Rick Bakas

Understanding Beverage Management Software

2014-06-11T17:54:00Z

When it comes to managing beverage inventory at a restaurant, many have opted to manage their inventory manually over the years with a handwritten list or printed Excel spreadsheet. Every time a bottle is sold, the Excel spreadsheet gets updated (or not, depending on how busy it is), so inventory is up to date—in theory. Finding the right way to manage beverage program data can be complicated for both small, independent establishments and large restaurant groups.

For the back of the house, the wine buyer needs a powerful tool that makes ordering and adding products to inventory a breeze, with updates throughout the evening when a bottle is sold. For the front of the house, a guest may want to make their final buying decision based on a somm's recommendation, but might also want to poke around first and explore the list before he or she makes a final selection. For the management team, they just want it to all work smoothly so the guest enjoys their experience and the business is profitable and efficient.

Sound familiar? A handful of technology companies have their sights set on replacing those Excel printouts with a digital solution.

SOLVING A NEED

A number of digital tools have found their way into the restaurant industry over the past decade. From the Open Table reservation system to wireless POS to Yelp! reviews and digital wine lists. Things that used to be done by hand years ago are now done electronically. In general, the restaurant industry tends to lag behind other verticals in the adoption of technology. It’s not for a lack of desire by the people on the floor, but more about pushing through management levels to get to a decision-maker who sees an operational need for a new tool.

Beverage management software was born out of a need. According to BinWise co-founder Grant Gilligan, “I was working with Raj Parr and William Sherer MS at Aqua in 2001. Raj had a difficulty managing all the data even though Raj is really good with spreadsheets.” Gilligan went on to say, “William would order a bunch of stuff over the phone, a bunch of liquor, special bottles with different costs and we’d have to track it all….and things moved fast.” Gilligan went home and developed the first version of software that would allow Aqua to track all the ordering, including regular suppliers and correct pricing that reminded him of price breaks and case deals.

Gilligan’s brother worked with a multimillion dollar web-based application for the clothing industry that tracked supplier information, shipping information, price breaks, purchase history and other features that he modeled his first version off of. The application was implemented in the fast paced environment at Aqua. When a bug was found, Gilligan would go home at night and work until the early hours to fix it while adding features for the restaurant management team—namely tracking the dollars and cents. “If Raj went to France and ordered a pallet of Dujac, we had to make sure we were still within our budget.”

The early versions of what would eventually become BinWise were focused on operational needs from the management team. Over time Gilligan began to see the need (or the opportunity) to integrate with the 4 practices—wine list, inventory, purchasing and sales. That led to deeper integrating with the POS system, and a new set of growing pains. “Many times menus would be out of sync with POS which meant it was out of sync with inventory”.

MASS ADOPTION OF TECHNOLOGY

For a new technology to reach mass adoption it has to solve a problem, it needs to be affordable, it needs to be supported by the company, it needs to have a no-brainer user experience that’s easy to understand, and most importantly it needs to be reliable. When the peak of the rush is in full swing and the kitchen is buried in the weeds, that’s not the time for anything to go wrong, especially software-related.

The value proposition of beverage management software has tremendous upside potential and is still in its infancy, however, there are still inherent challenges. Craig Collins, Master Sommelier and Beverage Director of the Elm Group in Austin points out, “I use software at each of my concepts for two reasons—it helps eliminate human error and allows me to finish inventory more accurately and quicker. However, the biggest roadblock I’ve experienced is the learning curve associated with the software and incorporating it into the system already in place.” He went on to add, “It can often take months to work out kinks between technology and our program but once the two are in sync, it saves time in the long run.”

We can look to other food-related industries to see the potential for what technology can offer a restaurant. For example, a bag of chips can be tracked through an entire supply chain from the place where it’s made to the warehouse where it’s distributed to the store where it’s sold. That bag of chips can even be tracked for how long it sits on the shelf before it’s sold. Scan data from a bar code can be a beautiful thing.

