(Boston, MA) – The past week has brought two peculiar press releases from craft breweries about stepping up their game in social media (I didn’t publish either one). Not to mention, Craft Brewers Alliance hiring a blogger recently to handle Marketing Communications. Late last week, Boston Beer Company also revealed its getting more heavily into the social media game.
A handful of craft breweries are still behind when it comes to managing their web presence. Anchor Brewing comes to mind as the top example because it doesn’t have a Facebook account or a Twitter account. Pretty remarkable considering the company’s size and tenure…
And then there’s Boston Beer.
The maker of Samuel Adams has been managing a Facebook page for a while though it hasn’t yet joined the little sibling site yet…Twitter. While Dogfish Head, New Belgium and others have established fan bases of tens of thousands of users on Twitter, Boston Beer will be starting from square one when it eventually joins the site. Long gone are Boston Beer’s most likely Twitter handles…@bostonbeer, @bostonbeerco, @samueladams, @samueladamsbeer, @samuel_adams, etc… The company may blame guidance around advertising alcohol on a digital platform that is used by minors but that guidance hasn’t stopped what seems like 95% of the other breweries in the U.S. from joining the site.
And Twitter is just a small piece of the puzzle.
The company recently created a position called, “Director, Digital Strategy & Online Communication,” that it filled internally, and is now hiring a social media specialist. Some of the new tasks:
– Monitor/listen to online conversations within the social web about Samuel Adams and competition while reporting key insights and recommendations. [ed. note: being open about spying on other craft brewers, eh?]
– Manage Samuel Adams’ day-to-day activities on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social channels, to connect with customers, generate content and drive positive brand sentiment.
– Manage Samuel Adams blog
– Own relationships with beer blogs. Communicate company offerings and create engagement opportunities [ed. note: I think that means free beer and good reviews].
I’m curious to know how many of ‘us’ have applied – I’m guessing it’s not just me! I’ve been wondering for a long time why no one swept in to secure the Twitter handles you mention (among others); it can still be done, of course, for the right price, but hopefully some more creative solutions will be employed.
It’s a delicate balancing act, for sure. I think one point that onlookers (especially the craft beer community) tend to overlook is that, as a publicly traded company, Boston Beer has to approach its branding efforts more cautiously than its privately owned counterparts. I know that’s a fairly general statement that can encapsulate considerable nuance, but it’s important to keep in mind.
That said, I think it’s safe to say that the team at Boston Beer doesn’t ignore social media in the least—just because we only see them interacting on Facebook, doesn’t mean there isn’t a ton of listening being done across all channels and indirect actions occurring as a result. The company is run by some pretty smart people who have obviously done something right over the past 25 years, considering their consistent growth and current status as the largest domestic brewer. And they do that while continuing to expand their line-up with some pretty stellar new products.
Don’t be surprised if when their conspicuous social media efforts get rolling, they do a lot of things right.
Finally, the editorial comments regarding the job description are a little off base. “Being open about spying on other craft brewers”? Every company that has any business sense monitors the competition. Calling it “spying” is being dramatic, to say the least. And “engagement opportunities,” for those of us who have worked in social media go far beyond the shortsighted (and usually fruitless) practice of bribing the influencers out in the blogging world with free stuff. Social media is about providing additional value (in a myriad of ways) for the consumer, not perks for a few hopeful mouthpieces.
Re: spying, it was meant to poke fun at Boston Beer’s use of the word, “competition.” Craft brewers never use the word, “competition,” publicly to describe other craft brewers. Never. Maybe behind closed doors but never (ok, maybe super rarely) publicly. The industry mantra is all about “collaboration” and “rising tides lift all boats.”
Re: free beer, that isn’t to say that it’s Boston Beer’s intention to bribe but free beer generally leads to artificially inflated reviews and a lack of disclosure about how said beers were obtained. I would love to see BBC break this mold and think of alternative “engagement opportunities.” I think we have yet to see alternative opportunities employed on a wide scale through the industry thus far.
They never saId ‘competition’ was other craft brewers. BMC beers are competition, as are Corona, Heineken, and any other beers that aren’t too strong/dark/hoppy/unusual for the non-beer geek drinker at about the same price, whether craft or not.
Re bribing bloggers – I have consistently seen full disclosure and reviews that are presumably as objective as personal taste can be. Of course, I wouldn’t know if a beer was free if it wasn’t mentioned, but as commonly as I’ve seen blogs explicitly mention it, I tend to think inflated reviews due to having received it free are fewer than you state.
Hey Marc, I don’t buy the point on competition at all. Just yesterday, management said that they are pricing more closely to crafts and not basing it on imports. Koch and Co. see themselves as craft and nothing else.
Re: bribing bloggers (FWIW, this discussion doesn’t imply that it is bribing at all, just human nature, that if a blogger gets something for free, they aren’t going to kill it in the review), can you send me a link to a blog that receives free beer and has some kind of formal disclosure practice in the post? I’d link to a recent example regarding free beer from a craft brewery without disclosure but don’t want to call anyone out. There’s this example from Andy Crouch though perhaps not from a craft brewer: http://www.beerscribe.com/2010/11/03/beer-blogging-to-what-end/comment-page-1/#comment-1779. I like Jay Brooks’ one page disclosure but that’s the only one I’ve seen.
To take it a step further, I think I would clearly state at the bottom of every review post “Disclosure: I paid for this beer” or “Disclosure: This beer was free.”
Sure, here are a few I found with a bit of googling:
http://www.notsoprofessionalbeer.com/2011/10/review-schlafly-pumpkin-ale-saint-louis.html
http://seattlebeernews.com/2011/02/grab-a-beer-silver-city-fat-woody-scotch-ale/
http://www.beerphxation.com/2011/05/not-hater-not-canboi-case-for-measured.html
http://nwbeerguide.blogspot.com/2011/11/beer-review-deschutes-brewerys-hop-trip.html
All fully state that they were free samples. I didn’t see any that label every single review free/paid for, but I wouldn’t expect to. I didn’t even read the reviews to see if they were good or bad – doesn’t matter, correlation does not imply causation.
This one posted their general guidelines:
http://www.chickslovebeer.com/index.php/full-disclosure/
But I didn’t look through reviews to see if individual ones were labeled.
Of course, no way one could say the review would be different if they had paid for it. I’d even go so far (and I’ve seen this discussed on BeerAdvocate) as to say that price might be worth factoring into a review – I am certainly more impressed by the same beer at half the cost of a comparable one.
Thanks, Marc. I guess I stand corrected. Looks like some are taking those FTC blog disclosure guidelines seriously.
Tasty McDole has a funny quote..something like “I wish I were a beer blogger because I’d never have a bad beer.”