There has been lots of wine tweet ups over recent months, and for many of us in the industry, there is a risk of getting some tweet up fatigue. However, I challenge you to think about these big global days as more of an opportunity to engage with your consumers and the trade about your products – you don’t need to participate in all of them, but if varietal days are focusing on products that are your strengths, there’s a global audience there to talk to, facilitate trial and raise awareness.
Many of these varietal days have now been going for a few years and as the first sort of wine tweet up events are gaining real momentum as people work out the best way of participating and capitalizing on learnings from past events. What you make of these days is really dependent on how you participate and how broadly you engage your customers to help tell the message.
The recent #Chardonnay day tastings attracted an audience with reach of over 4.2 million people globally with over 3000 people getting involved and tweeting. To give, some context, as Rick Bakas noted “For one day, the reach and impressions of the #Chardonnay day community rivaled and surpassed that of the world’s largest wine publication.”
We don’t have the exact local figures, but in Australia we certainly had the largest global participation and there’s been lots of anecdotal reports from retailers, producers and consumers alike that a range of new chardonnays were discovered and it’s helped a long way with a discussion about the different styles of Chardonnay being produced.
Now are you interested in how this can be of value to your brand?
THE RUNDOWN – DATES AND SITES TO REGISTER
Here’s the dates and rundown on where you can get more information – it’s not just an event for Australia so if you’re a producer from another country, get involved and start to gather some interest. Australian based headquarters and tasting venues will be posted by the end of the week.
- Pinot Noir Day – 18th August 2011
This one has a bit of a twist, it’s called Pinot Smackdown and whilst tweeting about your favourite Pinot Noir, you also need to vote by Country – so come on Australian producers, get involved and add #au to your tweets aswell to show our Pinots are amongst the best in the world.
More information – visit the host Ed Thralls website on Winetonite
Register on eventbrite –
- Cabernet Day – 1 September 2011
The Northern Hempishere will be all over this one and early indications showing that this could possibly be the largest global tweet up held to date. Australia making some amazing Cabernet so let’s show the world how good our Cabernet can be!
Some tips on how to get involved from Rick Bakas website
Register on eventbrite site
- Grenache Day – 24 September 2011
WHAT’S COMING NEXT:
Over the next week I’ll be posting information about where and when to get involved in Australia as well as where to send samples for wineries who have great wines that they want to include in tastings. If you’re keen on hosting a function where people can go to participate, DM me on twitter (@mastermindtb) and I can add your venue to the samples list.
Hope you’ll get involved!
Keen to understand more about tweet ups – here’s some of my previous posts that might be of interest
- Tweet Ups – what is all the Buzz about
- Listening to brand mentions – useful to monitor what’s being said about your brand in these events
PS – incase you were asking what about Shiraz/ Syrah? – I am planning on hosting a big Shiraz event next March/ April – timing to work better with Southern Hemisphere release schedule so if you’re making great Shiraz, fear not, an opportunity is coming!
