There doesn’t seem to be an abundance of online wine influencers. There are people like Alder Yarrow, who maintain a blog and consistent following with a separate URL. But last week, Michael Preis mentioned that the wine industry “sucks” at social media in general. One of the reasons cited was that the wine world is “a bunch of old white men” who have trouble connecting with millennial thinking. Another reason is the touchy advertising laws surrounding promoting alcohol on social media— one wrong retweet can get you in a whole lot of trouble. What does the world of social media and wine look like for influencers?
There are dozens of IG influencers in the wine space, ranging from a 40,000 to over 150,000 followers. [1] Most of them are called something along the lines of “wine lovers” and don’t associate with a particular person. Here’s one with a funny name:
There’s usually little information about the person running the page— the main content focus is wine. A lot of them seem to be shared between many people submitting. During my scrolling, I did not see any disclaimers about sponsored content or advertisements. Would it be legal for these pages, or a more traditional influencer like Kim Kardashian, to endorse a wine? The answer is yes, and it is quite straightforward for influencers. Influencers are required to disclaim the post as an official advertisement through the appropriate mechanism on Instagram. [5] The trouble is primarily for official social media accounts for wine businesses. For instance, a winery would not be able to repost DJ Khaled holding their wine bottle, because “content created by a third
party and reposted by an industry member, is part of the
fan page and therefore considered to be part of the
advertisement.” [4] There's a lot of restrictions surrounding what wineries can post- only last February could wineries even start promoting events at retail locations! [5] So it seems that influencers would be a really good way to reach large audiences without struggling with legal restrictions on what to post.
However, it seems that wine producers are not promoting their products with influencers for reasons other than the laws surrounding posting. Below are the top alcohol brands using social media influencers: [3]
Not much wine on there… Perhaps this is because of an overabundance of wine brands— it’s just not worth it. With something like Coors beer, there is only one brand to promote. With wine, there might be too many options to design a social media campaign surrounding one wine. Another reason could be that wine marketers aren’t familiar with social media, and have trouble collaborating with influencers because of a generational/cultural difference. It is also possible that social media is not effective for promoting wines in particular, because the target demographic isn’t present. Wine might also be hard to market on social because it does not have the ‘party’ associations that pair very easily with hard alcohol and beer.
What are your thoughts on influencers promoting wine? Have you seen any collaborations or paid/promoted posts, and why do you think there isn't as much of this promotion as with other alcohols?
[4] https://dtcwinesymposium.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/DTCWS19_StayingLegalSocialMedia-1.pdf
Roma,
ReplyDeleteReally like this post, and I have been thinking about this topic as well given the comment made by our speaker last week.
Given the time I've had to think about this, my response to the speaker would likely be that you should not build a social media account, with the goal of influencing, focused on the wine. It is not about the wine, in the same way it is not actually about the Jack Daniel's or Tito's. It is about what you do with those products, the lifestyle they fit in, and the aspirations of the people who you want to consume the product or who already do.
For example, I think the most successful wine influencers online would never let you know they are sponsored by a wine brand. If they did it truly right, you would have no idea. Now, whether the people behind those campaigns are old white men is unknown to me, nor do I care. I simply don't agree though that it is the reason the wine industry is not innovating on social media. Similar to a conversation all too common between business and engineering co founders, "it is not about the widget" is a school of thought I believe social media leaders in wine need to better understand in order to win this space of marketing.
That all being said, I appreciate and understand the restrictions in place and really think you did a great job highlighting them Roma. Thank you.