by Tim Elliott on August 5, 2011
A Facebook page has become one of the most engaging social media tools for wineries so driving more people to “like” your page is a priority. Facebook has rolled out several social tools over the past few months and my current favorite is the Facebook Like Box. This tool brings your Facebook page wall to your website or blog but also allows visitors to “like” your page without going to Facebook. And it’s a very easy 3 step process to add your own Facebook Like Box to your site:
- Visit your Facebook page and get your Facebook Page URL. Hopefully this is a vanity URL you have set after your first 25 likes but a standard URL will work.
- Visit the Facebook Like Box page and fill in the form. You can make the widget the same size as your website or blog sidebar. Once you are done, click on the “Get Code” button and copy the iframe code at the top or XFBML code on the bottom (that’s what’s in my sidebar right now).
- Paste this code into your site where you want it. For WordPress sites, just paste into a plan text widget on your sidebar.
You can see this in action at the Cartograph blog. The only downside is the widget takes a moment to load since it’s coming from Facebook. I think this slight loading delay is very much worth it given the benefits the widget brings to your site.
by Tim Elliott on August 2, 2011
Producing content regularly on Twitter and Facebook is essential to driving growth and engagement. And there are plenty of tools to help automate the process of announcing new posts or sharing interesting links. One of my favorites is Twitterfeed, a free service that easily lets you publish any RSS feed content automatically to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and several other services.
Setup is easy, just enter your RSS feed in the first step and then choose the service you would like to pipe the feed content into. There are controls in the advanced section to set polling frequency, add a prefix, hashtag, or control the number of entries send each time. If you post to Facebook, Twitterfeed can be used to update personal profiles or Facebook Pages making this an easy way to pipe blog posts into that social network. Another interesting use case is posting your Google Reader shared items via the RSS feed found on your Reader public profile page.
Once setup, you don’t have to worry about posting feed updates manually anymore. If you have a creative use case for Twitterfeed, post them up in the comments.
by Tim Elliott on August 1, 2011
Click image for larger view
When signing up for a Facebook Page, you are confronted with a decision that seems fairly obvious: which classification best fits your business? And while it seems to make little difference on the surface, choosing a classification poorly can effect your results on the social network. So let’s review your choices and explore the best selection for wineries.
To start the process of building your Facebook Page just click on the “Create a Page” link in the footer (note: you can now create a Facebook Page without a personal profile if you prefer). You will immediately see six choices shown in the image to the right. The top three are the ones wineries should consider but I recommend the one on the far right titled, “Brand or Product.” This is due to two reasons. First, wineries sell products and build brands. Second, there is a “Wine/Spirits” category in the listing for only that option that will help people find you in search. Yes, wineries are also “places” but Facebook Places pages can easily be combined into any Facebook Page regardless of classification (more on that next week).
I’m sure many wineries might be wondering if they can change their classification but unfortunately this is not possible right now. Since many Facebook Pages were created when only one classification was available (“Company, Organization, or Institution”) I expect this to change. And when it does, I’ll be sure to write about it here. In the meantime, choose Brand or Product.”
by Tim Elliott on July 12, 2011
It has been exactly two weeks since Google announced their new social networking service Google+. And some early adopting wineries are already kicking the tires even if the service is still in a limited release requiring an invitation (more on that later). So I thought I would give a short summary of what Google+ offers wineries and some impressions after using the service for a few days.
First, Google+ reminds me a lot of Twitter circa early 2007 although it shares more with Facebook and Friendfeed than the popular micro-blogging platform. It has the same vibe as Twitter five years ago and many of the same early adopters in the wine industry are there right now attempting to figure out where it fits in our industry. Google+ is sort of a mashup of Facebook and Twitter but does not require the friend permissions system of Facebook making it more open and indexable into Google’s search engine. But to their credit, Google has also provided ways to post content to limited groups of people, a la Facebook.
The main difference from Facebook is Google+ enables you to build communities of interest called Circles using an innovative, game-like interface. Google gets you started with obvious Circles such as Family, Friends, and Acquaintances but you can create as many as you like. Even better, you can put people into multiple circles so you can both follow and message based upon interest or relationship. Once your Circles are complete you can choose to post to them or to everyone you are connected to. So for instance I can post wine-related content to wine industry contacts and bloggers and vacation photos to just my family and friends. This feature is much easier to use than Facebook friend groups which I abandoned quite a while back.
There are other innovative features to Google+ but the most interesting to me is Hangouts. These are ad-hock video conferences between up to 10 participants. Last Friday evening Rick Bakas hosted such a Hangout sharing weekend wine picks. Since most laptops these days come with video cameras, Hangouts are much easier to do and is currently totally free. I see great potential for wineries using Hangouts to connect with customers, hold small virtual tastings, and extend their customer service.
But like Twitter in early 2007, I don’t see an immediate need for wineries to adopt Google+ just yet. Later this year company profiles will be launched providing a winery with Facebook Page-like functionality. Until then I recommend only early adopters jumping in and creating a personal profile to join the conversation and check it out. If any readers don’t yet have a Google+ invite, just send me an email to acanmedia (at) gmail (dot) com and I will hook you up (Google profile or Gmail is required right now).
Google+ shows a lot of promise for being an alternative to Facebook AND Twitter. Once Google integrates more of their services to this social network it may surpass Facebook as the most engaging social platform for wineries. But it’s very, very early days right now. You can connect with me on Google+ here.
A Facebook page has become one of the most engaging social media tools for wineries so driving more people to “like” your page is a priority. Facebook has rolled out several social tools over the past few months and my current favorite is the Facebook Like Box. This tool brings your Facebook page wall to your website or blog but also allows visitors to “like” your page without going to Facebook. And it’s a very easy 3 step process to add your own Facebook Like Box to your site:
