Partner Views Blog

40 Twitter Management Tips from the Beer & Social Media Group

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During the past few weeks there have been some interesting discussions on the Beer & Social Media LinkedIn Group on breweries and pubs using Twitter as part of their social media plan. If you are at all associated with beer, wine or spirits and social media you may want to check this LinkedIn group out. They are very active and I’ve found the members to be very helpful. Recently one of the members posted a question about starting and managing a Twitter account for a beer wholesaler and received a lot of great advice. I’m going to try and summarize and list the advice given. Now, this will apply to beer wholesalers, retailers, distributors, breweries, brewpubs, pubs, bars and anyone involved in beer and social media. In fact a lot of this advice will transfer to most other businesses. (For more tips look at my blog: 12 Social Media Restaurant Marketing Tips from The Bowery.)

1. Follow every brewery, beer brand and pub possible.
2. Share and tweet interesting information from these breweries, even if they are competitors.
3. Retweet interesting information from these beer and brewery accounts.
4. Tweet information that people are interested in.
5. Promote your beer, brewery or pub but not exclusively, mix it up a bit.
6. Use Twitter #hashtags.
7. Put a dot in front of the @ sign like this .@BeerAle, so EVERYONE can see the tweet, if you don’t use the dot only the people who follow you AND the person you mention can see the tweet.
8. Make one person responsible for Social Media.
9. Make sure the Social Media person also understands the industry and your brand.
10. If you promote someone into the Social Media role understand that it takes time, do not expect the person to do their old job AND their new social media job.Expect them to spend at least 12 to 15 hours a week on social media tasks.
11. Consider making the Social Media position full time. This is part of marketing and public relations and should be treated as an important part of your team.
12. Don’t consign Social Media to your summer intern. You get what you pay for.
13. Involve others in the organization by giving them the authority to tweet.
14. Have social media guidelines for everyone involved in representing the brand.
15. This is an awesome responsibility so be sure everyone understands and respects the brand and that you trust them with this responsibility.
16. Have someone responsible to manage the tweets, but don’t micromanage the tweets.
17. Get smart phones so tweets can be sent from events at any time.
18. Create an identity for your social media account that is your voice, your brand.
19. Engage and target your ultimate consumer, the beer drinker.
20. Educate the consumer about your brand, beer and the industry in general.
21. Tweet about everything including: new releases, events, happy hours, new taps, samplings, beer festivals, limited releases parties, beer dinners, specials, pint nights….. everything.
22. Tweet about events and information your followers can use.
23. Tweet the How, Where and When.
24. Offer specials in your tweets, e.g. “Show this tweet for $3 pint of Full Sail.”
25. Offer incentives to follow and Re-Tweet, e.g. “Retweet for $4 pint of Stout.”
26. Keep the messages short so they are easy to share and retweet.
27. Encourage retweets.
28. Make it easy for fans to follow by having a clear link to your Twitter account on your website.
29. Use your Twitter page, profile and description to promote your brand.
30. Promote “Follow us on Twitter” at events, locations and on promotional material.
31. Respond to relevant direct messages about your brand or product.
32. Monitor your brand on Twitter and respond to mentions, both good and bad.
33. Respond to negative tweets right away.
34. Respond to negative tweets in a positive manner.
35. Monitor subjects related to your brand.
36. Don’t trash other beers and brands on Twitter.
37. Don’t trash customers on Twitter.
38. Don’t complain on Twitter.
39. Give credit to others on Twitter.
40. Be nice to your Mother and buy your Dad a beer.

Ok, the last tip was not related to Twitter but a subtle hint to my daughters that they should buy me a beer.

I would like to thank all the members of the Beer & Social Media LinkedIn Group and especially those whose ideas and advice I shamelessly borrowed and included in this list: Charles Osberger of Frankenmuth Brewery; Jeff Simon of Katcef Brothers Inc.; A. Mark McLean; Rachel Curto of Powers Distributing; Mark Sobelman of Beerattitude; Benjamin Moore of Active Beer Geek; Chris M. Jonston, video producer and designer; Jim Teresinski of Social Media Here; Kim Donaldson of Bottlenotes; Michael V. Shamah of The “World Famous” BOWERY; Rania Madanat of Scrumptious Media and many more whose thoughts, ideas and advice have seeped into my sub-conscious. Join all of these great people and a few hundred more at the Beer & Social Media LinkedIn Group.