I just ran across this article http://patch.com/A-qnbD about NJ allowing direct shipping to consumers from small wineries and thought you’d be interested!

Law Allows Wineries to Ship Directly to NJ Homes

Supporters say residents will now have more choice.
By Ashley Peskoe and Shelley Emling

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has signed legislation permitting local and small out-of-state wineries to ship wine directly to the homes of New Jersey consumers.

Many liquor stores fought the law because they feared it would hurt business. But local wineries backed the measure, saying it would give a boost to the state’s wine industry.

Read the rest of the article here http://patch.com/A-qnbD

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For those of you wanting to improve your Facebook Fan Page, you’ll want to read this article:  Better Facebook Fan Page: Essential Tips, Apps and Examples.  It is very easy to follow and the tips are easy to implement!

Taking great vineyard images can be challenging. Pictures can turn out blurry, have sunspots and lighting issues or just have nothing to distinguish them from a million other vineyard shots. These 5 tips can help correct the most common of these problems and provide you with some amazing and unique vineyard images.

1. Go out when the lighting is even
2. Detect & remove distractions
3. Use a monopod to get rid of the shakes
4. Look for clouds, colors & other effects to make your images stand out
5. Have patience!

Go Out When the Lighting is Even

The best time to take pictures in the vineyard is when the light is soft and even — usually early in the morning right after sunrise and then again around sunset.  What you want to avoid  is the harsh light that is cast when the sun is high in the sky.

This photo was taken during a hot summer afternoon when the lighting was very harsh with deep shadows and almost white highlights.		This image was taken during the early morning as the sun was just starting to rise making the lighting fairly even.
Sometimes this effect can be kind of cool, but most of the time the image is unusable.		An added bonus is how the light shines through the grapes making the colors even more amazing.

Believe it or not, overcast days (if light enough) can allow you to take pictures all day because the clouds diffuse the intense sunlight giving you that even lighting you need.

Detect & Remove Distractions

One bad grape in an otherwise perfect cluster, a huge brown leaf in the middle of a group of green leaves, or a post running through a series of vines are examples of distractions that can draw the viewer’s eyes away from the main focal point of your image. These distractions will dilute the impact of your picture.   If you identify these distractions beforehand and remove or find a way to minimize the problem the result will be a more perfect picture.

For example, if there is a brown leaf blocking your intended target, go ahead and remove it once you have determined that removing the first distraction will not expose a larger one — such as a gaping hole in the vines or dried out grapes.  If there is a weird vine twining around the cluster you want to photograph, try to re-route it to either side.

The two images below may look very similar, but the one on top has the light colored post running through it which tends to draw the eyes away from the clusters of ripe grapes and breaks up the continuity of the row.

Once I saw the post, I moved down the row a little bit more so the post wouldn’t show and took this picture. As you can see, it looks a lot more cohesive and there is nothing to distract from the cluster of ripe Pinot Noir grapes.

So, next time you see the perfect shot, take a careful look around to see if there are any potential distractions — and then do the best you can to take care of them before they get into your final image.

Use A Monopod To Get Rid Of The Shakes

If you have a difficult time keeping your hands steady while taking pictures, then you probably have a lot of shots that are blurry and out of focus.  Although a tripod will help steady the camera, you loose much of your mobility and may have difficulty setting it up in all the places you’d like.  A wonderful compromise is the monopod.

A monopod is simply an adjustable pole with a camera attachment at the top.  With only one leg, it is very easy to carry around (you can even use it as a walking stick) and when you see the perfect shot, just plop the foot on the ground and use the pole to stabilize the camera, adjust the height (if necessary) and take the picture.  In seconds you have your shake-free shot and can quickly move on down the row.  Even better, they are relatively inexpensive. (Amazon sells them for under $25)

Look For Clouds, Colors & Other Effects To Make Your Images Stand Out

While wandering the vineyard, look for effects that will add interest to your image such as cloud formations, colors, water droplets (you can even bring a spray bottle and lightly spray a few clusters) and so forth. One trick I use to add a little color to my grape images is to crouch down and shoot up through the cluster so you can get a glimpse of sky through breaks in the vines.

In this example, I was able to find this beautiful cluster of Tempranillo grapes during veraison with the colorful leaves all around it.

Have Patience!

Take your time while walking the vineyard and really look around.  Perhaps there are colored streamers in the rows that fan out when the wind blows, then wait until they are all fanned out and then take your picture. Is there a beautiful cloud formation that will be right over the vineyard in a few minutes?  If so, wait until it’s in the perfect position and then take your shot.

That is what I did in the following example. I saw these gorgeous clouds approaching the winery and waited until the cloud opening was right over the top of it and then took the shot!

Conclusion . . .

