VinTank Is Calling All Wine Bloggers to Tell Us Who You Are!

From time to time, we plan on publishing press releases, or any document we feel could benefit the wineblogging community as a whole. Here is the first copy and paste job from our friends at VinTank, a new start up of Paul Mabray and Joel Vincent. While we know they are both friends of the wine blogging world, their new business venture is still rather unknown to us. That said, they are asking all wine bloggers to participate in a survey to better understand who we are. Clearly, we can’t argue with that, but we just hope they share some of the results with us here at Wineblogger.info. Please read the release and then take the survey. It’s very short and quite painless!

Cheers,

Ryan Opaz

More about our social media whitepaper:

VinTank, in partnership with Derek Bromley (www.derekbromley.com), one of the long time innovators and leaders in bridging the gap between wine and technology are working on our first think tank project: wine social media analysis.  Why are we doing this?

Understanding new technology and markets and the vendors in those markets is a daunting task for anyone let alone businesses whose core competency isn’t technology.  Vendors’ differing sizes, levels of technological complexity and business strategies can make comparisons of their offerings very complex.  Adding to this is the fact that a particular market’s overall direction is often murky and you’ve created a environment where determining the best vendor or partner is an arduous task for anyone.  VinTank’s Matrix Reports, in addition to Pulse Reports, address these problems for wineries by offering snapshots of channels and the associated vendors enabling you to understand particular strengths and how well they map to your overall business strategy.

In the VinTank Social Media Matrix Report, in particular, we are in the process of evaluating Social Media as it relates to the wine industry.  We are creating an overall picture of the wine “Social Media” landscape in which we will be establish a directory of which micro-publishers (blogs) are interesting and worth wineries spending time with as well as evaluating “social networking” sites related to wines in order to enable the mapping of their particular strengths to a wineries business objectives and strategic marketing plan.

The report will present an overall picture of the market, evaluation of individual wine social media sites and their strengths relative to their vision and execution in 5 main areas – Finance, Marketing, Operations, Sales, and Technology.  The report will depict the market by using a two-dimensional matrix that evaluates vendors based on this criteria.

The report will also have a key blogger focus.  The industry is looking to understand and legitimize where these influential new media plays a role in their PR and marketing strategies.  At the same time, bloggers are looking to be treated with the same legitimacy as other media outlets.  By surveying them we can give real statistics that serve the requirements of both parties and bridge the gap for a key new communication channel for wine information.  The blog survey can be found here – http://vintank.com/survey_blogger.html.

Particular wineries and producers needs will ultimately determine how this report is used.  Understanding of your own strategic objectives will allow you to select partners that meet your needs.  For example, a set of small niche players that are relatively inexpensive to work with may meet your objectives better than a larger, more expansive player.  Either way, the Vintank Matrix Report is meant to be used as a tool in aiding the wine industry in making the right decisions for their individual businesses.

About Derek Bromley

Derek has spent his career innovating in and around the wine industry.  In 1998 he merged his experience as a Sommelier and Beverage Director at Drew Nieporent’s Myriad Restaurant Group in New York with an intuition for the “Web 1.0″ world as Co-Founder of BevAccess, an industry exchange linking the three tiers of the global drinks trade.  After relocating to the Napa Valley Derek successfully launched Domaine Chandon’s still wine portfolio in the U.S.  He went on to become the Director of Sales and Marketing for Lynmar Winery where he played a key role in the transformation of the winery into a top-tier producer and destination.  As Vice President of Marketing at Vintrust, the leading provider of wine management and cellarage services to collectors and wineries, Derek oversaw the company’s marketing, communications and branding initiatives.  He now advises a select group of wine industry clients on strategy, marketing sales and technology.

Derek holds a Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, and has been a guest lecturer at both the Hotel School and at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management.

About VinTank

Founded in 2008 by a team of innovators in wine ecommerce, technology, and social media,  VinTank is the only digital strategy and business development think tank for the wine industry.  We are dedicated in helping wineries and digital companies create strategies and relationships to intermediate the digital world with the wine industry.  We work with every client to research, analyze and identify critical technology needs within the context of their business goals and deliver innovative solutions to create value for companies and the wine industry.  As a  think tank we also publish our research as a FREE service to the wine industry to provide every winery with the insights to make the right business decisions for their business.

VinTank forms a unique bridge between high technology and the wine industry with offices in San Jose and Napa, CA.  For more information visit www.vintank.com.