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Google chief: social media gives wine the chance to shine

Published:  04 November, 2014

Social media platforms like YouTube give the wine industry the chance to connect directly with consumers in a way traditional media channels such as TV and newspapers have always denied them, according to Google's Hamish Nicklin.

Google's Hamish Nicklin believes YouTube is the perfect plaform for wineGoogle's Hamish Nicklin believes YouTube is the perfect plaform for wineWine has been too long dismissed as

Social media platforms like YouTube give the wine industry the chance to connect directly with consumers in a way traditional media channels such as TV and newspapers have always denied them, according to Google's Hamish Nicklin.

Speaking at this weekend's Digital Wine Communications Conference in Montreux, Switzerland, Nicklin said too often wine is pushed to the sidelines by the mass national media or has to "play second fiddle" to food.

When he questioned media executives ahead of the conference why wine took such a back seat it was dismissed as being "too niche" to be given a higher profile on national media.

But on social media niche is king, revealed Nicklin.  "Niche is now the new mass online," he added.  "Why can't it happen for wine?"

Individuals or even companies talking about wine have an enormous opportunity on YouTube, which is now part of the Google stable.

He said increasingly the most successful videos and hits on YouTube, that Google now owns, were for a bespoke audience rather than the mainstream.

YouTube had succeeded, he argued, in ripping up the "tyranny of the TV schedule". For the YouTube audience there is no such thing as a daily or nightly TV schedule, they are watching whatever takes their fancy, or going out and creating or aggregating their own content.

"Our (You Tube) audience is like being their own commissioning editor," he said.

Wine is ideally suited to meet that need, argued Nicklin providing it understood what sort of content the YouTube audience is looking for.

But to succeed you need to follow the "rules of YouTube" and create the kind of videos that people want to see.  Its most successful videos, he explained, fell in to one of the following areas: the ability to entertain; content and information for people to browse through; and videos that inspire people to want to not only watch them but then share with friends and colleagues.

That may not sound like rocket science, but is actually very hard to achieve on a consistent basis, he stressed.

Nicklin talked about the phenomenal rise of vloggers on Youtube, where young presenters had gained audiences in the millions simply talking about how to apply make-up or offering fashion tips.

But, he stressed, once you have built an audience then you need to treat them like your friends and spend time talking to them and if you do, you can create a special dialogue with them. "Be open, don't talk down to them and share their feedback," urged Hicklin.

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