The main point of these tips are to help you understand the importance of lighting, tools and paying attention to the life in the vineyard and how it can help you improve your images.

Once you understand and implement this, you should see quite an improvement in your images! Have Fun!

Something that is often overlooked, but very important, is the copyright year on the bottom of your web pages.

Although it’s probably acceptable to have the previous year appear for a few months, it is not OK to have a copyright year that is 2, 3 or 5 years out of date — they make your site look very out-of-date and leave the visitor wondering if you are still in business.

So, if you do only one thing in the next week, PLEASE update your copyright year! 

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If you want to make your website look timely and show your Christmas spirit, think about swapping your regular LinkIN, FaceBook and Twitter icons with Christmas ones!

From here you can view the top 10 Holiday icon sets (put together by Specky Boy Design Magazine), follow the link to where you can download them and have your web designer swap out your current icons. You can even use them in your email signature!

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Please, Please, PLEASE Take Pictures!

I KNOW how crazy the Holiday season is, and am sure taking photos is probably the last thing on your mind — but it is now, while your tasting room is decorated and full of happy people that you NEED to be taking photos for your online sites!  (The ‘online sites’ I’m referring to are your winery website, blog, FaceBook, etc..)

By taking photos of your guests having fun and uploading them to your sites, you are showing new site visitors how much fun you are (making them want to go and experience it for themselves) and encouraging past guests to visit your site looking for photos of themselves (which also reminds them what a good time they had, making them want to visit again).

If you don’t have time to take the photos yourself, you can set out some disposable cameras and encourage guests to take photos, or you can ‘bribe’ a photographer (they don’t even have to be professional — just someone who can take good photos) with bottles of wine or free entry into an event (this has won me over quite a few times )

Picture Taking Tips

Taking photos of groups of people can be difficult, so here are a few tips to help you get started:

• Try not to take a lot of posed shots — look around for people who are laughing and having a good time and zoom in on them (people respond better to close-ups than full body shots).
• When you find a likely subject, don’t stop with the first shot!  You want to take several photos in a row in case one of the subjects has their eyes closed at the moment you captured your first image or their mouth was in a strange position while they are eating, drinking or talking.
• When you do take posed shots, check to see if there is anything that would distract the viewer from the image’s focus. For example, if a wine bottle will be in the photo, make sure the label is facing front.  Remove any wadded up napkins, empty plates and glasses or anything else that would detract from the photo.

Are There Legalities?

If you are worried about the legality of displaying photos of your guests online, there are several ways to handle this:

1. Do nothing.  As long as it was taken in a public place, you are not selling the image, it does not infringe on the subject’s reasonable expectation of privacy (meaning, you didn’t take it of them while they were in the rest room), and it does not defame or embarrassment them, then you are within your legal rights to take photos of people in your tasting room and at your events and display them on your online sites.
2. If you are uncomfortable taking photos without some kind of notice, then a simple way to take care of this is to post signs at the entrance and around the event/tasting room saying something like “We are taking photos today for our website and FaceBook.  By entering the premises you are giving us permission to use images of you for these purposes.”
3. If even the above is not enough, then a more difficult, time consuming, invasive, but iron clad way of handling this is to have your guests fill out model release forms.  If interested in this option, feel free to download and use this simple form.

Now What?

As soon as you’ve taken your photos, you’ll want to upload them to their own gallery on your website, blog, FaceBook page and/or Flickr.   (I’m mentioning the different options because I know many of you don’t have the resources to immediately add them to your website and so can take advantage of the usability of blogs, FaceBook and Flickr by uploading the images yourself.)

Once the images are uploaded, send out an email blast letting your guests know the photos are up and encourage them to check out the new photo gallery.  You can even make a game of it!  Maybe do something funky with one of the photos and the first person to notice it gets a free corkscrew.

Bottom Line

People LOVE to view photos of themselves, and by keeping your online sites updated with photos and encouraging your guests to view them, you are not only keeping your brand fresh in their minds, but while checking out the photos they may decide to buy more wine from your store or see about an upcoming event they would like to attend (after all, they can look at the photos to see how much fun they had at the last one ).

I recently came across this fabulous post by the well respected Vin65 and thought I’d share it with you: http://www.vin65.com/blog/Top-10-Winery-Website-Must-Haves.

What makes this article so great is each of the ‘Must-Haves’ such as Store Locator, List of Events, and Newsletter Signup is easy to understand and implement on your own site.  The only point I did not immediately agree with was having a mobile version of your site — working with small, boutique and micro wineries like I do, I know many of your budgets are limited and before you try to have a mobile version of your site created, PLEASE check your site analytics and see how many visitors are actually visiting your site from a mobile device.  For most of my clients, mobile visitors make up less then 5% of their over-all visits, which may not be enough to justify the added expense of creating a mobile version of your site.

