September newsletter: A top bloke passes, wine show and fishing success and our top tips for increasing sales using Facebook and Twitter
Posted by Josh on September 15th, 2009
Hi there,
We were deeply saddened to learn of the sudden passing of Greg Jones from The Vintage Wineworx. Our thoughts go out to his family and colleagues in what must be a very difficult time. Greg was one of the very first VINx2 users, picking up the system like a duck to water. A top bloke and talented winemaker that will be missed by all.
A BIG WELCOME to our newest clients recently choosing to upgrade to VINx2:
- Niner Wine Estates, Paso Robles, California
- Kahlon Estate Wines, Renmark, South Australia
We'll be onsite installing VINx2 at these wineries soon. If you'd like to meet us while we're in town drop us a line at info@jx2.com.au.
Congratulations to our clients, Coffman & Lawson Wine Merchants (Eden Road Wines) for the top result at the Canberra Regional Wine Show. They picked up quite a few gongs including: Best Shiraz and Best Dry Red for their 2008 The Long Road Hilltops Shiraz and were equal tied for Champion wine on show. Not a bad day at the office - well done guys. You can read more about the show here.
Congratulations also to Paul Zeitz from Belvidere winery and his fishing crew landing some very nice looking Tuna 30km off the coast of Geraldton, WA:
You may have seen the above photo in a recent The Week That Was newsletter but I thought it was such a good looking catch that it was worth re-showing in our own. Paul was telling me all about his recent fishing trip when I was over at Belvidere installing their new wine lab label printer. With it they no longer have to soak and scrape Avery labels from bottles – the VINx2 ones are removable and peel right off. Should save quite a bit of time not to mention water!
Jamie's been traveling around a lot lately and recently returned from California and Ontario after putting in a couple of VINx2 systems. Check out the pool at Jada Vineyard and Winery in California. Any Aussie cellar doors have something like this? Let us know - we're coming to visit!
And the view up in Ontario isn’t half bad either:
If you have any news items or photos to share, please send them through. You can see more about our travels on Facebook here.
Our top tips for Facebook and Twitter – feel free to forward these onto a friend by clicking here.
The BUZZ of the moment is social media and it's use by wineries to foster an online following of consumers, wine scribes and other industry members. Here are a few of the top tips we've picked up to make the most of tools available:
(1) Avoid "selling" yourself online. Sounds contradictory I know, but if all you do is update your status with how good your booze is then people are likely to stop listening. Consumers and even scribes want news and interesting facts, like recent awards won or exclusive mixed dozen offers. More important is to keep people informed about what you're doing in the vineyard and winery. People are passionate about wine and love to know the smallest details about how it's made – keep them informed about your wine making throughout the year and your online following will translate to the real world with more orders. For some examples of wineries doing a great job, check out @Teusnerwine and @ChateauTanunda.
(2) Don't pick a single social media tool or use them in isolation – go with those that complement. While Twitter is great for keeping people informed with ‘micro’ updates (aka Tweets), like a mini-blog, it is best used in conjunction with other tools such as Facebook, a regular newsletter and a blog. If you can take the time to maintain a blog (detailed stories / updates) describing what is going on in your winery then you can use Twitter to help direct traffic there. Same goes for your newsletter. If you let people know that you’re compiling a newsletter by announcing it on Twitter then you are likely to build up your subscriber list. A Facebook ‘fan page’ is great for posting photos and videos of your winery and staff – especially if you don’t have a website that allows you to easily put that kind of multimedia online. Again, Twitter can help direct traffic to Facebook and build up your online following there.
(3) Make sure you update Twitter regularly and Interact. This is very important – if you're not interacting with other Twitter users (including wineries, consumers and scribes) your following won't grow as quickly. To build your online following you're best to post status updates (Tweet) regularly and reply to the Tweets of others. To understand how this works, when another winery replies to a Tweet of yours all the followers of that winery see the message and can quite easily start following you as well. Just make sure your replies are relevant and worthwhile. It's important to post regularly because only a small fraction of the people following you see your Tweet at any one time. Twitter is real time and people can follow hundreds if not thousands of other users so it's easy for your messages to get lost in all the noise.
If all this talk of social media tools is new to you or you'd like some assistance to get setup, we’re pleased to offer a new consulting service for the wine industry. We have more information available on our website.
We'd love to have you as part of our online community - click below to follow us.
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Until next time - all the best
The VINx2 team
