WINE 2.0: ITALIAN WINERIES MORE AND MORE ON SOCIAL NETWORKS -80% OF ITALIAN PRODUCERS USE THEM, REVEALS A STUDY BY “OPERAWINE”, WINE SPECTATOR-VINITALY TASTING (VERONA, MARCH 24TH). FACEBOOK AND TWITTER ARE TOP…

Facebook has more than 850 million users in the world, Twitter has crossed the 500 million mark, and You Tube is the number 3 site for most visits on the planet following Google and Facebook and LinkedIn just passed 100 million profiles. Just a few numbers to give you an idea of just how big the social network phenomenon is. And, it seems their potential in the world of wine is growing stronger and stronger.
As a matter of fact, 80% of the top Italian wineries use the 2.0 web for their business. And the 20% that don’t yet, are planning to in 2012, reveals an “OperaWine” (www.operawine.it), survey conducted on some of the top wineries selected to be part of the wine tasting by Wine Spectator-VeronaFiere, which will be held on March 24th to preview Vinitaly (March 25-28th, www.vinitaly.com). The most clicked social network is Facebook, which 70% of wine producers use to interact with the Internet public all over the world, mostly but not all, young people. Next Twitter (55%), and then You Tube and “blogs”, used by 35% of the wineries.
And then there’s LinkedIn, the social network for professionals that one out of five businesses uses. It is clear that the tendency is not to use social networking just to sell bottles but also to communicate events, stimulate discussions and stay in contact with the public as well as the biggest on line wine news magazines to organize tastings and get to be better known through the leading world wide communication-information channel, Web 2.0.
“OperaWine” itself has bet a lot on this channel: “we want more international traders in Verona and we want to draw attention to the international press about our activities to enhance Italian wine”, explains Giovanni Mantovani, CEO of VeronaFiere.