Media Monitoring 2.0

The first step wineries should take in social media is to monitor what is being said about them online. Media monitoring has been around for years and PR firms have distributed press clippings as part of their service to clients. These days it’s easy to follow the discussion online in forums, blogs and websites in near real time.

The best tool to start with is Google Alerts which can be setup via email or RSS feeds. This free service works with relevant search terms and can be customized to meet the needs of wineries of any size. To set up an alert, your first stop is Google News where you enter your search term. Your winery name is a good place to start. Once you see the initial results, you can tweak your search to filter out non-related results. If your winery name alone does not return relevant results, add a single space and the word “wine.” Google uses those terms together to filter down your search results. For example, “sebastiani wine” returns better results than simply “sebastiani.”

Once you determine your best search terms, look for the “News Alerts” link on the left sidebar. This is where you can enter your email address and determine how often you want to receive notifications. For users of RSS feed readers such as Google Reader or NewsGator, alerts can be subscribed via RSS or Atom feeds.

I suggest most users start with email alerts as they are easier to manage and might be more convenient to your daily workflow. While you are signing up for your alert, you will notice a drop-down to select the source type. The default of “News” is a good one to start with but “Blog” is also recommended. This second choice will send results from Google’s blog search service and will provide you with information being published in the growing wine blogosphere. Alerts can also be setup with other services such as Technorati but most of your monitoring needs will be met via Google’s free services.