This little blog's evolution at nine months
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 13:43 
Yep, my blog is nine months old this week. Where did the time go? More importantly, how far has it come?
The second annual Wine Bloggers’ Conference happens this weekend at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa, CA. It seems like it was a very short time ago that I found myself thrust into the crucible of the inaugural Wine Blogger Conference last October. When I found out I was going (a birthday gift from my wife), I realized that I no longer had a blog to call my own. The one I had written for two years for someone else had already vanished into thin air…
I realized I needed to create a niche for my writing, and it didn’t take long to draft a mission statement for dougwilder - the purely domestic wine blog.
Focuson independently reviewing domestic wines of the highest quality on a platform devoid of advertising.
It took me all of two days to create the blog and I picked up my new business cards on the way to the conference. I was pleased to find out that I had the freshest blog there, and it was enlightening to meet other bloggers and understand their different takes on the subject of wine.
So what have the last nine months been like?
Wine Blogging and its implications in social media seems to have caught serious fire in the last nine months.
- The registration to the second incarnation of the Wine Bloggers Conference shows an increase of 50%
- Wineries are beginning to specify positions with titles like Social Media Manager, or Director of Direct to Consumer Marketing emphasizing skill sets unheard of just two years ago.
- Plenty of wineries will be in attendance at the conference this year. This is not a coincidence, I imagine. (see above)
- A large winery in Sonoma held a highly publicized search (through social media, no less) to select a temporary position for a Social Media Guru and attracted over 2000 applications. The winner will likely come from a small group of candidates attending this weekend.
- The work of the wine blogging ilk has also drawn criticism from traditional media sources suggesting what we do is irresponsible and non-relevant.
The blog has gone through a major evolution since October. Initially launched on the free Blogspot platform for sake of expediency, I soon realized how woefully restrictive it was and in February moved to a commerce-grade site providing me and my readers a much richer experience. Posts made there are now linked to through Facebook for more dynamic exposure. Incidentally, Facebook has proved to be a huge audience for the blog.
A few milestones:
- First - the purely domestic wine blog is ranked #1 on Google for search “domestic wine review” and has been there for several months
- In June 2009, I added the Guest Winemaker Blogs, featuring four of America’s most exciting producers
- I finally started a Twitter account… yeah, I know…
- Facebook grew from 400 to 2000+ friends in nine months
What does the rest of the year hold for the blog and my social media network?
- More winemakers will be joining the blogs
- More new wineries will receive their first reviews
- Facebook will reach critical mass
- Twitter may reveal itself as an important platform
During the conference, I will be blogging and tweeting at least a post per day. Should be fun. If you will be there please come over and say hello.
Follow my tweets at http://www.twitter.com @illycafe
Follow me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/wildernapavalley
Reader Comments (2)
Congrats on your success. Keep up the good work. It will be interesting to see how the industry grows and expands with more wineries finally starting to pay attention to what is happening online.
Mark,
Yes, the landscape seems to be changing now that wineries are beginning to tap the talents of some of the social media personalities. The key to any relationship is finding the perfect match and for wineries to integrate these modalities as part of their brand message.