A few weeks ago, Michael Wangbickler wrote a post over at the Caveman Wine blog about blogger relevance. He listed 5 engagement metrics to look for that would help wineries pick who they should engage in their marketing and PR outreach. Steve Heimoff took this a bit further suggesting that, “…you know it when you see it,” when it comes to relevant wine blogs.
This discussion came to mind when I read Tom Wark’s post this morning about the new poll VinTank is conducting with wine bloggers. The Caveman also weighed in with his anticipation that the issue of blogger relevance might be solved making his job easier as a wine PR professional.
The only problem is that I don’t think blogger relevance will be answered by this study no matter what the final white paper states. That’s because nearly every wine blog is influential.
But before you go immediately to the comments and tell me I’m wrong, hear me out. I’ve come to this conclusion after searching for wine information for nearly 5 years now and have noticed that wine blogs in general are presented on the first several pages of results for a specific wine. Yes, most of the listings are for place like Wine-Searcher, WineZap and, increasingly, Snooth, but the high value content is from wine blogs. Any wine blog.
But that doesn’t mean there is not a hierarchy in wine blogs. A couple of lists are available that show you the wine blogs with the best SEO, traffic or both and this does make their reviews float toward the top of search. But it doesn’t change the fact that a good review on most any wine blog can help a winery sell more wine. It’s because most of the visitors to wine blogs find themselves there via search engines like Google (if they used a niche search tool like Able Grape, that would be another story).
So I share Tom and Michael’s enthusiasm for the VinTank report on social media. But my expectation is not the magic wine blog decoder ring but more data to support the fact that wine blogs are something wineries should seek out and engage.
Disclosure: Besides my social media consulting, I am a wine blogger and podcaster and have taken VinTank’s poll.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Tim,
Thanks for your posting. I agree that this study by VinTank will not be a "magic bullet." But rather, it will be a tool that we in wine PR can take to our managers and clients to say, "see, this is why social media matters to us." Unlike other studies on the subject that have been more general, this one will be on the wine sector specifically. That is what has me excited.
I agree that the results will be valuable, Michael. But I also think that wine blogger influence will be more difficult to quantify than critics and print wine writers.
I can't argue with you there. It isn't going to be easy, and may be a continual moving target.
While I will be pleased to see the study, I am not sure how useful it will be to any but the largest wineries. I deal with very small wineries here in Washington and am focused on helping them to maximize their impact here in the local market. I believe for the small winery it is important to start with the local voices, build rapport (and web stats) and then leverage local buzz into coverage by larger, national names. It is definitely more cost effective.
Interesting title and thanks for the article. Again, our job is not to measure who is most influential. Our position has ALWAYS been that all blogs have an audience and all audiences are valuable. Our intent is to help measure the channel and give guidance to wineries about how to work with bloggers and how much influence the aggregate channels has. I think trying to polarize our report as being judgmental of bloggers is a bit or a misdirect. Blogging is good for the wine industry – period.