Ready to win with Facebook? I encourage you to try exploring my blog to find out some really great winery Facebook best practices!
Facebook allows wineries to interact with lots of like-minded people who love wine from all over and helps them connect with relative ease. The biggest benefit is the direct communication you can create with your consumers.
Facebook lets you broadcast messages to your fans and visitors to your page who are becoming familiar with your winery. These messages are broadcasted on your page wall and streamed into your fans’ news feed. With Facebook, you can create a widget on your website to “find us on Facebook”, ask people like your wines and be able to answer questions right away.
When you put wine and Facebook together, you have a possibility to dramatically shift the way we connect with and consume wine. As a marketing tool, for many of my clients, Facebook has been huge. You can reach a mass audience with your winery’s story, virtually for free- an incredibly powerful tactic!
What makes a Great Winery Facebook Landing Page?
When non-fans arrive at your winery’s Facebook page they can be directed to a Landing Page with a simple custom Facebook page. A common practice these days is to fill your winery’s Landing or ‘Welcome’ page with an enticing graphic that encourages people to ‘Like’ your Fan page.
A landing page ensures that your winery’s customer finds a more focused and targeted message. The more focused the advertising, the better the chances of converting leads to sales.
When it comes to landing page designs, there are some stunning examples out there. Those that use the functionalities of a landing page combined with great graphics. I have included a really great example of a Napa Valley winery that makes me want to be a fan:
A landing page serves its purpose well when it provides an immediate call-to-action for its fans. St. Supery Winery’s landing page graphics led my eyes around the page, enticed me to want to click on the images to find out more, and made we want to become a fan! I think this is a smooth landing!
Your Facebook Cover Photo Is Prime Real Estate, It Better Be Great!
Is your winery effectively engaging users and potential customers with your Facebook cover photo? With the cover photo taking up most of your prime real estate, it’s important that your picture is rich and engaging above all else.
Your winery’s cover photo is a vital hook in drawing your Facebook community (and visitors) into your winery’s story (now conveyed as a timeline on Facebook), driving them to learn more about your winery and hopefully take action. I recommend that you approach your cover image much as you do your website home page.
Make Your Profile Picture a Focus.
Your profile picture is not only just seen on your profile accompanied with your cover photo, but independently, all by itself with every post you make. Because of this, your profile picture is equally as important as your cover photo as it will be seen all over Facebook with every post you make.
If you want to encourage readers to enjoy your Facebook page and stick around for more, then make your place welcoming. I recommend using a very relevant profile picture, such as your company’s logo. Select a collage of winery and vineyard photos that conveys the core message of your winery’s impact in a way that’s relevant, specific, and emotionally compelling. Note that Facebook photos may not include more than 20% text. You are allowed to have calls to action, websites and address information.
There are literally countless things you can do on this second “page” that users see, such as:
- Getting them to sign up to your email list
- Getting them to subscribe to your blog
- Encouraging them to share your fan page with their friends
Facebook Cover Correct Measurements
Instead of trying to keep up with changes in Facebook Cover & Timeline Photos by searching the Internet, check out this page that always has the latest sizes!
https://www.facebook.com/CoverPhotoSize
One size that currently works well is 851×315.
Facebook Winery Best Practices
Jordan Winery’s Facebook Journey
I wanted to share with you a winery that I think is doing a fantastic job in creating compelling content and engaging their Facebook fans. They know how to do things right!
Early adopters of social media, Sonoma County-based Jordan Winery (www.jordanwinery.com) is a winery to watch for their innovative marketing, writing, award winning The Journey of Jordan blog (Wine Blog Awards 2012 Winery Blog of the Year), winetasting video chats and an incredible Facebook fanbase (11,880 likes). Jordan even hosts tasting exclusively for Jordan Estate Rewards members and social media fans of the winery.
Jordan Winery’s Facebook Page makes extensive use of rich media and compelling content that is updated with great frequency- content that has a grass-roots approach and stays true to their brand. Jordan leverages Facebook to share the arts of winemaking, viticulture and wine country hospitality. What Jordan does really well is ask their fans for feedback. They are even starting to have some fun! I sure wish I had been at Jordan’s Festivus Maximus: Halloween Party at Jordan for the wine trade!
Kendall Jackson: How to Pick the Perfect Bottle of K-K for Any Occasion
Creating a Flow Chart to help customers choose the right wine for the right occasion helped Kendall Jackson Winery (www.kendalljacksonwinery.com) knock it out of the ballpark in Facebook fan engagement. “Pick your path and you’ll end up with a perfect bottle of K-J for any occasion”.
Kendall-Jackson’s creative flow chart graphic catapulted their Brand Rank from 34th to 4th on Winery Social Index. In the process, they had 989 shares!
Winery Facebook Best Practices
Facebook requires more than just a financial commitment, it’s also a commitment of time and energy. From owners to the winemaker to the tasting room staff, make sure your winery team is committed to making an effort to participate and contribute to your Facebook page.
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Create Posts that people want to share: Deliver a high volume of content that will inspire comments and participation.
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Produce ongoing efforts to inspire a call to action. Make a habit of offering low-risk steps your fans can take to get more involved with you such as discount coupons, a newsletter subscription, and invitations to events.
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Repeat engagement and call-to-action efforts. Think of your Facebook page as an opportunity to build relationships, not generating one-time sales or actions. You will be successful in generating valuable long-term customer relationships through repeated engagement.
Create Content that People will Share.
Facebook works really well when you are actively updating your content- your goal is to connect with wine fans and post fun and interesting content that keeps people coming back. With Facebook, it’s about telling your winery’s story. This is where the viral power of Facebook kicks in.
With Facebook, people want a story- they want an experience. Your Facebook content strategy will require a commitment to telling your story and keeping up with creating compelling, engaging content.
Facebook gives you the opportunity to tell your winery’s story and communicate your values to the wine-drinking public. You can talk directly to your customers and hear what they think. Here are some Facebook content ideas:
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Vineyard photos
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Photos: Ask fans to caption photos
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Winery Photos
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Ask for fan photos: Fan Photo Friday
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Tasting room photos
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Live tastings and video chats
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Sneak peaks of new releases
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Employee updates: travels, accolades, etc.
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Twitter updates: You can link your Twitter feed to Facebook
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Ask questions: What’s your favourite wine?
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Recipes/wine pairings
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Sustainability and community initiatives
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Recipe contests
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Events- tastings, trade events, etc.
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Promote your latest newsletter; you can include links to get the email newsletter
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Blog- you can republish content from your blog. Provide links to guide traffic to and from your web/blog site
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Contests: Facebook contests not only provide fun and engagement for your community but they can directly impact your bottom line. A contest gives people a reason to connect with you, makes your Page more fun, and attracts more people to your brand and your site. Not only that, you will collect e-mails of the people who enter your contest. Here is an example of Cedar Creek Winery’s (www.cedarcreek.bc.ca) 25th Anniversary Facebook contest that had great success:
Is Facebook playing a key role in your local marketing strategy?
Facebook provides you with a huge opportunity to make your wines so accessible to fans and new customers and get closer to the people who are most important to your winery! Be sure to check frequently for comments on the wall or discussion board and make sure that you comment back. And above all, don’t be afraid to have some fun!
Has your winery had success with Facebook? I’d love to hear about fans that were reminded about your winery by Facebook! Do you have any Facebook tips to share?
I love Facebook, for wineries, and a lot of the training I provide focuses on how to use the tool to promote direct sales. Contact me at cindy.ferrie@gmail.com to find out more.
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