We can’t do that with a bottle of wine yet, but in the near future we’ll be able to connect the data dots from vineyard to winery to warehouse to restaurant to table. The result of being able to see the entire journey along with more visibility into scan data from restaurants will make data much more valuable. We’ll be able to improve the chain and make better buying decisions and free up time to spend on the floor.

KEY PLAYERS

Companies enjoying the most success in the market have realized their growth is tied to six key pillars of success—seamless integration with restaurant’s existing POS software, customer service during busy dinner hours, handheld bar scanning capability, ease of ordering inventory, iPad-based wine lists for guests, and the ability to provide rich analytics for the beverage director and restaurant owners.

A relative newcomer, TasteVin (launched out of Santa Rosa, CA, in 2010) saw the importance of integrating with as many POS systems as possible. From the beginning, TasteVin CEO, Josh Hermismeyer put an emphasis on seamless integration with existing restaurant systems. His view on scaling from the start was “making it easier to work with a restaurant’s current point-of-sale software makes it easier for the restaurant to focus on a smoother guest experience and easier time for beverage directors.”

Like BinWise, TasteVin’s founders come from a wine industry background in the San Francisco bay area. Whereas BinWise’s Gilligan cut his teeth working with the industry’s top sommeliers at Aqua and RN74, Hermismeyer studied Economics and Winemaking at UC Davis and lives on Rebecca’s Vineyard, a 17-acre Pinot Noir parcel in the Russian River valley. His Labrador media company has been at the intersection of wine and technology for the better part of a decade. TasteVin’s other co-founder, John Jordan of Jordan Vineyard & Winery in Healdsburg, California knows a bit about managing distributors and distribution channels where TasteVin has scaled its growth.

The conversation about beverage management wouldn’t be complete without mentioning AccuBar. According to AccuBar’s LinkedIn profile, the company was born in a garage in Silicon Valley, then moved to Centennial, Colorado. The company’s growth to over 2,000 users came primarily from the liquor side of the restaurant business. Wine wasn’t a focus until recently with the addition of their iWineLists product.

The industry’s main beverage management software companies are from a wide swath of wine technology with varying backgrounds, strengths and weaknesses dependent on the caliber of the team behind the product. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each:

BinWise

binwise.com

Established: 2007

Cost: Nominal set up fee + $275-495 per month

Who’s Using It: Mina Group, the Keller Group, the Bacchus Group, Union Square Cafe, La Toque Napa, Oenotri, Bourbon Steak and Press Club SF

iPad-Based: Yes

Probably the most well-known beverage management software was born out in an environment where well-known sommeliers put it to the test early and often. As one of the first to market, BinWise grew organically from there and now has over 500 deals closed, with early adoption from famous restaurants such as Mina Group, French Laundry, etc. Focus on managing data is at the heart of BinWise and that makes everyone happy—from restaurant managers to beverage directors.

Pros — Head start in the industry with adoption and feedback from well-known sommeliers and beverage directors. Works really well for restaurant groups who want to see data across the entire group. New features such as push/email notifications via iphone about inventory or streamlined purchase ordering saves time and is more accurate.

Cons — The interface is in serious need of an overhaul. Information and navigation is a bit clunky and disorganized. Modern interface design practices call for cleaner, less cluttered organization of information. Features seemed to have been cobbled together over the years which leads to too much stuff on the screen.

TasteVin

tastevinapp.com

Established: 2010

Cost: Set-up fee similar to BinWise, $20 per month + software licenses cost $15 per iPad

Who’s Using It: Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Fairmont Hotels, The Ritz-Carlton, Auberge Du Soleil, JW Marriott

iPad-Based: Yes

TasteVin is a joint project between Jordan Winery Owner, John Jordan and Santa Rosa winemaker/digital marketer/speaker/technologist Joshua Hermsmeyer. TasteVin’s approach is to provide a painless backend inventory management solution that syncs with POS, but also provide guests with context about the wines in stock through an iPad. As guests sit down for a meal, they can peruse the wine list on the iPad much like other products. When the sommelier arrives, the guest will be armed with additional information about wines on the updated list.

