Stop telling me to monetize

Seriously, quit it. Recently I have received a slew of e-mails, telling me how I could make money on my blog. There have been a ton of ideas being thrown about the blogosphere about how wine bloggers can make money with their blog. It was a set seminar topic, presented by Tim Lemke on the Sunday of the 2009 North American Wine Bloggers’ Conference (if you were lucky enough to stick around and did not have to fly back to the east coast that day), although outside of that seminar, I thought that monetization was a topic that most people stayed away from. It was almost as if it were a taboo subject. No one likes to talk about how much money they are not making for the hours they spend blogging.

Tom Wark had an idea about having wineries send him hats, which he would then sell to the Smithsonian for a bundle, to which Steve Heimoff replied that this would lead to Tom taking over the presidency (and then the world…). It might be a joke, but Tom is still wearing hats. However, before I put out such a press release I would be sure I had a good supply of hats to start with. We’ll see how long it lasts (and best luck to Tom!).

Another idea to monetize has come from a new player in the online wine blogging space. Palate Press: The Online Wine Magazine, an experiment in how to make money blogging, is the brain child of David Honig. The idea is simple; create a space with great content that covers all aspects of the wine industry and harnessing the power of thousands of bloggers around the world in order to have an “on-site reporter” at every event around the globe. Once an audience has been established and proved, revenue would stream from the marketing dollars of wineries and regional representatives to advertise on the website. David has compiled an exceptional list of wine bloggers to supply content. In fact, I have already submitted content (which was politely rejected) and I plan to submit more when I spend the time to create content of quality. I wish him well and look forward to the results of his experiment.

Joe Roberts recently posted how Wine Bloggers do not make any money. The problem stems from the lack of hard work being done. There just is not enough hustle coming from wine bloggers. What is it that Gary Vaynerchuk says? You have to crush it!

I do not want to crush it! That is not why I blog! I blog to have a space to express my opinion so that others that are interested in the same topics I am can discuss their feedback with me. I blog to give myself a reason to research wines and expand my understanding of the wine world. I blog because I know how interested my relatives are in feeling like they can hear my opinions and keep in touch with what I am doing. I blog so that my mother can yell at me whenever I make a spelling or grammar mistake.

I do not blog to make money. It is a choice I have made. I blog to enjoy myself.

Years ago, I used to fence competitively. I was reasonably good, but not great. I never made it to the Olympics and I never was really accepted on the national circuit as one of the people to beat, which lets you into the cool kids club. I did win national tournaments, and I felt damn good doing it. I was even on a national team that brought back a gold medal.

But I made the decision not to make it a career. I could have chosen to become a fencing coach, dedicate my life to fencing, and make a run at a world championship or Olympic medal. Instead, I decided to do something else with my life and I have not regretted that decision.

One day I might decide to attempt to make money on my writing. I might seriously raise the level of my writing to journalistic quality. For now, I enjoy being an amateur and making no money on wine blogging.

The Necessary Tension between Public Relations and Bloggers

After the 2009 Wine Bloggers’ Conference, there were many bloggers who felt that too many public relations and marketing representatives were there. Not only were they there, but they were there to watch.

Megan (Wannabe Wino) wrote in her post “In the Fishbowl”:

“Have you ever felt like a goldfish? It’s quite interesting really. I think the focus of the conference this year seemed to skew more towards wineries, PR folks, and other industry types. And I felt like people were there to figure out what wine bloggers are, what their motivations might be, and how best to market (I think that’s what I want to call it…) to them.”

Russ (Winehiker Witiculture) wrote in his post “The 2009 Wine Bloggers Conference: a foundation for raising the collective spirit”:

“In the hotel’s meeting halls and hallways as well as in some Napa Valley venues, bridges were not particularly being built between bloggers, PR/marketing types, and winery reps. Perhaps those that were not regularly engaged in blogging or other social media avenues were on-hand merely to witness what all the fuss was about.”

These comments inspired me to dig a little deeper into the relationship between bloggers and public relations.

