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As a winery engages in conversational marketing one of the first places they setup shop is on Facebook. The social network provides wineries with a destination to foster community and engage customers directly. It also acts as an extension of a permission email campaign making things like events very easy to send to friends of the winery.
But Facebook also presents a winery with a decision of which type of presence, on a Page or a Group. Both offer similar features so it’s probably best to start with what makes them different. Facebook Pages present a winery to anyone on the internet, registered to Facebook or not. It’s content is also indexed into search engines like any other webpage. Facebook Groups, like personal profiles, require the visitor to join before they are able to view the content and participate. This feature alone is enough for many to just choose Pages but Groups also has a major advantage over Pages; bulk invites. This feature allows anyone in the group to pass group invites along to their network of friends giving the winery viral marketing benefits.
But two other features really make Facebook Pages compelling for wineries: visitor metrics and social ads. While Groups only gives the winery a count of membership, Pages goes on step further with page views and other visitor statistics. Additionally, targeted social ads can be launched on Facebook pointing them back to your Page (wine is no longer prohibited in their advertising guidelines).
Therefore I always recommend Facebook Pages over Groups to wineries if they are not doing both. Groups can still be used for hosting forum-like discussions (with wine club members, for example) while a Page is used to promote the brand generally. But if you are choosing only one, Pages is the best choice.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually, Facebook Pages have a discussion application that can be added as a tab on the new layout. Pages are the appropriate channel for brands to reach Facebook.
Thanks Jeremiah… probably should have pointed that out in the post. We agree about Pages as the best choice for wineries or really any brand on Facebook.
Hi Tim-
Thanks for your insight here. Lots of wineries are set up as 'normal profiles' – we are too. I was looking into the new features of the FB pages, and I think they could do a great job to connect with winery fans.
Would you suggest to wineries to ditch their 'normal profiles' in favor of pages? And how would you suggest converting your profile 'friends' to page 'fans'?
Cheers!
Joe Lange
LangeTwins Winery and Vineyards
Facebook doesn't like company profiles so I do suggest you create a page from a personal profile. Then you can send out a message to all your friends on your profile to become fans (this might take a few messages over time to get them all converted). You can have more than one person from the winery administer the new page. For all the reasons listed in the post, I think pages are the best way for a winery to promote themselves on Facebook.
And here's a bonus link for extra reading which will inspire another post here soon.
Hello Tim!
Didn’t see our little winery in your FB list so I thought I should drop you a line to let you know that we do exist and we do think social media is a must especially for us smaller ones n a big world.
We recently launched our web site at http://www.ilios-o.com where FB, videos and other web 2.0 gadgets will be our way to communicate with the consumers.
Greetings form sunny Spain!
Katarina Holmér
Managing Director
k.holmer@ilios-o.com
Pages is the best choice.
For your wiki, two new winery blogs:
"il Mosnel – Franciacorta" ( http://www.quellicheilvino.it/ and http://it-it.facebook.com/pages/il-Mosnel-Francia… )
"Tenuta San Leonardo" ( http://blog.sanleonardo.it/ )