Top 10 tips: Facebook for wine brands

Facebook is widely used in the wine sector and last year a three-year research project funded by Wine Australia revealed how important it is to think about what you post, when you post and how much you post.

Researcher from the project Dr Rebecca Dolan – who has since moved from the University of Adelaide to the Department of Marketing in the University of Auckland Business School – gives her top tips for wine brands using Facebook.

1. Understand why you are on Facebook

Setting the right goals and objectives is essential. Some goals may be to: create brand awareness, build a community, show expertise, educate followers, generate traffic to your website, build new partnerships and to provide customer service.

2. Ask the right questions

One of the best ways to enhance fan engagement and increase post reach is to ask interesting and entertaining questions. 

Don’t be afraid to ask them to vote on such things as new label designs, their favourite variety of wine, or favourite meal with a certain wine. 

Customers love to feel that they are involved in co-creating the brand and brand decisions such as label design.

However, remember to keep the questions quick and simple. If it is not easy to answer, fans generally keep scrolling.

3. Utilise Facebook Insights data

Facebook Insights data is free and provides a wealth of information about your fans, post engagement and page engagement. You can download it directly to an Excel spreadsheet with one click. 

Businesses that make sense of these volumes of data are generally more intelligent with their social media campaigns, and have an in-depth understanding of their target audience and triggers for engagement.

4. Optimise the descriptions of your profile picture and cover photo

Depending on the goals of your Facebook page, it is a good idea to consider adding links to direct your fans in the right direction, e.g. to your website, a blog post, or an ‘about us’ page. 

Links are opportunities for interested customers to move toward your website or online store, with profile pictures and cover photo descriptions providing the ideal location to do so.

5. Add a call to action button to your cover photo

In 2014, Facebook launched a new feature that allows you to add one of seven pre-designed call to action buttons. Options include ‘Shop Now’, ‘Sign Up’, ‘Contact Us’, ‘Book Now’ and so on. 

This is a great way to drive traffic from the Facebook page directly to a destination URL of your choice.

6. Use the ‘About’ section wisely and add company milestones

The ‘About’ section lives on the left hand side of your page, just below the profile picture. This should be a brief, yet descriptive, statement allowing potential fans a sense of what your page is about. 

By populating the ‘milestones’ section of the ‘about’ tab, an instant sense of history is communicated to fans.

7. Consider timing and frequency of your posts

Our research showed that more than 60 per cent of wine brand Facebook posts are delivered between 5 and 7pm. 

This means that Facebook may be heavily cluttered with content at this time. We also found that wine brands rarely post on Friday evenings and Saturdays, yet this is the time that consumers are likely to be purchasing and consuming wine.

8. Leverage publishing and targeting tool

Posts can be scheduled on Facebook, either through an external publishing tool or through the Facebook interface itself. 

Scheduling posts allows you to save time and can also help you to plan content in advance. This can also ensure you plan for an effective balance of varied content.

9. Start a content and event calendar

Plan ahead by having a content calendar. Even obvious occasions such as Mother’s Day can be included, allowing you to prepare, design and schedule relevant content in advance. 

In the calendar, keep track of how many posts are photos, videos, statuses and links, and plan to maintain a balance.

10. Monitor and respond to comments on your page

Facebook mimics a real-life, social environment, so if you deliver content and ask a question, it’s important to maintain an involvement through conversation. 

Fans feel special and valued when they receive a direct response from a brand. 

You can monitor and respond to comments via the ‘notifications’ tab at the very top of your page.