Media professionals and public relations professionals strike a careful balance in the wine industry. Writers jealously guard the access to their audience while starving for information that will continue to entice readers. Public relations agencies that represent wineries have an over abundance of information that they have been charged to communicate to writers, with the intent that these editors will express such information to their audiences. With the rise of the blogosphere, many more writers have entered the arena, creating an ever increasing pool of outlets for information.

Wine bloggers themselves tend to have very little training in terms of writing for an audience craving entertainment and information. The majority of bloggers are website designers, information technology professionals, lawyers and doctors; occupations that have either given them the necessary skills to run a blog or the resources to experience the world of wine, which can be an expensive venture. Their unifying characteristic is an overwhelming passion for an alcoholic beverage created from fermented grape juice.

There is a prevalent desire among wineries and wine producing regions to be on the cutting edge of technology and media. However, the reality is that the majority of wine producers do not have the resources to follow the ever-changing technological landscape of communication. To meet this need, digital technology firms, advertising firms, and public relations agencies are now in a competition to show that each has the best understanding of the new media outlets. The drive to generate results propels winery representatives to target a wider variety of outlets and any result becomes twice as promoted, both to the nebulous consumer as well as to the client, looking for their hired representative to produce. While sometimes misunderstood, a hired agency’s primary objective is to promote their client, with a strong secondary objective to promote themselves back to their client or other potential clients. This makes bloggers a very attractive focus for these agencies.

Bloggers are currently in search of credibility and recognition. Without certifications from wine education channels, such as the Wine & Spirits Education Trust or the Society of Wine Educators, most bloggers have nothing but their word and their writing to give them defined credibility.

Steve Heimoff, blogger and West Coast Editor for Wine Enthusiast responded to a blog post by Shana (ShanaRay.com), founder of Breath(e) Media and used an example of a wine blogger being invited on a trip to show that wine bloggers can fall into numerous traps that will in the long run hurt their credibility. He wrote in “When blogs go bad”:

“The worst thing a wine blog can do is to shill, however inadvertently, for a winery or region. The minute I read about someone’s “delightful” visit to so-and-so, they’ve lost me. Visits may indeed be delightful, but the writer shouldn’t say so, because it just sounds — I don’t know — smarmy and credulous. If the blogger describes the visit as “delightful” then her credibility suffers, in my mind. What if the wines suck? Would the blogger say so? Or is the blogger so delighted with the visit — with the hospitality of the owners, the personally guided tour of the winery and caves, the lovely luncheon by the pool, catered by the winery chef, and with the gorgeous tranquility of wine country — that he’s unable even to know that the wine is mediocre?”

Shana replied:

“The news (speaking generally) has always had a bias and used scare tactics or fluff stories for the sake of entertainment. I learned at a young age to take the news with a grain of salt… Same goes with anything I read online through a blog, a tweet, a review on Yelp, or even an article in a magazine.

…You stated that you were going to explain the difference of good and bad blogs “for some of us.” My case was that for the rest of us, we read what we like...”

In the end, the only measure of credibility that really matters is the size of a publication’s audience and their influence on the buying habits of other consumers.

Earlier this year Robert Parker was challenged as to the credibility of his contracted reviewers, a charge that Robert Parker has fielded in the past and will likely come across again in the future when he is forced to relinquish his publication to the next generation. However, no matter how many confrontations his publication encounters, the name of Robert Parker is perceived by the wine industry as one of the most influential in the business today because of the influence over consumer purchasing that the Wine Advocate’s ratings embody.

Once a wine writer begins to establish credibility, the agency world begins to take notice, giving a writer more access to different aspects of the industry. The more access a writer has to their subject, the better they become at communicating the nuances and differences, which then in turn leads to better writing and the potential for larger audiences. Then credibility is considered established and the flood of information from the agency world truly begins.

A Survey of Bloggers

In July, I surveyed 100 wine bloggers on their interactions with public relations professionals and wineries. Fifty-one bloggers responded and described an interesting story about how they find their information and how they interact with the public relations world.

Wine bloggers are being reached in a similar manner to how a traditional news reporter is targeted: press releases, focused pitches, invitations to events, etc. The tactics that result in the best response from both types of media are much the same. Mass distributed press releases and story ideas with vague introductions of “Dear Esteemed Blogger” are nearly instantly deleted, while personal correspondence and interaction are rewarded with attention.

