Tiago Cardoso da Silva, CEO of The Cheese & Wine Co, a company with over 100k Instagram followers, has shared insights at the Wine Communicators of Australia panel discussion “Under the Influence” on how the industry can improve its approach to social media.
Tiago was one of the key speakers at the event, held at Wine Ark, Alexandria, on Monday night. He told the drinks industry that “social media marketing is lacking”.
According to Tiago, the main problem is that brands often use social media as a means of sole marketing and commercial purposes, but this is counter intuitive to the platform, as people turn to social media for interaction and connection.
“The social media side of the wine industry is lacking,” he said. “The name says social not commercial.”
While Tiago admits that the ‘bigger’ brands are applying social media usefully, it’s often the start-ups or smaller brands that struggle to know the difference between commercial and social.
“You have a platform where you have an opportunity to communicate with the customers. When I say it’s social not commercial, I’m talking about the companies that are all about one way communication, telling their customers solely about discounts and so forth.
“But the problem is that people follow a brand because they love it, they want to know who’s making it, they want to know who in the vineyards; is there a dog, or a child running around? That is two-way communication.
“You can have dialogue and communicate with your followers anywhere on social media. People are looking for some sort of relationship, if you can tell a good story and relate to your followers on social media, your return of investment is definitely better on Instagram,” he says.
The @thecheeseandwineco certainly knows how to ‘communicate’… Anyone else really, really feel like wine and cheese right now?
Tiago taps into a really important point about marketing today and how there is a big change with how people purchase products.
“Especially in the millennial market,” he says, “They buy things from the people they trust and follow [on social media].
“Here, there’s a big opportunity for the smaller guys to actually tap into many, many people through social media.”
While he admits its difficult to track what influence social media is actually making to sales, Tiago discusses how its about a combination of factors to impact on sales, such as labeling, branding, retailer relationships, reputation, and while social media seems like just one way to convey a brand, it can make a huge impact on all these factors.
Wine Communicators of Australia examineed the who, what, when, where and how of influence in the wine scene with the panel discussion, which featured thought leaders of the industry including Jason Bowyer, Buying Director for Wines & Sparkling, ALDI Stores; Ami Sheehan, National Account Executive for Pernod Ricard Australia; Tiago Cardoso da Silva, co-CEO of @thecheeseandwineco; Sam Payne, Sommelier, Wine Writer & Wine Consultant; and Alex Retief, Owner & Winemaker for Urban Winery Sydney & A. Retief Wines.