Like BinWise, TasteVin can aggregate data across an entire restaurant group

“Ruth’s Chris has seen a 15-20% increase in sales depending on the restaurant location.” -Wilson Oswald, Ruth’s Chris

“We have a bottom up approach. Our software is somm-focused and all sales go through the sommelier.” -Josh Hermismeyer, TasteVin CEO

Pros — By far the best user experience design in the market. Josh put an emphasis on making sure the interface looked like it could’ve been designed by Apple (and that’s important). Two of his engineers come from world renowned Frog Design—which would be like a winery hiring Jean-Marc Roulot to make their Chardonnay. It’s the top of the design food chain. TasteVin also integrates with the industry’s top POS systems including Micros, Aloha, Digital Dining, Dinerware, Squirrel, POSitouch and Infogenesis, as well as a few smaller vendors.

Cons — Implementation can take weeks or months (as with other companies). The TasteVin team will come to a restaurant and manually add every single bottle to the digital inventory with a label image. POs need to be sent to TasteVin and they update your list for you, which seems laborious.

The product is primarily sold through distributors so they can track the data. Not sure if that’s a “con” but it does give the power of data to the distributors. Is that good for restaurants?

AccuBar

accubar.com

Established: 2000

Cost: N/A

iPad-Based: Yes

Who’s Using It: B.R. Guest Restaurants, Margaritaville, The CIA and Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining

AccuBar is either #1 or #2 in the industry, depending on who you talk to. AccuBar’s early growth can be attributed to a focus primarily on liquor management in bars. Wine was a later addition, but in recent years more functionality has been added for wine.

Pros — With more focus on the wine list, AccuBar offers complete control over liquor, beer as well as wine where other companies are weighted heavily towards wine only. AccuBar is one of the oldest and biggest players with significant marketshare.

Cons — Wine seemed to be an afterthought, and it shows. Their strength is in liquor and beer and the handheld technology is a step behind, especially for those wanting an iOS experience.

eSommelier

esommelier.com

Established: 2001

Cost: N/A

iPad-Based: Yes

eSommelier serves 3 markets—Private Cellars, Hotels & Restaurants and Wine Storage Facilities. The company website appears to have been created in the 1990s. In the world of technology, it’s important to innovate often. It’s not clear if eSommelier is doing that.

Pros — Ideally, it would be cool to see how your private cellar at home might interact with a wine at a restaurant cellar.

Cons — The iPad interface of a restaurant wine list is organized in a way that isn’t as intuitive as it should be. Rather than organize by region, grape or vintage, the choices are by "Smooth & Sexy" wines or "Rich & Toasty." The labels in each sub-category show five wine labels only on the screen. The user can swipe sideways but I suspect those first five shown will benefit the most, kind of like the first page search results on Google.

Uncorkd

uncorkd.biz

Established 2010

Cost: N/A

iPad-Based: Yes

Who’s Using It: UNO Chicago Grill, Woodfire Grille, Rockbottom Brewery, Carnaval Brazilian Grill and the Tropicana in Atlantic City

Uncorkd, along with TasteVin, was one of the first companies to offer iPad-based wine lists.

Pros — No wifi required, and it sports a solid search function. Might be better suited for smaller restaurants that aren’t part of a restaurant group.

Cons — Is it a tech company for the restaurant industry or a restaurant-born company for the tech industry? Uncorkd appears to be created by engineers who know quite a bit about enjoyable iPad interface design, but are short on understanding wine industry chops or how beverage directors operate.

ONLY THE BEGINNING

We’re still very early on in the world of beverage management software. If this were a professional sporting event, we’d be early in the first quarter. If this were a bottle of wine the fruit characters would be tart and underripe. Pick an analogy—a new niche has been born; where it was once a sliver, now it’s a full pie piece in the pie chart of software industries.

