Friday, April 16 has been named the official Foursquare Day.

To those who don’t use Foursquare, we are a bunch of crazed stalkers who tell people where we are at all times.  But for those in the ‘know’ it is a great marketing tool for people and businesses!

After tomorrow, anyone who comes in contact with myself or any of my other Foursquare/Twitter Sonoma County friends will see Foursquare in action.    Hopefully we can even show those who disbelieve that it actually is a great marketing tool, one that businesses should be at least paying attention to.

We will be swarming the Brasserie Lounge at the Hyatt Vineyard Creek for snack and drink specials for first time Foursquare friends, drinking wine flights at Cellars of Sonoma and hanging out at Third Street Aleworks for some beer and appetizers.

I wrote about the Hyatt Vineyard Creek in my Sonoma County Online feature on my Two Five Media blog a few weeks back because they were the ONLY business in Santa Rosa to have a special deal on Foursquare  (Now, Third Street Aleworks and Cellars of Sonoma both have specials).

The official Twitter name for tomorrow is @4sqday and the official hashtag for the Sonoma County Wine Swarm will be ….. #4sqSR or  #4sqdaySR. I am thinking the shorter the better though.

So make sure to tag your Foursquare check-in’s and tweets with the hashtag!  If you are a newbie or want to learn more, just ask me.. I will be sure to be at one of these three places tomorrow!

More details:

• The Hyatt is trying to get a swarm badge, which means if 50 or more people check in, everyone gets a badge.  First time check-ins also get a free drink.  There will be other specials too!
  • You can earn up to three badges just by checking in – First-time users get the Newbie Badge, if we get 50 people to check-in, a Swarm Badge and all check-ins to the Brasserie will get the FourSquare Day Badge (remember, Foursquare changed the rules, so you actually have to be there to get points of a badge!) More info, click here.

• Third Street Aleworks is doing happy hour pricing ALL DAY for check-ins… Oh, and if anyone takes away my mayorship they get a free t-shirt! (Not that I am gonna allow that!) More info, click here.
• Cellars of Sonoma is giving away a free flight of their wines to anyone who checks in!  More info, click here.
  

See you in Santa Rosa!

+Shana.

One year ago I walked into the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau to pick up tickets I had won from @InsideSonoma for Barrel Tasting 2009.

One year ago I met the “Great” Tim Zahner, Marketing Director of the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau.  One year ago he asked me if I wanted to teach social media classes to Sonoma County businesses that signed up through the Bureau.  Oh, and one year ago I said yes.  This meeting that I thought would just be a simple hello ended up kick starting my marketing career and small business ownership.

I realized after this meeting that I could actually turn my passion of social media, marketing and Sonoma County into a business.  Now I sit here at the Two Five Media headquarters, watching the Oscars on Philp Wyers’ second computer monitor, writing a press release for Vibranz Beverages, a new kombucha company that  I am working with and realizing that I haven’t seen A SINGLE movie in 2009 that has been nominated for the Academy Awards.   Not even Avatar.

I know I have been busy this past year since Tim and Keri from @InsideSonoma believed I could help Sonoma County business owners with their online presence.  But so busy that I didn’t see a Pixar or Quentin Tarantin film.  Wow.

What I have been up to:

• Started consulting on social media for wineries from my home in Healdsburg.
• Started blogging more about wine and going to more and more events, building up my knowledge on varietals, how wine is made and why a spit bucket is important.
• Started teaching classes to Sonoma County businesses with the tourism bureau.
• Took over Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey’s online presence because of a chance meeting with her daughter at a wine event.
• Traveled through the South on my market research study on Millennials and wine (with @TheBeerWench) called Project Y-ine.
• Spoke at several different wine, food and hospitably events/conferences/meetings.
• Found an office and took my business to the next level with my partner Philip Wyers by starting Two Five Media, a full service digital marketing agency.
• Worked with Tim and Keri once again for the first annual Sonoma County Restaurant Week.
• Started working with Vibranz Beverages, a start up kombucha brand based in Healdsburg.
• Finished my first website JS Makeup Artistry with Philip Wyers, him as creative director /web designer and me as the project manager/copywriter.
• Worked with so many amazing clients in the wine, food and technology industries.
• Began the process of starting up even more new projects, to be announced VERY soon!

Even though I am a relatively young small business owner, I have been in the marketing industry for almost ten years and I couldn’t imagine my life in any other industry.  This has been one amazing year, one that I am so thankful for.  Thank you to Tim and Keri and all of my clients that I have had the pleasure of working with.   I cannot wait for even more great years with Two Five Media and Sonoma County…

Maybe even a year where I get to see some movies….

Good friend, Hardy Wallace (Lifestyle Corespondent for Murphy Goode) will be the main presenter, discussing different social media sites and guidelines/tricks for each.  Keri Hansen, my co-presenter for the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau will be teaching people how the Tourism  Bureau uses Social Media.  Matthew Ashcroft, a local Internet Professional will be  helping attendees to get started.  And I will be coming in to talk about how social media marketing starts off with a strategy, giving examples of case studies from brands I have worked with.

