Thirty seconds to a minute is all the time a sommelier has to work out what wine a person might like, and that also matches both their dish and price point. When you consider the large, encyclopaedic lists many restaurants have, it sounds as daunting as it does impossible.

But it isn’t.

The skill resides in effective communication. Asking a few key questions and, most importantly, listening to the answers helps you guide a guest to where they feel comfortable, or to their exploratory boundaries.

In all my time as a sommelier, I have never sold a bottle a wine based on facts and figures; always on style and story. When it comes down to it, your customers are not there to have dinner with you and they’re certainly not there for a masterclass, so good sommeliers know to keep it simple without dumbing it down. With such limited time, bamboozling people with winemaking bullshit is neither helpful nor useful.

I used to drill this into my sommelier staff by asking them to describe a wine and timing their responses. Often it would be along the lines of: “Well, it was picked at 13.5 baume, did its primary fermentation in stainless before being transferred to new French oak, from Seguin Moreau with a light toast, before a little battonage to build some texture as well as a partial malolactic fermentation of 30%…” You get the drift.

Say that to someone who knows wine and they’ll look at you, annoyed, and say: “Please go away and get me a glass of wine.”

Say that to someone who doesn’t know wine, and they’ll still look at you, annoyed, and say: “Please go away and get me a glass of wine.”

The issue is getting caught up in the winemaking process without giving your customers a connection to people, place or story. We remember stories more than facts and figures. Why? Because they’re more interesting than stainless steel tanks.

A scenario …

Imagine enquiring about the steak in a restaurant, and hearing this from your waiter in response: “This is grass-fed Angus beef from Gippsland, that was put it on a truck and taken to the abattoir, where it was stunned, its throat was slit, its blood was drained and it was stripped of its skin before being sawed into smaller pieces. It was then cryovaced and left in a warehouse before being sent here, where we dry aged it until it had a light covering of grey rot. We then scraped that off and cut it into steaks.” Still want to order it?

Don’t get me wrong, what happens from paddock to plate is vitally important, but I don’t necessarily want to hear about it over dinner. As a diner, I’d like to assume your produce is from ethical and sustainable sources and I feel confident in that because I trust the chef. It’s the same with a wine or wine list. Assume the sommelier has already done the hard work. Trust and be guided by what they share with you.

Before our events, we say to our wine producers: “… if we hear one mention of baume levels, trestling systems, clonal selections or any other of that winemaking bullshit, we’ll yellow card you.”

While a tad militant, our point is the winemaking process shouldn’t be the default nor opening line.

Why not start with “Hello?”

Much like a sommelier in a restaurant, at an event a producer has between 30 seconds to a minute to tell their story and make a connection with the guest in front of them. Telling them who they are, where they’re from, why they’re there and what style of wine they make will have far more resonance than any production method.

It’s the vinous equivalent of an elevator pitch.

Is yours good enough?

Like the rest of us, Facebook has a New Year’s resolution, but guess what? It’s all about you.

Facebook is rolling out a new algorithm to better connect you with your friends on your News Feed. In short, this new algorithm will prioritise posts, stories and photos based on what your friends “…react to, comment on or share” in order to facilitate “deeper, more meaningful conversations with the people you care about”.

But what does this mean for publishers, brands and business pages? Well, it could mean a significant drop in page traffic if you don’t pay to play. Getting your message out there could get very expensive very quickly.

Bummer.

On the positive side, the new algorithm should clean out your personal News Feed quite a lot, hiding posts from pages you really aren’t interested in anymore but are too lazy to ‘unfollow’ or ‘unlike’. But by the same token, the content you’re sharing from your page is just as likely to go unseen.

So now, more than ever, the content you create must put your audience first.

It is no longer good enough to simply broadcast updates, facts, stats or promote ‘Buy Me’ call-to-actions. Do so, and the struggle will be real. If you focus on meaningful engagement, your audience will react with comments, tags and shares, and your content will perform much better.

But this shouldn’t be anything new. This type of content should always be the primary focus of your content strategy.

The first questions you should ask yourself when you’re creating a post for your page is ‘Why will people care?’ and ‘Is this shareable?’

According to Facebook data, on average we scroll through 93 metres of Facebook News Feed every day. To put that in context, that’s the height of New York City’s Statue of Liberty.

That’s an insane volume of content we’re scanning and consuming, so what you produce needs to be compelling and attention-grabbing not only in order to get someone to stop, even for a few seconds, but look at, read and interact with before they scroll on.

You must give your audience a reason to both engage with and share your content. Luckily, there is one simple way to do so: Solve. People’s. Problems.

For wine brands, it is no longer enough to just say ‘Visit our Cellar Door’ or ‘Buy my wine’. Your focus should be a broader narrative about who you are and where you’re from. How do you live?

As an example, if you want me to buy your wine, tell me why I should buy it, how I can buy it, where else is it available, in what wine bars, retail stores or restaurants and where are they in my area?

Then, once I’ve bought it, what should I cook with it? What recipe do you recommend? What kind of meat and where should I buy it? And if what you recommend is local produce, then who and where are they? Tell me about them. Tell me a complete narrative. How can your product integrate into my life?

The biggest problem we all have is a lack of time so help people solve it.

Everyone is busy, after all.

“OK. I’ll just boost my posts to my page fans.”

Sure. That’s an option, but it’s very much a scatter gun approach, and you’ll only really reach those who already like your page. Even then, you might not be reaching the people you actually want.

Data tells us only 3.9% of people who ‘like’ a festival’s brand page actually purchase tickets to that festival. Something to consider if you’re trying to sell your wine via your Facebook page or attempting to target someone else’s.

Strategic Facebook audience targeting is now more critical than ever in ensuring you reach the right people so the dollars you spend can go the distance. You literally cannot afford not to.

And the best way to start is to create compelling, engaging content that solves people’s problems.