Restaurants will continue to "season" the software and provide feedback to the companies—whose engineers can respond with better technology. It’s a snowball effect we see time and time again in other software verticals. Salesforce experienced it, Facebook experienced it, Dropbox experienced it and so did so many others that fill a need in the industry. We may need an Excel spreadsheet to track all the software companies who will be jumping in the fray with new ideas and new features. Wouldn’t that be an ironic twist?

The Mobile Somm

2013-08-09T18:42:00Z

Front Row Seat

By now, wine professionals and consumers outside of the wine industry have hopefully had a chance to see the year’s hottest documentary, SOMM. It’s not hard to get excited about the film as it gives the layperson visibility into our world and what its like to be a sommelier. Ian, Brian, DLynn and Dustin are like the new John, Paul, George and Ringo of wine. Musical artist, Pink tweeted out to her 17 million followers that she loved the movie and cried at the end. The tweet was retweeted 276 times in the first 24 hours adding to the spotlight on our industry.

There’s something else to be equally geeked out about at this moment in history besides the film—mobile technology. The advancements in hardware and software are putting more tools into the palm of our hand, and that’s a great opportunity for sommeliers.

In 1965 a little known technology company called Intel had a CEO named Gordon Moore who came up with Moore’s Law which states computer chips would “double in speed and reduce in size by half every two years.” Over the past forty years Moore’s Law has held true as technology continues to get smaller and faster to the point that your smart phone now has more computing power than your first desktop computer. Streaming video was barely possible on a home computer ten years ago, but now most phones and tablets can easily display smooth HD video with high quality sound.

When SOMM was released on iTunes it was one of the top New and Noteworthy movies and throughout the summer it has maintained a top 3 position in Documentaries. I was on a flight and saw someone across the aisle watching on his iPad. Without mobile technology would SOMM reach as many people as fast as it did? Pink was on tour in Australia when she watched the film, which means she probably downloaded it and saw it on her iPad. 17 million people wouldn’t have known about it if it weren’t for mobile distribution.

Consumer adoption of all things mobile continues to grow at a staggering rate. According to the Pew Research Center there are over 120 million smart phone owners in the U.S. (roughly one-third of the U.S. population) over the age of 13. Tablets are catching up with 60 million owners in the U.S. And now there’s a new addition to mobile tech—wearables. As if ADD wasn’t a big enough problem, Google Glass and Apple’s rumored iWatch will offer even more ways for your guests to connect with each other and you online. Other areas of technology to watch: connected television, connected automobiles and mobile wallets. We’ve finally become the Jetsons minus the flying cars.

In recent years it has been commonplace to be in a restaurant and see someone sitting there creating food porn, texting with friends or surfing around Facebook. If the point is to engage and serve guests, and guests’ attention are on their mobile devices, it would stand to reason sommeliers could and should be part of the guest experience in person as well as online through mobile experience. By doing so it’ll build the sommelier’s visibility and it’ll ultimately lead to a healthy business.

According to Business Insider, in the U.S. 1 out of 10 transactions at Starbucks are made on smartphones. 1 out of 10 might not sound like much but try to do the math in your head of how many transactions that is, and you’ll start to see why mobile technology is so important to a healthy business. In the Food and Beverage industry, Starbucks is on the leading edge of digital marketing and mobile commerce, which has led to a 9% increase in U.S. sales and a whopping 25% increase in profit in 2013.

Pay to Play

Unfortunately (or fortunately) Facebook controls a massive amount of mobile eyeballs. After going public with their initial stock offering in April 2012, the share price sunk like leftover yeast in a barrel due to a lack of clear monetization model. Their response? Focus on mobile growth and increase sponsored posts. It worked. Just recently, Facebook’s share prices surged ahead 30% in a single day after the company reported over 100 million mobile users and an increase of mobile ad spending. Zuckerberg is a genius again. Restaurants and brands will continue to see a pay-to-play model from the sites that have the eyeballs such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. If you want to appear in their news feeds, you have to pay to be seen now and forever, amen.