To see the pdf of the Wine Road Invitation, click here!

Though, just note this seminar is only for Wine Road members only…  If you are interested, I am setting up a series of more seminars that revolve around the hospitality industry starting in Jan 2010!  Email me if you want to know more!

A few weeks back I received a DM stating that I won the Sonic.net prize for their latest Twitter contest celebrating their 15^th year anniversary in business in Santa Rosa.  The 15^th anniversary gift usually calls for crystal but Dane and the Sonic.Net team decided to launch a Twitter-only contest in which they would give away a year of free internet service in a random drawing once a day for fifteen days….  The two requirements for entry  –  to add the hashtag #SonicNet to any tweet and not to get too spammy with the #SonicNet tweets.

So there I was, just days after signing the lease to my new office in Downtown Santa Rosa (25 Old Courthouse Square, Santa Rosa, Ca 95404) looking at pricing for business connections and I heard about the contest.   Of course, I posted many different tweets from both my @sharayray account and my newly created business account @twofivemedia.  Each tweet talked about how awesome it would be to win Sonic.Net internet for the new office.  My winning entry below.

Now I sit in my new office with my business partner Philip Wyers, with high speed internet and a giant smile on my face.  Such an amazing first step to opening our new agency, 2five Media.

During my first Project Y-ine ‘trip’  I discovered that people in their twenties are largely influenced by their friends and that world of mouth is the number one reason for them to purchase anything, not just beer and wine.  You can read more on my study on Palate Press, an online wine magazine under “Why Y-ine? The Post-Journey Report.“  Women in general talk to each other more about deals they get, etc. so it is easy to see that word of mouth travels even further in our lives.   In Carol’s post she discussed a new study on Millennial Women conducted by Radar Research for PopSugar Media which showcases just how important us young women should be to brands.

Gen Y women are also influential brand advocates. When they discover a brand they love, 61% said they “share it with as many friends as possible” and are likely to share it across a spectrum of platforms, including email, social networks, online reviews, blog comments, SMS/MMS, phone and face-to-face.

Women in general already have much of the buying power & influence in every industry (Every marketer has head the line “80% of all consumer purchasing decisions are made by women”). Take that and combine it with a generation that makes just as much, if not more than our male counterparts and we are truly powerhouse consumers.

I have cable at my house but I hardly ever watch it anymore.  Websites like Hulu and other sites where I can watch my favorite shows online have fed my need to watch what I want to watch, WHEN I want to watch it.  And, that is how I look at the online world in general.  I can now watch Days of our Lives at 2AM, while talking to others that are up on Twitter and while purchasing Christmas presents on Amazon.   I make up the rules.

This is the future of retail.   It is all about allowing your customers to customize what they want to read/watch/look at.  Social Media is more than just Twitter and Facebook ~ It is an overall change in the way we access information.  The brands that “get that” will keep our attention.

Just like I saw during the Barrel Tasting and Passport events in Dry Creek Valley this past year, the crowd  was younger.  I wasn’t the only one who noticed, according to the Press Democrat, “The demographic this year seemed to shift to a younger, hipper crowd of folks in their 20s and 30s.“   This just proves that my idea for Project Y-ine is a great idea and that wineries (and restaurants) need to put more effort into reaching out to this demographic.  The Taste of Sonoma isn’t a cheap event, and at $95 to $160 a ticket, yesterday showed that my generation is willing to pay for the finer things in life.

They had a Taste 2.0 section where anyone could go onto Twitter or Facebook, which was awesome considering MacMurry ranch had no service for us AT&T users (for people like James Marshall Barry who has Verizon, it was humorous).  My one issue with this was that they did not use this service ONCE themselves, though they did post a status update and video on their Facebook Page. But then again, I tweeted enough about the event for everyone.

In addition to running back to the Taste 2.0 booth, I took pictures of everything I ate during the day.  Thankfully, it is tomato season, so the theme of many bites to eat revolved around this fruit.  Keep in mind as you read this post that I am a vegetarian, so I was only able to eat some of the food at the event…  Thankfully, my Sonoma chefs kept me in mind when creating their veggie dishes (or so I like to think).

The apple-ation cocktail from Cyrus in Healdsburg was an amazing apple brandy cocktail that only the mixoligst’s at Cryus could create.  They provided recipes, but considering I cannot pronounce one of the words in the recipe, I am not sure how easy the drink would be to recreate….

The mini ice cream cone was a yummy combination of goat’s milk and cow milk ice cream made with Delice de La Vallee cheese (made by Sheana Davis, my favorite cheese lady and organizer of all chefs at the event).

The Bellwether Farms cheese was amazing too, but sadly only located in the Visa Signature section, so most of the guests were not able to try it.

