The document discusses social media marketing strategies for craft beverage brands. It begins with introductions of Matt Toomey from Social Bacon and Mike Giese from Liberty School Wines. It then covers legal restrictions on social media for alcohol brands, defining a social media strategy, creating engaging content, using paid social advertising, measuring social media effectiveness, and conducting giveaways. It concludes with a case study of Liberty School's "Merlot Madness" campaign which saw over 3,000 new Facebook fans and strong engagement through partnering with bloggers and varied content focused on recipes. The key takeaways emphasize defining goals, focusing platforms, producing varied content, leveraging user generated content, tracking social advertising metrics, and pursuing brand collabor

1. Matt Toomey
Social Bacon
Social Media Marketing for Craft Beverage
#Scalable #Actionable #Effective.
Mike Giese
Hope Family Wines

2. Goals and Objectives
 Quick introduction
 TBB/ABC restrictions on social marketing
 What is your social strategy? Stay true to your brand
 Content and engagement
 Paid social advertising
 Social metrics, ROI, and measuring social media effectiveness
 Giveaways, contests, and sweepstakes
 Liberty School case study

3. Introductions
 Matt Toomey, Co-founder/President of Social Bacon, a social media
marketing agency.
 Clients exclusively in the Food, Wine/Beer, and Event industries.

4. Introductions
 Mike Giese: Brand Manager, Liberty School Wines

5. Keep it Legal: TBB/ABC Restrictions for Alcohol
Brands on Social Media.
 Until recently, Alcohol marketers in the US were restricted to
platforms where 71.6 percent of the audience is over 21 years of
age.
 When did this change?
 Many brands are tapping into Snapchat
 It is illegal for alcohol brands to engage in two-way conversations
with anyone under 21 on social platforms.
 Include disclaimers in your social profiles
 Do not give away alcohol via social media.
 Exception: ticketed events where alcohol will be consumed.

6. Define Your Social Strategy
 Marketing goals behind social
 Keep your social voice consistent and on-brand
 Choose your social platforms, kick-ass on these platforms, repeat.
 Post frequency, know your audience
 Ad budget (more to come)
 Cyber-stalking your competition is the highest form of flattery

7. Content and Engagement
What sort of content
goes viral on social?

8. Content and Engagement
 Content is and will always be king.
 Invest in a photo library of your product. You can never have too much content
for social. A mix of “professional” staged photos “in the moment” type photos
and user generated content images.
 Content strategy
 ~60% of posts should be brand focused: a mix of hard sell, branding photos,
cool production shots, people behind the brand
 ~20% of posts should be a variety of content that your audience will be
interested in. Industry articles, local happenings, trending news, etc.
 ~20% User Generated Content (UGC) and humor

9. Content and Engagement cont.
 Engagement drives reach and social growth
 Social is all about conversations
 Facebook is a paid media platform
 Engaging posts will do well organically, however a little $ goes a long way.
 Open ended questions
 Fill in the blank posts
 Small giveaways (glasses, logo swag, etc.)
 Great vehicle for customer support

10. Content/Engagement samples

11. Content/Engagement samples

12. Content/Engagement samples: UGC

13. Paid Social Advertising
 Friends don’t let friends Boost Posts!

14. Paid Social Advertising cont.
 Use FB Ad Manager
 Mobile ad manager app great for promoting FB posts (but that’s it!)
 More Advanced: Power Editor (only on Chrome browser)
 Focus paid ads on posts that identify your brand, voice, and sales
 Re-target ads for consumers who have visited your website
 Target people who are walking/driving past your tap room, tasting room,
etc.
 Set a monthly ad budget, run ads, monitor performance, repeat.
 Split-testing
 Ad budget should be spread across day-to-day posts, events, online sales,
events, etc.

15. Social Metrics (Facebook)
 How important are total number of likes/fans?
 Different answer depending on a brand’s size/production/competition
 Post Engagement vs. Post Reach
 Organic reach is at all time low on FB
 Newsfeed algorithm.
 Importance of post ads
 Facebook Insights is a great tool for knowing who your social audience is,
but don’t get lost in the data.