On the other hand, it doesn’t cost anything to connect and engage with guests on the same sites, other than an investment of time. A common term used in social media is, “Humanize the brand” but I’d take that a step further and suggest restaurant employees “humilitize the brand” (‘humilitize’ isn’t a word, I checked but it should be).

Social media is amazingly powerful when it comes to demonstrating humility. In the prior article earlier this year, Somms, You Are a Brand we took a look at how sommeliers can use social media to build their online reputation. Responding to guests with @ replies on Twitter or commenting on Facebook posts is free, and a better use of time than paying to be seen in the news feed. It’ll take longer but it’s an extension of what a sommelier is supposed to be. With great power comes great responsibility, and as a somm’s brand grows online, it’ll will be even more important to lead by example.

The Mobile Toolbox

Mobile technology as it relates to restaurants can be broken down into a few key customer experiences:

Searching for a place to dine — mobile tools used include Yelp, OpenTable, Google Maps/ZAGAT, Instagram, Forkly, TripAdvisor.
Sharing photos of food and drink during the meal — some mobile tools used are Instagram/Facebook, Forkly, Twitter.
After the meal reviews and word of mouth — Yelp, Google/ZAGAT, Facebook, Twitter are some of the top mobile tools.

From a sommelier viewpoint the 3 customer experiences can be distilled down to Before, During and After the guest experience. All 3 are interactions where a sommelier can be part of the mobile conversation.

During the searching experience, restaurant guests will stumble across all sorts of bread crumbs left by previous diners. There’s no reason your videos or a photos shouldn’t pop up during the discovery. Now that Instagram allows 15-second videos I would hope every somm resorts to a daily video greeting tagged to their restaurant’s location. “Here’s what we’re opening tonight,” or “here’s our chef braising tonight’s special....the Barolo on our menu will go great.” It’s the next best thing to being table side.

When patrons share photos of the food or wine on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter there’s no reason the resident somm shouldn’t comment on the photo with a, “Glad you liked it!” or, “thank you for coming in” during the meal as it’s happening. It takes dedication but it pays off. Furthermore, it’s free and circumvents the need for paying to show up in news feeds.

Of course there’s always the negative experience from time to time. Sometimes patrons will blast you online for the smallest thing. Nip negative reviews in the bud by tuning into the restaurant’s Twitter handle, Yelp reviews or Facebook page every night. Word of mouth is a positive thing. It’s your job to be visible in the online conversation.

Over the summer I worked a few nights on the floor at Farmhouse Inn with Allyson Gorsuch. Allyson selected some wines for the pairing menu prepared by Chef Litke. This is one example of how mobile technology was used to tell the story of the pairings through images posted to Insatram, Facebook, Twitter and Google+:

Anyone who looks up Farmhouse on those sites can see the photo attached to that location. In other photos action shots from the kitchen with the chef plating food might be posted. If there was a specific wine we wanted to promote either by the glass or as a feature simply posting a photo of the label opened up a conversation about the wine:

Providing digital-savvy guests with a friendly dining experience opens a Pandora’s Box of possibilities. What do they want to do during the visit? What do they need? How will mobile technology enhance their enjoyment while connecting them with the sommelier? Why do their photos of food look like a mystery substance in low lighting? Is it meat or is it cake? Maybe it’s meatcake? These are the problems to solve that will give guests new reasons to come in and dine.

Some chefs and servers are willing to take photos of the dish back in the kitchen right after they plate it because there’s better lighting. I’ve seen guests ask to have their phone brought back to the kitchen to make sure the food looks good in the photo. Food and drink app, Forkly is rolling out a restaurant dashboard that’ll allow the restaurant owner to pre-populate photos of dishes into the app so patrons can use the default photo.