And bloggers are definitely being reached. The survey revealed that 60 percent of the bloggers that responded are contacted at least once a week by public relations professionals, with half of those being contacted at least once a day if not more. From anecdotal reports, there are a select group of public relations agencies who are reaching out to bloggers and getting fantastic returns on their outreach. Combined with the fact that wine bloggers read each others’ blogs, the reach of a single blog post can influence another blogger to purchase a wine to review, which then increases the potential audience.

However, just because a public relations agency is reaching out to bloggers does not result in an instant review. The quality of the outreach is extremely important. Only 40 percent of the bloggers surveyed found that public relations assistance was consistently helpful. In fact, 21 percent found that PR people were rarely or never helpful, which highlights the issues of inconsistent quality among the public relations world.

The main complaints that these bloggers had were that they were not being engaged by agencies looking to promote their clients and just being sent mass communications in hopes that they will write about them. What most bloggers do not understand is that this is a common occurrence among traditional journalists and has been a long-time complaint for them as well. This problem is so well documented, that there is a blog set up specifically to expose poorly conceived or written pitches that are sent en-mass to journalists nationally. I leave it to bloggers that are also journalists to tell this story better than I ever could.

The problem stems from lazy public relations practices and just as lazy editorial practices. While it seems impossible for such tactics to yield results, I submit that they must. In the same way that the majority of people would never click on a link in an obviously SPAM e-mail, such e-mails continue because they find people naïve enough to pursue the 2,800,000 Euro prize they won from some far away country, otherwise they would have long ago been abandoned. There are publications and web portals that will publish whatever is sent to them.

Wine bloggers, like the rest of the technologically advanced society, find most of their information on the internet. The survey showed that of the 51 responses, 47 went to the website of the winery to find more information about the wine they taste. The next most common way that most bloggers learn about a winery is by physically visiting the winery. I will accept that this is perhaps biased based on the fact that many wine bloggers live in wine country, however this is a good indicator to show that all aspects of a winery’s image are important, from the wine in the bottle to the people at the tasting room and through to the messaging a winery puts on their website.

It is intriguing how contacting the public relations representative for the winery and reading other bloggers’ reports on the winery were at the same level for the wine bloggers that were interviewed. Almost every wine blogger has a good sense of the other bloggers in the wine category, and especially the top bloggers. The fact that most bloggers do not reach out to PR people as a first course show a possible reluctance on bloggers to trust these contacts for accurate information. It could also be that the public relations contact for a winery is simply not visible enough for a blogger researching a wine to find their information.

Among established wine journalists there has been a prevailing feeling that wine bloggers are only interested in receiving free wine samples, which is what drives a person to blog about wine. There is at least one blogger who promotes themselves as willing to review any wine that is sent to them. There are also plenty of other bloggers, such as Katie (Gonzo Gastronomy) who find this practice distasteful. As for the rest of the wine blogging world, the survey showed the majority of wine bloggers use samples less than 25% of the time to review on their blog. With the current increase in wineries with available samples looking for positive reviews, it is interesting that wine bloggers continue to purchase wines from wineries or trusted retailers in order to find content for their blogs.

Wine bloggers are an ever increasing force in the wine world, and the industry is paying attention. A well written, well researched blog post can become top news in the Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, and has in the past. An event targeting bloggers can spread over dozens of websites. The next step in wine blogger evolution is discovering how the public relations community can work with these writers to not only elevate the wineries and wine regions that they work for, but to also highlight the select bloggers that have influence over consumer audiences.


Note: Rob Bralow has been writing the blog “Wine Post” for almost one year and currently works for Gregory White PR, an agency that represents high profile wine and spirits companies and regions. Any and all ideas and opinions expressed in the above article do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Gregory White PR.

What is a wine blogger?

Let me start small and move from there.

