CEO and Founder Alyssa Rapp of Bottlenotes.com, a popular online community for wine lovers, believes that all businesses need a social media strategy.
Bottlenotes.com is a cool, active website where new and experienced wine lovers share recommendations and educate each other about favorites. Bottlenotes members also learn from the experts. According to a recent Success Magazine interview the (already) fast growing small company Bottlenotes is on the road to even more growth. And social media played a part in that growth by helping with brand awareness.
Rapp shares how she took her startup in 2005 from a wine marketing firm and ecommerce site to a social media site by changing her business model. Bottlenotes.com has now become a vibrant online community of wine enthusiasts and experts.
For small businesses and start-ups still on the fence about adding social media marketing to their business, this interview is a good read. Especially for small companies marketing and selling to consumers.
When asked how important a social media component is for today’s businesses, CEO Alyssa Rapp said,
“ I think all businesses need to come up with and develop their social media strategy. All those targeted verticals have to interplay with the Facebooks of the world and the Twitters of the world. You can’t create this silo and not interact with social media and the rest of the community.
I’ve seen data that shows that luxury brands with more Facebook fans in 2009 showed higher average sales than those without. Maybe it’s not your fan page driving sales directly, but your brand awareness, as reflected by the fans on your page, does translate to sales.”
Find the complete interview here. Enjoy! And dust off your social media strategy and let’s get going on your company blog or Facebook page.
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Great interview with Alyssa. Her insights are enlightening for entrepreneurs as they try to navigate and harness the social media landscape going forwward.
Hi Bill: You’re so right…harnessing the (bucking) social media bronco about sizes it up!
Cheers,
Cynthia