Starbucks is adding wireless charging mats in their café’s that allows customers to set their phone on it and charge the battery while paying for their four dollar latte. Does it make their coffee taste better? I’m not sure anything could do that, but it does make the customer experience more geek friendly. It’s telling the mobile customer, “Hey, I get it.”

The Door is Open

Thanks to the movie, SOMM the kimono is open and now average ordinary everyday wine drinkers have a front row seat for what goes into our jobs. Now is the time to seize the opportunity to come forward from behind the walls of your workplace into the mobile space where those same wine drinkers are.

We’re at the beginning of our new digital future. The social web and mobile technology aren’t going anywhere. They’re only going to be come more entrenched in every aspect of our daily lives. Doing a little bit of “mobile stuff” each day is all it takes to get started. Much like planting a vineyard, you won’t see “fruit” for a while, but nurturing your mobile presence like vines will eventually pay off.

Somms: You are a Brand

2013-02-06T11:26:00Z

How sommeliers can use social media to build their influence online

Working at a place like NIKE isn’t much different than going to school and getting a degree in branding. During eight years working there, I had the opportunity to look under the hood and learn how how a brand works from the inside out.

After leaving NIKE in 2003, I moved to Colorado and got a job with Charmer-Sunbelt despite having zero sales experience. The branding knowledge from NIKE translated nicely to the wine business—both shoes and wine bottles are lifestyle products, both were in a similar price point, and both provide enjoyment. By applying basic brand management philosophy (and by being naive enough to not know any better) I did pretty well as a sales rep.

When the rise of social media started to happen around 2007 something about it made sense as a branding platform. Personal brands like Martha Stewart, Oprah and even Robert Parker grew large audiences to influence entire industries based the simple idea of building influence as a personal brand. In a way, social media democratized that idea and made it possible for anyone to build their own brand with unlimited potential. It all comes down to reach and impressions.

More to the point, this is the exact formula needed to build influence as a personal brand:

influence = reach( trust + expertise + brand)

Reach (eyeballs) is a multiplier—that doesn’t mean your own following, Reach comes in various forms which is why people do things like contribute to blogs like Huffington Post or Mashable where there’s larger reach. I’ve applied this formula to my own life starting in early 2008 and can say it is an accurate approach. Time is a variable that can be substituted for Reach as it is also a multiplier.

Sommeliers earn trust through their interactions ..... Every brand needs a human element. Wine magazines have humanized with critics, which are their face and voice. NIKE humanized the brand with sponsored athletes. Restaurants have sommeliers and chefs. And wineries have winemakers or some other face to humanize who they are. We trust those professionals to provide sound guidance for us.

The role of the sommelier is changing. It’s no coincidence Wine Enthusiast’s Sommelier of the Year for 2012 is Mike Madrigale, is one of the first sommeliers who was early on using social media to connect with patrons. Mike is doing what you’re doing—he’s building trust. But what he’s doing that you probably aren’t (yet) is building his reach and impressions through social media sites.

Imagine how much impact the collective influence of all sommeliers would have on the world of wine if each somm started building their own brand right now. We’re only at the beginning of this new digital world. Now is the time to start thinking of yourself as a brand. The rise of the sommelier ‘brand’ is just beginning.

What Social Media Isn’t

It was only a matter of time before restaurant employers started putting a premium on sommeliers who are active on social media sites. According to some fellow sommeliers, restaurants in New York are looking for sommelier’s with large followings who can (or are required to) bring in a certain number of covers or whales every night, which is unrealistic.

If there’s one thing to take away from this article it’s one single point: Social Media is not meant to be a broadcast medium. The number of followers someone has is not indicative of their reach or influence. What’s more important is the number of quality interactions they have online, also known as True Reach.

If one winery has 600 acres of Pinot Noir planted, and another winery only has 18 acres planted it doesn’t mean the larger one is better, right? One of those wineries might be located outside Fresno and the other is in Burgundy. A sommelier with 225 followers on Twitter might actually be more influential and a better hire than a sommelier with 2,200 followers. A sommelier’s online brand isn’t just about Twitter or Facebook, it’s a holistic approach to all technology.