16. ROI of Social Media
 Gary V. said it best…

17. ROI of Social Media cont.
 That being said, ROI can be calculated quite easily when you run
targeted campaigns on social for ticketed events and in some
cases, online sales.
 Look at ROE (Return on Engagement) for measuring your daily
post ads.

18. Giveaways, Contests, & Sweepstakes
 Believe it or not, some brands still give away alcohol via Social. Don’t
be that brand.
 Giveaways should always have a goal.
 Increase followers/fans
 Encourage shares for an event
 Use of 3rd party tool for collecting other info like email address, name, etc.
 ROI on giveaways can be easily calculated if you have an idea of how
much a demographically targeted fan/follower or email address is
worth to you.
 Giveaways/Sweepstakes tend to perform better with local/regional
brands.

19. Liberty School Case Study
 Two month campaign called “Merlot Madness”
 Goals:
 Target foodie wine lovers social media
 Grow Facebook fans
 Grow Instagram followers
 Increase email subscribers
 Establish a consistent posting strategy and develop the brand’s social voice
 Drive in-store sales
 Promote the Text to win campaign

21. • A family-owned company and family-owned vineyards
• We embrace the diversity of microclimates in Paso Robles
• All wines are aged in French and American Oak
• Gentle cross-flow filtration shows dedication to quality without compromise
• An everyday drinking wine that can be enjoyed by everyone

22. Gender
Women Men
0
5
10
15
20
18 - 24 25 - 34 35 - 44 45 - 55 55 - 64 65+
Age Group
Women Men
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
CA
TX
FL
M…
IL
NY
PA
M…
NV
AZ
Top 10 Markets
DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

23. • National Free Merlot Campaign to draw attention to the
Merlot category
• Launched a series of videos via Social Media in Summer
2015
• Merlot Madness was a chain-focused campaign tying in
the Free Merlot branding
• Phase 1 (March): Social Media focused consumer
engagement
• Phase 2 (April): Partner with bloggers for simple
recipes with the aim of driving consumers to local
grocery stores

24. Liberty School’s Merlot Madness
 March: March Madness style bracket where fans vote, engage, and
share content for a chance to win prizes.
 Prizes: Initially cash (Visa gift cards) prizes, however partnered with
UncommonGoods for cross promotion.
 What worked:
 Post engagement was strong
 Cross-promotion with UncommonGoods was very successful
 Challenges:
 People were hesitant to sign up for an email list. Voting engagement was 10x
stronger on post comments as opposed to Voting page.
 FreeMerlot social channels were difficult to gain traction

25. Liberty School’s Merlot Madness

26. Liberty School’s Merlot Madness

27. Liberty School’s Merlot Madness
 April: Month long campaign focusing on how you could “elevate your
everyday” at home with a great recipe and a bottle of Liberty School
Merlot.
 Partnered with 3 professional food/recipe bloggers who developed
custom recipes, photos, and cross-promotion.
 Posted our own food/wine photos
 What worked:
 Engagement and Facebook growth was strong
 Bloggers provided great recipes, photos, and cross-promotion
 Challenges:
 Hoping for better Instagram growth

29. Liberty School – Content Focus

30. Liberty School – Content Focus

31. Liberty School – Content Focus

32. Liberty School Campaign Stats
 New Facebook fans: 3,407 (started with 1394, ended campaign with 4,801 total fans)
 Total reach on posts and ads during the 2 months: 295,496
 Total number of engaged Facebook users: 10,312
 Total number of new Instagram followers: 292

33. Key Takeaways
 Define your goals with social. Focus ad spend on those goals.
 You don’t have to be on all social platforms, but make sure you rock
the platforms you are on.
 Produce great content and vary the type of content.
 Fans/followers are often the best content providers.
 You can never have enough photos in your content bank.
 Social advertising can be very effective. Track metrics, adjust ads
and content based on results.
 Look for collaboration and cross-promotion with brands who have
same customer demographic.

34. Questions?
Don’t hesitate to reach out with questions.
Matt Toomey
matt@socialbacon.net
925-596-0311
www.socialbacon.net