Wineries on Twitter? How Tweet it is!

Wineries on Twitter

After researching and reporting about wineries on Facebook recently, I thought it would be interesting to do the same for Twitter. And as I suspected … yes… many wineries are taking the opportunity to get their message out on Twitter as well as Facebook (not surprising since a very high percentage of the top Facebook wineries indicated they are on Twitter as well).

Anyone care?   Well, on July 30 over 100,000  Twitter followers did!

That’s the number of followers that have signed up to “listen to” over 170 wineries that are currently tweeting.

Note: Regarding Wineries on Twitter

1. As with the research on Facebook, it is only possible to gather data in a “moment in time”. Unlike other mediums, 24 hours can make a big difference in the numbers (case in point, EaglesNestWinery increased their followers by 128 in the last 24 hours!).  With that in mind, the numbers below reflect the data as of July 29,2009.
2. The numbers on Twitter and WeFollow did not match exactly, but were always relatively close and did not seem to skew the placement
3. In some cases WeFollow listed companies that were wine related (such as tour companies, etc.) but were not wineries. These were not included.
4. Listings on WeFollow are based on tags. Both the tag “winery” and “wineries” were used to identify the listings.
5. As with the previous study, the research focuses on the top 50 wineries, with specific details and recognition for the top 5

Top5 Wineries on Twitter

#1 EaglesNestWinery (CA, USA) takes the top honors with 6772 followers.   Their ratio is .92 (followers divided by follows), with 1113 tweets.

#2 In the number two slot is Teusner Wine (Barossa, Australia) with 4828 followers, a ratio of .91, and 1536 tweets

#3 Carpozzi Winery (pinotblogger) is #3 (CA, USA) with 3408 followers, a ratio of .99, and 3790 tweets

#4 In the #4 slot is Tassel Ridge Wines (Iowa, USA) with 3004 followers, a ratio of .91, and 1317 tweets

#5 Finishing up the top 5, Mouton Noir Wines (NYC, USA) with 2648 followers, a ratio of 1.08, and 1589 tweets

Regarding the top 50 wineries:

Click here to download the full list of the top 50 Wineries on Twitter as of July 28, 2009

• Total followers = 70,229 (average = 141405, median = 1019)
• Total follows = 76,377 (average = 1528, median = 1166)
• Total Tweets = 51882 (average = 1038, median = 477)
• Average ratio (followers/following) = .97, Median = .9
• All but 5 had custom themes
• Location: 1 Australia, 3 Canada, 1 Germany, 5 New Zealand, 1 Spain, 36 USA
• (In USA: 25 California, 1 Georgia,1 Illinois, 1 Iowa, 1 Massachusetts, 1 Miami, 2 New York, 1 Ohio, 3 Oregon)
• In terms of activity where more than 25 tweets in 24 hours = high, more than 15 but less than 25 = med, less than 10 = low , and 0 = none, there were 5 high, 4 med, 22 low, 19 none
• Tags are used to help find the accounts on Twitter. The top tag was “winery” used 40times and the second was “wine” used 37 times (39 if counting other language use – vino/wein). The location of the winery was used by 13 of the top 50, while varietals were tagged by 4. Other tags used included “winemaker” (12), “vineyard” (5), “wineblogger” (3), “winemakers” (2), “wineries” (2) and “wineblogger” (2). Other terms used once only included “sustainability”, “sustainable”, “sommelier”, “tourism”, “farm”, “education”, “tasting”, “tastingroom”, “vlogger”, “blogger”, “fun”,  “foodie”,  “family”, and “agritourism”.

Conclusions:

• Wineries are actively using Twitter to connect with current and/or potential customers
• Its never too early to start .. Carpozzi is #2 waiting on the first vintage!
• None of the top 50 wineries on Twitter match up with the top 50 wineries on Facebook. Why? My opinion is that Twitter and Facebook although both social networking sites, are basically very different, and as a result participation on one or both likely takes on a different priority for the individual wineries.  According to a recent post on Mashup -  ”While on the surface many social networks look the same, there are significant differences, both in their structure and what they emphasize, but also in the attitude that users bring. The more we understand these, the more we can know which social networks to use for what purposes.” As an example, whereas one may use Twitter as a primary communications vehicle (microblog), others may see Twitter as a secondary vehicle to drive more activity on their website, blog, or Facebook page.
• The “volume” of tweets is much less important than the “quality” of tweets in terms of finding followers. In other words, it is much more important to understand and tweet about things of interest to your target audience than simply tweeting for the sake of it.
• For the most part, the top 50 have a close ratio of follows to followers indicating a balance that may be simply a result of “follow those that follow you”, or it may mean the wineries are doing a good job of attracting their target audience (real mutual interest).
• Tags are instrumental in helping to identify the wineries. A vast majority (48/50) of the top wineries used the term “winery” versus ”wineries”. Those thinking of setting up an account should take care in the tags used to identify themselves.

(NOTE: I will be updating this post within the next few days with the results of a survey of the top 50 wineries on Twitter, which should provide a great deal more insight as to the approach and benefit realized to date – stay tuned!)