In 2013 the term, ‘social media’ won’t be referred to as something different from the internet or apps. Social media, app culture, mobile and the web are all converging into one thing—digital. To truly build a personal brand we need to be open to all things digital, not just one or two sites. Collectively a personal brand will have True Reach online and offline—the success or failure of that personal brand will depend on how well the formula above is followed.

And social media is not just a young person’s environment. Any person at any age has an equal chance of building their brand online. Some of the most successful social media personalities are all over the age of 40.

Return on Attention

We live in a world where we are overloaded with technology. According to ex-Google CEO, Eric Schmidt we create more content online every 48 hours than we did from the dawn of humans to 2003. Mind boggling statistics like that one really demonstrate how much technology has infiltrated our lives.

Because the audience we want to reach is probably feeling overwhelmed with all the emails, text messages, Facebook posts, direct messages, blog posts, instant messages, Instagram comments, tweets, friend requests, app updates, spam requests, analytics reports and all the other noise it’s becoming harder to cut through all that noise and get their attention.

In a way, Attention has become the new currency. Building a successful personal brand and influence is dependent on how well we can get someone’s attention.

5 Tips for Building a Personal Brand Online

@reply, @reply, @reply - Twitter has a subtle yet powerful little feature to point out. When someone sends a tweets that begins with someone else’s handle (ie.. @name) that tweet is invisible to everyone else except that person, but only when the tweet starts with the handle/name.

For example, take a look at Master Sommelier Craig Collins’ tweets. His first tweet to @BillElsey was seen only by Craig and by Bill. None of Craig’s followers saw that tweet in their stream. Twitter made it invisible because none of Craig’s followers need to see what they are saying to one another. The one additional note here is any mutual followers of Craig and Bill will also see the tweet. His next tweet to @molliechen was seen only by him and her. Also, Craig used a hash tag to make that subject searchable.

(side note: A hashtag “#” is a way to highlight or tag an idea, an “@” symbol is a way to highlight or tag a person)

Why would Twitter intentionally make tweets invisible to everyone except the person listed in the tweet? Because that’s the entire point of Twitter. They want people to tweet directly to one another and they were smart enough to make it so you aren’t junking up your stream with a bunch of one to one conversations that your followers don’t need to see.

On the other hand any other character in from of @name will make the tweet visible to followers. If that tweet started with .@BillElsey all of Craig’s followers would’ve seen it. It’s only when the tweet starts with a handle.

Master Collins is a good person to watch on Twitter as his Twitter stream looks the way every sommelier’s stream should look which is to say it’s full of @ replies. There are few actions that will capture Attention and build True Reach more than @ replying to people and having one to one dialog. The next step is to take that one to one mentality and apply it to all social media sites.
Be consistent with your brand - Think of your avatar as a logo like swoosh or UPS shield. Use the same avatar everywhere, and make it a close up legible photo because it’ll be viewed at a small size on mobile phones. Use the same color schemes and background images. People are going to see your brand in various digital formats, so present a consistent brand image.

There’s a saying in the social media world, “real time isn’t fast enough.” The way I interpret that is you need to be visible and active often. Lapses of not being on are exaggerated online. A brand gains equity through repetition—you want your brand image to be fresh in people’s minds. In the design world they call it a ‘graphic language’ which is all the colors, shapes, fonts and logos that communicate a brand.
Each social site is like a vineyard - If you sign onto Twitter today for the first time, think of it as planting a vineyard. You won’t see any “fruit” for a while. You have to keep nurturing your vines (ie.. followers) organically by @ replying. Eventually, over time your social sites will produce “fruit” which is influence. Other social sites would be new vineyards—don’t start one unless you can keep up on it.
Google+ - Google+ is NOT a social network, it’s a social layer over search. And since Google practically is the internet, Google is making it impossible to ignore Google+ as they integrate it into all things Google from YouTube and Maps to ZAGAT and Gmail.

