Instagram: Content Strategy – part 1
Digital presence is essential for any business nowadays. Can’t ran away from It anymore. Digital presence for wineries will include a decent website with client’s data collector (email or phone) and couple of social media accounts. The must have ones are – Instagram & Facebook. YouTube, Twitter and Tiktok are also great platforms but they are harder to manage.
So, Instagram is one of the top three social platforms for businesses to market through video (Animoto, 2018) and also image. Remember that 2/3 of Instagram users are under the age of 35, so if your *Buyer persona is at that age, you should use Instagram as your main marketing platform. If not, you can use it as a branding platform.
*Buyer persona – is your ideal customer based on data and research. Want to know more, go to this link - https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-research
As a matter of fact, most of the wineries post about what happens in the vineyards – pruning, bud-burst, shoots grow, flowering, version and of course the harvest; and in the winery - all the work done during the vintage; also awards and other updates.
When I ask marketing managers of wineries in Israel about why do they post only about the events from vineyard and the winery, most if not all of them answer - “Isn’t it enough?”
Maybe it is, if you want to blend in but if you want to stand out in the wine market and use your social media to promote sales – you need a content strategy that will help you to plan which content will suit your buyer person better.
I will give 9 tips to start with before creating a full content strategy:
1. Buyer persona – ask yourself who is the typical buyer of your wine? Yes, the ideal would be that everyone will want to buy your wine, but it doesn’t work like that. Even Moët & Chandon Champagne brand (that is already world famous) have a buyer persona.
2. Different & helpful content - different wine people need (or want) to see different content, so when you post a photo or a video you should start thinking about who you are talking to. With so many wineries posting basically the same content to their followers, it’s important to differentiate yours. How? Focus on unique topics and don’t be afraid to show what makes your winery unique.
3. Branding through Topic Clusters – think about what information about yourself you would want to share with your customers. Do you sell easy going sparkling wine or mostly heavy but elegant red wines? Do you want to speak about region quality or about fun experience of wine drinking?
4. Stay consistent with your posts (twice a week is good start) and try to ensure that everything you post is instantly recognizable with your winery. Remember that you only less than a second to capture someone’s attention, so be creative!
5. Micro-Influencers – find people who already like your wine/ drink it/ speak about, follow them and keep them close - they can be useful for your winery. Micro-influencers are brand advocates who may have as few as 2,000 followers on social media, but they actively promote brands they care about.
6. Informative account & feed – create a solid Instagram account with a good profile picture and a quality bio with useful links. I advise to use Liinks.com – it’s free and you can put many links to the best information you have.
7. Business Facebook page & Instagram account – open a Facebook page and connect it to you Instagram account and switch to a business profile. Only on those you can see which content works better than other. Set clear goals for your posts – you want more shares; you want just to reach more people, or you want people to contact you for more info?
8. Personal customer service - not just me but 60% of Americans believe that customer service through social media has made it easier to get their questions answered and issues resolved. Part of your content should help customers find where to buy your wines, help them contact you and help them to get a good service.
9. Accessibility - what if I told you that your marketing content was excluding an audience of roughly 61 million people in the United States? 1 in 4 people live with a disability in the United States. Accessibility is an attribute, and inclusive design is a method. Read more about Accessible Marketing – HERE.
So, here some basics to start with, but a good content strategy is much more. In the next part I would give some specific examples from different wineries accounts. That will be fun.