Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Quit talking about yourself, and start being yourself (another social media lecture)

Most of you are creating noise. I follow tons of wineries, distributors and wine people in general. Most of you are selling, or trying to sell. Instead, you are selling out. Social media is the wrong medium for selling (directly). As a member of the community, your obligation is to show yourself or your brand as being candid and authentic. Be you. This is why you have followers, because people want to hear what you have to say. They want a rallying cry. They want your unedited opinion. They must already like you or your brand. It's the difference between selling cars and working in a restaurant. Cars, you have to make sure the customer doesn't leave, so you sell them on everything. In restaurants, they're already engaged, you don't need to sell them on how great your food is anymore. Your followers are already in your restaurant. Now that they're there, you have a chance to engage them, inspire them, humor them, or make them think. Nothing is more authentic or effective than you being you.

3 comments:

  1. Great suggestion - such a disappointment to get to a website or blog and see the same advertising all over again.

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  2. My completely unscientific survey of winery activity on facebook & twitter reveals that 80% of their tweets & posts go without any comment from their so-called friends & followers. Wineries fail to engage/inspire/entertain because (as you correctly point out) they misuse the platform.

    Without “dialog” there is nothing “social” about social media. Without dialog it is, effectively, advertising. And really lame advertising at that.

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  3. Great post. Short and straight to the point! I never thought about the car vs restaurant analogy before. Thanks for that tip

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