Get involved in #Chardonnay day on 26 May

There’s less than a month to go until #Chardonnay day on 26 May, 2011 - now in its second year and momentum is growing daily. Following the global success of #Cabernet Day, #hunterwine, #yarrawine, #barossawine and other initiatives like The Rose Revolution (#roserev) there’s much more awareness on how participating in such global tastings can have an impact on your brand and connect you to like minded consumers and influencers. Well worth getting involved – register here   

According to ABS Vineyard Estimates 2010, over 45% of total white grape varietals harvested in Australia in 2010 were Chardonnay, so this is a perfect opportunity to engage the wine loving community. There’s endless quotes and commentary on the quality and stylistic changes that have taken place by Chardonnay producers on a global scale (no longer about big oaked Chardonnays), and days like this give us a chance to encourage trial and get some great products back into consumers buying repertoire. It’s no longer the days of “Anything But Chardonnay” so let’s utilise this global opportunity to get some trial and tell the stories about the amazing Chardonnay wines being produced.

What exactly is Chardonnay Day?

This is a global day to talk about Chardonnay via social media platforms. There’s no concurrent tasting, conversations will take place in the time zone of country participating. Anyone can get involved. Simply post up comments on twitter, facebook, youtube, gowalla, foursquare or other social media platforms.

Use the #chardonnay in your posts/ tweets and follow the conversations taking place on the day.

Here’s a few tips to get involved:

• Engage with consumers – sell trial packs of your chardonnay in advance – whether this is a special Chardonnay trial pack on your website, special offers on your Chardonnay through cellar door, features in your eNewsletters or deals to the trade it’s an opportunity to get trial of your products and get consumers tasting.
• Make it easy to join in the conversation – many consumers are intimidated to talk about the wines, particularly on twitter. Help them get involved in the conversations – print out a sheet of your tasting notes to put in with packs sold and create a letter to include on what is chardonnay day and how they can get involved.
• Create content in advance – Don’t leave it to the last minute to start planning. Those who have had success with similar days in the past have thought about their participation in advance and created relevant content. Videos, blog posts, having tasting notes accessible will allow you to tell your messages.
• Organise a meet up – Creating an opportunity for people to get involved and meet up is a great way of sharing the wines. This can be as simple as a tasting in your cellar door on the day, approaching local venues about hosting a tasting or just getting together with friends. Whilst not mandatory it makes it easy to follow along with the conversations by having a big screen and watching the flow of conversations on a program like www.twitterfall.com or tweetdeck.com makes it easy to see the conversations taking place all over the world. If you’re holding a meet up, register on  so that others can come along.
• Collaborate with others – In many cases there’s a regional/ stylistic story to be told as well as a brand message. Talk to your regional wine association about how you can create some regional content and work together to get the message out. A great way to create some videos in advance. If your own cellar door is not participating, why not see if you can get some other producers from your region together and sample your wines up against other international examples?

Retailers/ Restaurants/ Sommeliers- This is also a great opportunity for you to generate some incremental sales and generate some further understanding of different styles of chardonnay being produced. Why not consider:

• Tastings on the day – in store tastings on chardonnays. Talk to consumers about the different styles and regions and get your producers involved.
• Chardonnay by the glass specials for the week of Chardonnay Day or specific food matches with Chardonnay on the menu
• Mixed cases of regional Chardonnays sold in advance in tasting packs so people can get involved
• Wine Dinners – Great opportunity to have a tasting menu with different regional chardonnays.

If you need more information, send me a tweet to @mastermindTB or email me on Trish@mastermindconsulting.com.au – happy to help you spread the word and get more involved. If you want to get your logo on the Eventbrite site, then simply email it to rbakas@mac.com

Details about the #Sydney #Chardonnay event are coming together and will be published over the week, but let me know if you’re keen to submit samples for tasting.

Let’s make this a global success and remember why we love this grape varietal in the process.

Starting out on twitter is not as hard as it may seem…

It’s been great to see so many new people and wineries join twitter over the last few weeks.  Given that the research shows that up to 60% of people abandon twitter within the first few months of joining, I thought it was useful to share a few of my top tips to get you started and keep you on your twitter journey:

1.  Download a program like Tweet Deck (www.tweetdeck.com) or Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) to help manage your tweets – this will help you to set up searches, manage your followers and build lists so you can follow people. There are also lots of extra features that allow you to search, follow people, set up automated tweets, and analytics tools. Having a twitter application for your mobile phone will also make it easier to tweet on the go and be able to respond to conversations whilst you are out and about. I like the Tweet deck app for my i-Phone but I also hear great comments about the twitter application (both downloadable through i-Phone app store).

2. Engage –  join in conversations, respond to people and don’t be afraid to talk to people. Hit the @ respond button and let people know you are there by joining into discussions.  Don’t think of twitter as a way of broadcasting your messages, you need to be having conversations with others in addition to just talking about your own content.

3. Complete your biography – add in a picture so you don’t just have an egg as an avatar and make sure you complete your bio information including links to your website or your blog. People need to know who they are following and what your interests are to work out whether you’re worth following and engaging with.

4. Use a URL shortener like bit.ly (www.bit.ly) or tinyurl - your 140 characters are precious and url shorteners allow you to make the most of your characters as well as being able to report on how many people clicked on your link.  Don’t just shorten links though; look at some of the analytics behind them to see how many people clicked on your links. Many of the desktop applications like Tweet Deck allow you to choose your URL shortener, but don’t forget to add your API code in so you can track your results.

5. Re-tweet the good stuff - show people you care and share content that you think others will find interesting or relevant.

6. Cross promote and let people know that you are there – if you’re a winery then include your twitter handle on your all your communications collateral and create some signs through out your cellar door telling people your twitter account (as well as other social media platforms that you may use, like Facebook). There is often criticism that twitter is just used to talk to one another in the wine industry, but if you truly engage your audience you’ll find that you will have your consumers involved in a dialogue and that will help translate to sales.

1. 7. Use Direct Messages – not everything needs to be publically discussed. If you are following someone and they are following you back then it’s worth having many conversations via direct message. You don’t need to clog up your content stream with many conversations that can take place privately – I call it the ‘Shane Warne Analogy’ – that some things should be kept to yourself!
2. 8.Include Hashtags – this is a fantastic way to be able to follow threads of conversations and get involved in discussions and find other people to follow who have similar interests.

9. Start lists and groups to classify people - Lists and groups are probably the least used tools on twitter but are a great way to help you segment conversations. As you build your following it’s impossible to see all the conversations, so by classifying people onto lists you will be able to focus in on certain people and topics and make it easier to engage. You can choose to make a list public or private. For example, my Australian winery list can be followed and added to search fields and then I can see all the conversations from people on that list without having to individually follow them. http://twitter.com/MastermindTB/australian-wineries

10. Be patient – this is not a platform to build direct sales, twitter is truly about building and managing relationships. Of course on occasions there’s are opportunities for offers, but people don’t want to be spammed. It will take time to cultivate your community but the rewards will be there in the end in ways you would never have imagined.

Remember, twitter is still a relatively new platform and is constantly evolving – there are no set rules. There are also plenty of people who are willing to help you get started so don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Good luck and happy tweeting.