Influencing the Influencers
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration,
the rest of us just get up and go to work!”
Stephen King
(Please note: We do not receive any remuneration from any company and/or product referenced within that is not associated with Silk Road Wines and/or Emerald Vines Media, nor does any mention in this blog constitute an endorsement.)
If you follow ANYONE on social media (i.e. Instagram, YouTube…you know, the biggies), then you’ve heard the words Social Media Influencer. According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary (2022), the definition of influencer is “one who exerts influence: a person who inspires or guides the actions of others.” It further elucidates the word as “a person who is able to generate interest in something (such as a consumer product) by posting about it on social media.”
Let’s talk briefly about the Kardashians. Why the Kardashians on a wine blog? Because they’re some of the BIGGEST social media influencers on the planet. According to CNBC, Kylie Jenner reportedly makes $1 million per Instagram post (CNBC online, 2018). In 2018, that made her the highest paid celebrity influencer. Social media influencers shill products and services for everything from travel to makeup. Silk Road Wines, as the largest importer and distributor of Georgian wines in Florida, desired to expand marketing efforts by using influencers and asked our marketing/PR company, Emerald Vines Media, to see what we could do. We’re not big, in fact, it’s all hands on deck when we have an event; however, while we would love for everyone to drink our wine, Gen Z and Millennials are key targets. Now, now…Millennials are pulling their weight and working (Gen Z’ers just came of age several years ago, so we’ll cut them some slack), but where do they go for their information? Social media…they want the information fast, on demand, and many follow social media influencers on Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. The exorbitant cost for influencers with a lot of followers (500,000 and up) was out of the budget. So how do you work with influencers without paying them to write a post when their livelihood counts on paid sponsorships?
Unlike U.S. wines from California, Oregon, or countries such as France and Germany, our company features only Georgian products. Our wine is unique. Georgia is the oldest wine producing country in the world by over 8,000 years. It’s a great angle, and yes, as a PR practitioner I use that word, but it’s not just an angle, it’s history that goes back before Christianity began.
We liked the idea of a holiday campaign. We had the product – wine, but what would the presentation look like? Influencers get lots of free STUFF, and half the battle of a successful campaign is the presentation. A certain jewelry company with the ubiquitous blue boxes once sent a package that looked like one of their stores, and of course, who doesn’t want to open that box? We settled on a gold box with a magnetic clasp that came with LED rice lights, crinkle paper packing, ribbon, and even a card we could hand address. The lights featured a small button that when the receiver opened the package, the lights would spring on. As far as content – we featured a bottle of our Silk Road Wines, a branded bottle opener, a branded wine glass, and a small ballotin of Godiva chocolates.
Using Prowly, our media list application, we looked for influencers in both Florida and Texas (where we’ve recently expanded into H-E-B and Central Market supermarkets), with 3,000 – 80,000 followers, and wrote about food, wine, spirits, and travel. We discovered 20 influencers that fit our definition, and since none of them had mailing addresses (nor did we know if they would even want to try our wine), I wrote a unique “pitch” (another PR word) – with a subject line of 8,000+ year old wine!!! The first line on the inside was: “It’s not really 8,000 years old, but it comes from a country that is the oldest wine making country in the world – Georgia.” I briefly explained who we were, and that we would love to send them our holiday box. They had a choice of red, white, or amber (our Qvevri wines – click HERE for more info), and I attached press fact sheets on both the company and qvevri made wines. Nine of the 20 responded, and Santa (AKA a nation-wide delivery service) flew off in his sleigh to deliver our boxes.
As I write this in February, two months after the influencers received their holiday boxes, we’ve deemed our holiday marketing campaign a success. We had some wonderful blogs written about our wines as well as countless Instagram posts, and we’ve begun to develop some ongoing relationships with these individuals. While they may not have as many followers as Kylie Jenner, we know that our influencers attract real followers (not paid bots) who enjoy wine, and we certainly enjoy working with them and their followers. (Check out the great Insta post below.)
Many thanks to The Birch Beat (Ft. Myers, FL), Gristle and Gossipin (Humble, TX), Texas Wine Lover (Humble, TX), Dallas Wine Chick (Dallas, TX), Dallas Food Nerd (Dallas, TX), Influence Weekly (CA) – take a look at some of these influencers and give them a follow! Better yet…make sure you follow http://www.silkroadwines.com as well!