Blog – A blog (a contraction of the term "weblog") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. (Source: Wikipedia)

Blogger – A blogger is person who writes a blog (or weblog). Bloggers are not a homogeneous group. They have a variety of personal and professional motivations for blogging and they come from a variety of political, economic and social backgrounds. One way of segmenting bloggers is by their blog type:

• Personal: blog about topics of personal interest not associated with work
• Professional: blog about industry and profession topics but not in an official capacity for a company
• Corporate: blog for a company in an official capacity

Blogging is not a full-time job for most bloggers, nor is it their main source of income. A blogger can also be a doctor, a mechanic, a lawyer or a musician, and thus bloggers typically maintain a variety of professional professions for which the act of blogging is their communicative outlet with the public. (Source: Wikipedia)

Wine – Wine is an alcoholic beverage typically made of fermented grape juice. Wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast consumes the sugars found in the grapes and converts them into alcohol. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are used depending on the type of wine being produced. (Source: Wikipedia)

Note: I used Wikipedia because, when compared to other online resources such as Dictionary.com, I found that Wiki actually gave a much fuller and comprehensive definition. I leave it up to you, the reader, to determine if you believe these definitions are accurate, as Wikipedia is known to be a reference source that can be edited by anyone, even me.

Therefore, a Wine Blogger is a person who writes a blog, in either a personal, professional, or corporate genre, whose content is focused on the topic of wine.

That is it. That is all the definition you need to identify a wine blogger. However, having met hundreds of wine bloggers, there is so much more to them.

Wine bloggers approach wine the same way that sailors approach a dock full of boats. There are so many boats in the water, so many bodies of water to sail on, with a different direction of wind and strength of gust. And each has its own pleasures.

Some sailors like a fast race, with the wind kicking up 30 knots and the boat heeling to the point where you can touch the water with your nose. Other sailors prefer a leisurely ride, a soft downwind day with a cool breeze behind you and the horizon stretching away in front of you.

There are beginner sailors, who have yet to find the points of sail, others with intermediate skill and have graduated to taking a Laser out by themselves to tack across the bay. There are still other sailors that have been sailing for so long that they do not even need to see the sheets in order to know where the wind is or how the boat is doing; the vibes from the hull tell the whole story.

The different sizes and shapes of a sailboat are just as important as the different types and shapes of a wine glass. Each does particularly well for a different situation. A sailor would not cross the Atlantic in an Optimist and a wine blogger would not taste a Cabernet out of a Champagne flute. Well, you could, but you would not get as pleasurable an experience.

Some sailors work on boats to show others around. Some are captains aboard commercial liners, recreated for the long voyage experience. Most sailors sail because of the pure joy of being on the water with the wind in your face.

And just the way that there is a basic definition for a wine blogger, I put forth the definition of a sailor to be “one who sits (or has sat) on a boat while it sails.”

It takes time and experience to be a good sailor and it requires similar qualities to be a good wine blogger. It takes money, it takes commitment and (more often than not) it takes a good teacher. And just because one is a good sailor, does not mean that one would get paid for doing it. More importantly (for me anyway), one might not want to get paid (the topic of another blog post).

Most wine bloggers are not the youth of America. No, these are individuals that have established their place in life and built for themselves successful careers, more often than not in web-design, information technology, medicine, law, etc. Some are in the wine industry, but the vast majority came to wine through a passion for exploring the cosmic universe of their local wine shop.

And when it comes down to it, they are all regular people. They like wine, and have studied and experienced more than the average person. Wineries should treat wine bloggers the same way they treat their best customers, most of the time they are one and the same. The only difference is that what a blogger thinks about a wine is then expressed where the world can find it.

There are many out in the blogosphere who have the necessary tools, experience, and know-how. Some of my favorites are: 1WineDude, Another Wine Blog, Good Grape, My Wine Education, The Passionate Foodie, Rockss and Fruit, Vinography, Wannabe Wino. And there are plenty more that are also doing a great job (see the links on my blogroll).

Wine Blogging Conference - Before the Storm

Today marks the first day of the Second Annual Wine Blogging Conference in Santa Rosa, California. I was not at last year’s conference and I am excited to take part in the action.

My expectations:

I will be the youngest person in the room. I know, what a weird way to start but I find it to be true that most bloggers average about ten years older than I am. It gives me an instant disadvantage since I have had less life to taste wine, and just about all of the people at this conference will be well experienced wine drinkers - I mean tasters. There are of course exceptions.

