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26 WINES&VINES April 2018 Viewpoint I f you're one of the 7,723 wineries in the United States producing less than 5,000 cases per year, you've got your hands full. Your days are likely filled with the everyday work of making wine and running a business. What is often overlooked (or not even present) on the mile-long to-do list are the basics of social media marketing. It takes time to understand the various platforms and de- termine where your winery should be. Is Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest the best way to attract customers and get them into your winery? It can be hard to post as often as needed or to be thoughtful about your communication, but a little effort can go a long way to increase wine sales. Nearly five years ago, I left my 15-year career in corporate marketing to start out on my own as a marketing consultant. Through my work, I talk to many wineries that are struggling to keep the doors open but doing very little in the way of mar- keting—not due to a lack of desire, but because they just don't know where to start. I started The Social Sip, a social media marketing company for wineries, out of my passion for market- ing, wine and a desire to help wineries succeed. The No. 1 reason businesses succeed or fail is their ability to attract customers. While regularly posting on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter may seem like a daunting task, it's critical for attracting new customers. In addition to consulting with other wineries, I'm also the co-owner of Fletcher Bay Winery on Bainbridge Island, Wash., and have had the chance to experiment with social media tactics for my own winery to find out what really works. Instead of being every- where and managing business pages for so- cial media platforms, it's best to begin where your customers are. Identify your target d e m o g r a p h i c a n d start with which plat- f o r m s y o u t h i n k they're on. If your tar- get is women who like pairing food with wine and finding new recipes, Pinterest is the place to be. If your target is a younger demo- g r a p h i c a n d you can create highly visual, beautiful content, Instagram is where you should start. Facebook continues to be the most widely used social media platform, with 66% of American internet users and 2.13 billion monthly active users as of Dec. 31, 2017. At a minimum, your winery should be on Facebook and actively posting and engag- ing with potential customers. Here are some things you can do to leverage Facebook as a tool to increase sales: Add events: If your winery hosts events, in addition to posting them to your website, add them to the events tab on Facebook. Facebook Local is a newish app that is quickly becom- ing the hot spot for millennial consumers looking for local events. If your winery's event is posted on your Facebook events tab, it will automatically appear in Facebook Local app searches. Let them shop: Add your wines to the shop tab on Facebook. If you have a website where you sell your wines, link it to your Facebook shop. If you don't sell your wines online, Facebook can help you set up a shop through your business page. Go live: Videos get many, many times more shares, likes, comments and engagements than static posts. Live videos are even better than a pre-recorded video and get viewed three times longer than videos that aren't live. This translates into more exposure for your winery, and more people purchasing your wines as a result. Quality counts: Create quality content, not quantity. Face- book recently announced changes to their algorithms that will prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful inter- actions between people on Facebook. This means that frequent posts without much meaning will be shown less frequently to your audience. People will have to visit your page to see these posts. In terms of your winery, this means you need to become thoughtful and strategic about your posts. Ask questions to engage your audience and start a conversation. Create more live videos, which still have reach inside your newsfeed. If this sounds overwhelming and you're not sure where to start, here are some ideas for creating live videos: • Interview your winemaker when a new wine is released. Talk about what makes this wine awesome, why you picked that varietal and its flavor characteristics. Always include a call to action at the end of your post or video. Here are a couple examples: • To try this wine for yourself, visit the winery Saturday at 3 p.m. for our release party. • Stop by the winery to get your bottle of this limited release before it's gone. • Order a bottle on our website under the shop tab. (Note: Always include a link to your website for ease of shopping. Make it a trackable link using a shorten- n BROOKE HUFFMAN How to Use Facebook to Increase Winery Sales