One of the biggest criticisms of Google+ is how it stacks up against Facebook. If Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Google+ all started on the same day, Google+ would win by a landslide, but those other sites had a 5-year head start to build user base and features. Facebook is making is making it increasingly more difficult to get people’s attention online with the tweaks to their Edge Rank algorithm. Some studies suggest only 12 percent of one’s Facebook Friends or Fans can see updates. On the other hand, 100 percent of your Google+ followers/friends can see Google+ updates.

I’d suggest somms search their own restaurant on Google today to see how ZAGAT reviews and user profiles from G+ are linked to their location. Then, I’d suggest being part of those interactions.
Engage the Right Audience - It seems sommeliers have a game online of trying to one up each other by posting or selling the geekiest wine. We take pride in discovering the next esoteric gem that’ll impress fellow somms with good reason because small producers who make good wine deserve to be highlighted. On the other hand, this behavior is the very thing that perpetuates the perceptions of somms being snooty. We aren’t really engaging the average wine drinker when we just geek out amongst each other.

A better way to roll out the red carpet and engage a wider audience of wine lovers is to think of the online audience as a ‘knowledge pyramid where three separate levels of wine appreciation are broken out:

The top of the pyramid is the smallest online audience where the most knowledgable people are. Master Sommeliers, Masters of Wine and other highly knowledgable folks make up a small audience. Not the biggest area of growth for a personal brand.

The middle level of the pyramid consists of many wine industry people and wine enthusiasts who have some working knowledge of adult beverages. It’s a larger audience online in which to engage and grow a personal brand.

The bottom of the pyramid is the largest opportunity for personal brand growth. The largest audience online is also the one that knows the least about wine. These are folks who may only know a few descriptors about wine like, “Chardonnay is buttery,” or, “Merlot is smooth”. The layperson doesn’t speak our language (yet) and maybe they don’t want to. But to engage with them and grow our brand(s) we need to meet them on their turf and speak their language online.

I’ve found asking lots of questions online to be very engaging. Sometimes I’ll put out a tweet that’s as simple as, “Cabernet or Merlot?” It’s not about what I think, it’s about what they think. The responses are all over the place ranging from someone who likes Chocolate wine (not my preference) to someone who’s drinking an older Chinon or a wine that has both. The point is it engages the bottom of the pyramid so they have a voice in the conversation.

If sommeliers collectively engaged the audience in the bottom of the pyramid it might just be the biggest thing we could do to raise the level of influence and reach as a community.

We're Early

In the past fifteen years we’ve all had a front row seat to the largest shift in human communication in the history of mankind. We’ve quickly transitioned from an analog world to a digital world, and it’s only the beginning. According the IBM, 90% of the world’s data was created in the past two years. We’re still so early on in the game, so the time is right for wine professionals and sommeliers to not only think of their own personal brand online, but the Sommelier brand in general.

We are the ones who will set the stage for future generations of wine professionals. I suspect future sommelier job descriptions will include some sort of verbiage that makes digital communication part of the role.

We are curating a digital time capsule of our society online with every tweet, blog, check in or photo we post. In the future, historians won’t have to go dig up bones to study human beings, they’ll be able to just go online and search. They’ll be able to know who did what, where and with whom. We might not be able to see or hear what Benedictine Monk, Dom Perignon was thinking back when he was trying to figure out why bottles were exploding in his cellar but if he were alive today, he could create a YouTube video of his work. How cool would that be if we could just go look it up? He can’t do that, but you can. The more each somm builds their own brand, the more they’ll leave a footprint on history.

It’s not too late to get started. The biggest advice I can give is to be consistent. Use the same avatar, the same URL, the same colors or background image and use the same online “voice”. A brand is an outward sign of an inward belief. Breath life into your brand every day and keep nurturing your “vines” organically with lots of replies and questions.