There will be more wine here than anyone could taste at once. It cannot be helped, whenever there is such a large concentration of people interested in drinking, thinking, and writing about wine then there is sure to be an over excessive amount of wine to be tasted.

There will be a ton of people who do not work in the wine industry. It is extremely refreshing to meet people who drink wine because they want to, not because it is their job.

There will be a ton of people who work in the wine industry. These people do not just do it because they love wine; they get paid to play with wine. I count myself one of the lucky ones whose job it is to think about wine and its relationship to the rest of the world.

This will be a marketing extrrrrrrrravaganza! That is right; I expect to be marketed to. I expect the California Grape Growers to tell me how amazing the climate in California is for growing grapes. I then expect the Portuguese representatives to tell me how amazing the wines from Portugal are. I then expect to be given enough paperwork to break my back, filled with phrases like “outstanding value” and “exceptional quality.”

I expect to get drunk.

I expect to walk away feeling that I was given an amazing opportunity to meet great people who love culinary experiences, enjoy the company of some of the thought-leaders in the wine industry, and taste hundreds of wines that I might not otherwise of have had a chance to taste.

It takes all types...

I was searching around Twitter tonight, following people in the wine world. PR people, marketing people (yes, there is a difference), wine makers, importers, retailers, bloggers, enthusiasts, drunks, winos, college kids... ok, maybe not college kids. My point is that while I was looking around at what people do and say and think in the 140 character description they are allowed to have I found this:

"I hate wine bloggers!"

It was so interesting! This is probably the first person I have seen on the vast empty space they call the internet that hates wine bloggers. Of course, some very important and professional write reviews and writers do not particular care for bloggers (Steve Heimoff for example), but they do not hate them. From reading Steve's blog I do not think he does not like blogs and their bloggers. He makes the point that he does not think that blogs will be the next grand moving force of the wine industry as the occurance of Robert Parker for instance. I agree with him for the most part, but I think there will be a small minority of bloggers (which may be quite a few since there are SO MANY BLOGS) that become as important if not more important than print reviewing media outlets.

But that subject has been beaten to death by the wine blogging community, so let me turn to what interested me: http://wine-ing20.blogspot.com/

When I saw this I cracked up. It is a wine blog which has the professed purpose of annoying and insulting other wine blogs. It is written by Over Oaked, Over Extracted, and Flabby Chard, or at least it was at one point in time. Does not seem that anyone is keeping up with the writing.

But it does make one laugh doesn't it? The anti wine blog wine blog? Makes me wonder how many more there are out there.

If you write it, I’ll read it

From what I have been told, and I have no facts to back this up, there are somewhere between 500 – 800 blogs that have a primary focus on wine. Currently I think I read about 200 of them. From what I have seen, many wine blogs are written by journalists that believe it worth their time to write in two (or sometimes three) outlets to keep their audience happy. Very large portions of wine bloggers are marketers and PR professionals, most of which try their best not to push their product (watch for my post this Wednesday…). The rest are a scattering of wine geeks and hobbyists.

That is a lot of people who all want their opinion heard and they are everywhere is order to tell people about themselves and hope to gain your interest. They tweet on twitter, they friend on Facebook, they shout on myspace, and they do absolutely anything they can to raise their traffic numbers. As my mother said to me, “It’s a bunch of people going ‘LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME.’” That is basically true, but that is what everyone is doing. I am not just talking about bloggers, but all consumable goods. Yes, writing and reading are consumable goods, although I have met too many people that are literally anorexic.

I really enjoy reading all of those blogs. Everyone wants to talk about something and every post is a little glimpse into how someone thinks and views the world. It is particularly amazing to see first how many different ideas are out there and then at the same time to see how many people have the same ideas and express them in almost the same way. Examples of this are how wine bloggers all give their review or opinion of the wine they are drinking right now, and how topics span the entire “blogosphere” (forgive me for using such a word) such as how bloggers reacted to a challenge to their credibility as an information source.

I hope you read a lot of these blogs because they are real people each with their own point of view. Thanks very much for reading mine.




LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!!!


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