To make social media effective for your winery, your posts and tweets need to reflect your personality and the personality of your winery — this is how you gain fans and hopefully, loyal followers and consumers. But do you have time to do all the social media marketing yourself? And if not, is it possible to outsource some of your social media responsibilities without losing your unique ‘voice’?

I am an AVID following of Donna Gunter’s blog ‘Get More Client’s Online’. What makes her blog so pertinent is her information is focused on small businesses — which easily translates to small wineries. This latest article of hers is a case in point: 7 Most Effective Tasks to Authentically Outsource in Your Social Media Marketing.

In this article, Donna explains what can’t be outsource, and what CAN — and knowing this may help you delegate some of your social media responsibilities so maybe, you can get a much needed break!

For you wineries that are actively utilizing your FaceBook Pages (and I do mean Pages, NOT Profiles), you may get some extra attention from Google! Per WebProNews, “Google Makes Facebook Pages a Higher Priority for Businesses.” So, if you were already active on FaceBook, then keep doing what your doing. If not, then this may be the impetus you need to start ‘FaceBooking’ regularly — I know I am!

The first part of my FaceBook article focused on why you needed a FaceBook page and helped you get set up. Now we need to get into the nitty gritty of things — attracting ‘fans’, understanding what makes it so successful (I call this ‘What Makes it Viral?’), maintaining your page and cross pollination.

Attracting Fans

I wish I could say that now you’ve built your winery’s ‘Page’ it will immediately start attracting tons of fans — but like everything else with social media, this is not the case.  Believe it or not, the way to actively market your winery ‘Page’ is by using your FaceBook ‘Profile’ to participate in a few choice user groups and creating relationships with these group’s main ‘influencers’ (the people who have the most ‘Friends’).

As wineries, the most logical place to start is to look for and join wine lover groups.  In FaceBook, try running searches using keywords like ‘wine lovers’, ‘wine fans’, ‘loves wine’, maybe even plug in your location, ‘sonoma wine lovers’. If you see a lot of ‘Pages’ and ‘Profiles’ mixed in with the groups, then click on the ‘Group’ link to the left and that will remove any results that are NOT groups. Now, start sifting through the results.

The groups I’d pay attention to first are those in your actual geographic location with a decent number of members because most of the members may be close enough to actually visit your winery and attend your events. For example, I ran a search on ‘texas wine lovers’ and here are the results:

With its focus on Texas and 542 members, if I was a Texas winery I would definitely join this group and start following the discussions and posts to their wall — see if there is anything you can add or questions you can answer. If appropriate, add your own discussion or wall post being careful to follow the theme of the other posts — after all, if you immediately start in with a hard sell, it will turn people off.

Once you feel you’ve established yourself as a non-threatening, helpful group participant, start researching who the most influential members are (the ones with the most ‘Friends’) and introduce yourself to them. This is explained in detail by Nick o’Neill in his article How To Win Facebook Fans And Reach Influencers and he also takes you beyond the initial introductions and guides you in how to turn group members into fans.

What Makes it Viral?

The ‘viralness’ of FaceBook is what makes it such an effective marketing tool. Once you have gained ‘Friends’ for your ‘Profile’ and ‘Fans’ for your ‘Page’, your updates will appear in their news feeds which will also be visible by all their ‘Friends’ & ‘Fans’ — thereby increasing your visibility to potentially new ‘Friends’ and ‘Fans’ (have I said ‘Friends’ and ‘Fans’ enough? I feel I’ve written this stuff so many times I’m going to wake up with FaceBook nightmares!)

For those of you who like numbers, here are some calculations made by Richard Beaudin in his article Building wine fans on facebook: A moment in time in reference to the top wineries on FaceBook:

Maintenance

To establish an effective FaceBook strategy that attracts followers and furthers your brand, active maintenance and participation must become a part of your everyday business life! You have to keep your ‘Profile’ and ‘Page’ current, post updates on what you are doing, respond to messages and actively participate in the groups you have joined.

Cross Pollination

Now that you’ve put time into your FaceBook account, you need to make sure everyone knows about it! Add a link to your FaceBook ‘Page’ from your website’s home page asking site visitors to become ‘Fans’. To make this even easier, you can have your web designer install a FaceBook ‘Fan Box’ widget on your site that allows people to become your FaceBook Fan right from your home page! To the right is how the ‘Fan Box’ looks on my home page.

In Conclusion . . .

Please know that my two posts on FaceBook have barely scratched the surface of all it can do, but I feel I’ve given you enough information to help you understand how it works and to get you started. Now its just a matter of wading in there and doing it — Good Luck!