The Germans have found quite a smart way that adds an interesting twist to the more traditional twitter wine tastings we are familiar with. Simon Atzei is a private wine enthusiast and the initiator of the following concept: Wineries or wine merchants select 2 bottles of wines that can cost up to 20 €, inclusive of shipment within Germany. Anyone who is interested can simply order these wines. The community then meets on the second and third Monday of the following month on twitter to taste and discuss the wines. The really interesting fact is that this community includes end consumers, wine bloggers, wine merchants and wine producers. This adds a lot to the excitement level, as wine novices and professionals alike discuss the wines.

The event is called Twitter Wein Verköstigung (twitter wine tasting) and uses the hashtag #twv. It has been running since October 2009, and an average of 20 users participate each time. The duration is between 1 and 2 hours, depending on the level of engagement, and of course the quality of the wines. The concept is so simple, yet so smart, that the German press has reported about it earlier this year – The Financial Times Deutschland, Handelsblatt, Focus, BILD are all national heavyweights, the ability to peak their interest speaks for itself.

I offered two Greek wines for the month of June, and received about 20 orders. Both live tasting events were a LOT of fun, and I was very impressed with the high level of interest and interaction by the participants. Some had never tasted a “proper” Greek wine in their life, but all were really open to expand their palate. It was quite a challenge to communicate with all users at the same time, but this sort of engagement is worth every effort. The wines received solid ratings, and people were surprised in a very positive way about the quality/price ratio. For me, it was an extremely efficient way to spread the word about the wines of Greece. 20 people might not seem to be a large number for some, for me it was an opportunity to communicate with every single one of them.

I believe that the concept of the #twv is quite fascinating, as it puts the platform to commercial use while focusing on interaction and education. It does not come as a surprise to me that there is currently a waiting list for merchants/wineries that wish to offer their wines via #twv.

Below are further links in German that were a direct result of the #twv featuring Greek wines:  

http://marcodatini.posterous.com/my-big-fat-greek-rhone-wine-twv-92

http://lagazzettadelvino.blogspot.com/2010/06/im-gesprach-mit-dem-vinophilen.html

http://donsimons.blogspot.com/2010/06/twitterweinverkostung-twv-91-alexandras.html

http://marcodatini.posterous.com/die-twitterweinverkostung-twv-91-ohne-harz-ge

http://donsimons.blogspot.com/2010/06/twitterweinverkostung-twv-91-white.html

http://lagazzettadelvino.blogspot.com/2010/06/twitter-wein-verkostung-twv-2008-white.html

The restaurant can host about 40 guests and every seat was taken. In fact, the waiting list for this evening was so long that the event will be repeated next week and there are already only a handful of spaces left.

Petros spent all evening engaging again and again with every single person. I spent 5 hours there and he must have been at my table more than 10 times. He did not do any blunt sales talk – rather catering for the needs of the guests. For example, he would ask how the acidity of his Rosé wine went with the vinaigrette of the salad, and then explain some techniques how high acidity in a wine can be reduced. He also paid attention to the different types of guests, offering diverse conversations to newcomers, professionals, friends etc.

I suggest that this level of engagement is exactly what wineries should be offering on twitter. Many more potential customers can be reached and all it takes is time and effort. Just imagine how successfully a brand might be established over time by following exactly the above principles:

• Do not push for sales; instead cater for the needs of your audience.
• Listen to the feedback from your followers and engage again and again.
• Care for the different types of twitter users and their respective interests.
• Ask relevant questions and reply to answers, do this on a daily basis and establish personal relationships.
• In addition, I feel it is important to understand that in order to convert your twitter contacts into your real life at some point in time, you must put your real life into twitter first. Two-way conversations and the sharing of useful information are the key to achieve this.

Twitter users who actively engage almost always use some sort of third-part application. Followers are sorted into different groups, which is a great way of organising them. And of course, many followers are not being assigned at all to a group, so their tweets do not show up. They follow you, you follow them, they probably don’t read your tweets; you don’t read theirs. They add to your followers count, you add to theirs. It works – as your followers number keeps growing, more people start following you. I now call this the Loophole Cheat – artificially inflating your own and their follower’s numbers while still following the etiquette.

Although I have always blocked spammers and sex sites in the past, I have cheated many times over the last months. To be exact, I have cheated 139 times. Can you believe that? I have followed back 139 people I was not really interested in. 139 out of 490 – or nearly 30% of the total! Last Friday, I put an end to it – I unfollowed everyone I should not have followed in the first place. My follower’s count was just shy of 500, 494 to be exact. I felt the effect immediately – my follower’s count started dropping quickly. My actions were even twittered by a service called followermonitor; apparently they think it makes a great tweet to publish openly who unfollows one of their users. It is sad – this service has more than 32000 followers.

In order to figure out whom I did not wish to follow any longer, I put in a day of work: I opened up the profile of every single person/company I was following and checked out their tweets. You know what the great thing was? I actually found a handful of very interesting people that never made it into one of my groups. I had followed them, but in the end I was ignoring them. I would have never found about it without going through this exercise.

I am in the wine business – so are approximately 80% of my followers, who I not only follow, but whose tweets I read. This is what is all about – I do not need high follower numbers, I do need to engage with people that matter. I am glad I no longer use the Loophole Cheat. It feels good to put out tweets to followers who follow you for a reason other than the expectation that you follow back.