Bacon was also another theme with bacon pizza, pea shooters with bacon topping from John Ash & Co, BLT’s from Bovolo/Zazu and bacon wrapped figs from the girl & the fig and I did get some pictures of these items for you carnivores to enjoy:

If I could give out a prize for my own personal favorite booth of the day, it would have to go to Sondra Bernstein of the girl & the fig and ESTATE in the city of Sonoma.  She truly embodied the Taste of Sonoma by providing three separate ‘tastes’ all made with her restaurants namesake – figs.  The figs wrapped in bacon I couldn’t eat, but I went back for thirds of the fig desert and her fig coolers.  By popular demand, I think quite possibly mostly by me, she posted the recipe for this refreshing and delicious cocktail on her website.  Oh, and I already asked: Yes, they are on the menu at the girl & the fig.

Overall, I ate much more than I drank, but I did visit many of the amazing wineries that Sonoma has to offer.  It was my first time being at an event that solely showcased my favorite county.  Even though each appellation had their own tent, I overheard a lot of comradery and respect for the other wineries and tents.  All together an amazing day in an amazing county.   For more of the pictures I took of the day, please go here, here or here.

We are traveling around the United States, conducing interviews with members of Generation Y that are over the legal drinking age (aka people 21-33).  The project is an attempt to get into their heads and find out what goes on up there when they go to purchase wine or beer at the store. To truly do a study, unlike any other, that focuses on the next generation of wine/beer drinkers.

This first leg of the project takes us from Tampa, through NOLA, Houston & Austin, TX, Southern New Mexico, Phoenix, LA and back up to Northern California — aka The South!

But, you can read all about that here: http://www.projectyine.com.

See you all in a city near you!

Like any disruptive innovation, social media has come at a time when everything in our lives — online and offline — has changed so dramatically. We could almost document the rise of social media over the past 18 months of turbulence in the US and abroad. So it’s no coincidence that social media will become the marketing be-all as we kick off a new decade: social media will be to 2010 what email was to 2000.

We’re starting this journey and mapping out a new course, making it up as we go along, friending each other — PR and Social Media — until we get it right. There are many lessons to be learned and like anything new, there are bound to be mistakes. Practice, after all, makes perfect. Companies big or small are not immune to public ridicule in having “tweeted” out of line or handled a social media crisis poorly. Corporate Tweeting now comes with a 25-page “how to” manual. PR companies, digital marketers and corporate Tweeters – we are bound to mess up along way. The point is that most of us simply don’t know until we try.

The article as a whole is a good one to read for any PR/Marketing person working at for a brand or at an agency getting into Social Media Marketing.  And, yes I am taking just one of the many points that author, Vanessa Horwell brought up.  But I think it is a valid  thought to bring up the idea that social media is NOT the marketing be-all.

It is not.

It is still just as much about the message as it is about the medium.  Social Media is a buzz worthy word, but it is a tool.  A simple and fun tool, yes.  But still — it is only a tool to get your message across.

As soon as people see them like this, the sooner Social Media won’t seem as scary to brands as it once was.

Sunday’s panel Beyond Words: How Video Content is Changing the Wine World with Bob Asher, Lisa M. deBruin, Hardy Wallace, and John McWeeny which was sponsored by the Winegrowers of Dry Creek Valley was the educational highlight of the conference for me.

Each of the panelists had a different perspective of the world of online video and each has equally interesting tips on how to integrate video into the social media landscape.

Hardy first talked about how easy it is to jump in and get started with simple tools like a Flip Video camera and some editing software on your computer (even better if you get a new laptop with a web camera and this software already built in).

“I have 0 talent and 0 skills, but video content is the total future.  If you are not doing video, you are not on the edge.   Video appeals more to non-wine people….. People might think, I don’t want to reach Wine Spectator or a blog, but hey, maybe I will check that 55 second video out”

Lisa came out stating that she was going to be a Buzz Kill – “Hardy makes it look easy… He is talented even if he says he is not…. And if you are a brand and want to use video to show off your winery, it really is not that easy… The tools make it easy, but to create good content is, you need to know what you are doing.”

She suggested that we need to do our research on what other are doing.  Skipping through the vineyards with classical music is a cliché and it has been done.

She also reminded us that brands already have a story to tell through video — Through fun events, new wine releases, good personalities, good customers (all possible talented camera friendly people) all stories that wineries have going for them. There is also no formula for viral.

“Let subjects lead and pull the story.”

Hardy’s final words were that no one started off a “good” blogger – They just jumped into writing and developed their audience and skills over time.  His advice to people is to not just sit there and wait till your videos are good, don’t hold yourself back… Get comments and feedback and put yourself out there.   Practice makes perfect.

So inspiration kicked in and I decided to create my very first video below.

Cheers to seeing you all next year in Walla Walla.

*shana.