Later today, I’ll be participating in a social media experiment. I love experimentation, because social media is such a new world that we really don’t know what works and what doesn’t. Many brands and businesses haven’t even established what they want out of their social media experimentation, which, as you might imagine, is a recipe for disaster.
But experimentation is one of the most important and creative ways businesses can begin discovering what works. I applaud any group willing to throw caution to the wind and try something new. I think social media folks, as well as the general public, appreciate experimentation. People open up when they become aware of something new and interesting. Mix in a little food and wine, a great venue and a little technology and you’ve got the basic ingredients for success.
City Winery, a restaurant, music venue and yes, winemaker in lower Manhattan, is today hosting “Spit N Twit,” an event that has the potential to teach us a lot. The event mixes together the parameters I touched on earlier. I’ve spoken with about 25 various people about the event, including wine afficionados, bloggers, wine writers, and social media marketers. The interest level is very high.
Here is the writeup describing Spit N Twit:
Partnered with WineTwits, WIRED, Riedel and Bottlerocket Wine and Spirit to create the first ever fully interactive wine tasting. Focused on creating a twitter-powered community bringing together wine and tech enthusiasts in an immersive environment, Spit & Twit will encourage attendees to utilize their Twitter account and mobile device in order to fully participate.
The room will be set up like a traditional tasting, with stations featuring wines from around the globe, from Italy to Argentina, Napa to New York. Representatives from major wine labels will be on hand to educate and inform.
Whereas a typical tasting involves attendees busily scribbling in notebooks, Spit & Twit participants will be able to ‘tweet’ their tasting notes and thoughts. The tweet-feed will be simultaneously broadcast locally and globally to the online community utilizing the technology of our partner WineTwits.
Be sure to check Twitter today to follow the tasting and let me know how its working. Sometimes these things can be kind of janky, technology wise. For instance, the hashtag system they devised to let people follow along which wines are being tested seems a bit byzantine to me, but it may be the best idea to date. That’s not to say it can’t and won’t be improved. So, let’s get some feedback.
Was it easy to follow?
Is it even fun watching other people taste wine?
Who’s tasting notes are fun to watch, amateurs or wine experts?
So check out Eric Arnold of Forbes Magazine, Karen Ulrich of Imbibe New York, Lindsay Ronga of Cork’d, Laren Spirer of Sweetblogomine, Talia Biaocchi of WineChap, and Pat Savoie of Wine Enthusiast
I’ll be writing a post-mortem post later tonight so check back.
Full Disclosure: I offered to help City Winery attract the attention of some local wine, cocktail and food bloggers, as well as some prominent social media mavens. I was not paid for this service, but was given a complimentary ticket.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This sounds like an awesome event and it’s great to see so many partners getting into the act to make the event a huge success. However, it’s hardly the “first ever” interactive wine tasting as TasteLive.com has been doing this for well over a year and Rick Bakas and St. Supery just completed an east coast road tour where they hosted interactive wine tastings via twitter that often included multiple sites connected via Ustream as well.
You are right on with the fact that experimentation is needed in this space as I think things can be improved upon, so I am very interested in your follow up to see how the event plays out.
Will the host make available for sale any of the wines they will be tasting online so that others who want to follow along via twitter can be actually tasting the same wines as well?
.-= Ed´s last blog ..The Kiwi’s Chardonnay =-.
Ed
thanks for the reply. I never said it was the “first ever” event of its kind. I am too wise for that, at least I hope, and yes I attended the St. Supery tweetup at the Roger Smith Hotel and heard about the other initiatives. I think that kind of bluster and hyperbole from a brand or restaurant is pretty much par for the course and to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, thanks for the comment and the good words. Stay tuned for my post-mortem which i am working on now, should be a few good takeaways.
Zach
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