Mobile: Pocket Wine App Giveaway! from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!