Breweries using social media as the primary source for info. Thoughts?

these are all good points, but i'd rather be actual friends with a brewery, by... you know... going there and hanging out with them while i drink their beer from time to time. anything you'd learn in a newsletter or via facebook you'd learn weeks if not months in advance if you have a good relationship with brewers.

 

I voted YES because it's fast and efficient. I don't want to have to go to multiple brewery websites to see what they have on tap or any special releases. Having information pushed to me is greater than having to pull it.

 

i voted a huge Hell yes for this

 

this site is my source for news. i don't care where you guys get your news as long as it makes it's way to BA

 

I'm not on Facebook and I don't want to be. I have a twitter feed just for brewery and bottle shop info. I don't have a problem with breweries and bottle shops using social media to distribute information efficiently, but I think any info they post there should also be available on the brewery's/bottle shop's own website.

 

It's especially bad when breweries choose (I think it's their choice) to make their FB pages only visible to registered Facebook users, which I'm not. Have to call out Societe on this one: not only is their FB page only visible to FB users, but their Web site sucks.

 

A quarterly newsletter mailed to my home is what I prefer.

 

Personally hate it. I love mailing lists. Not on Facebook and hopefully will never get back on. Twitter is fine but obviously they can't put out enough info on Twitter.

 

I voted yes. Those clowns can't sell' em on Ebay for easy profit these days. It is what it is.

 

I'm not on face book(life invader) never have or will be but I use my brothers face book to see what the local beer distributers have in stock(have been for years)

 

It seems lately that every new brewery I go into has the following to say, "Hey have you friend-ed us on Facebook, that way you can see all that we are releasing, its great!" No, I don't think it is, Facebook does not respect my privacy, and it seems more and more place are just putting info on Facebook only. Sure I can make a 'fake' account just for getting information about new beers, but it seems there are better platforms like Twitter linking to their own website for this information so everyone can see it, not just those you can track, categorize and mine for information.

 

Hell NO.

Too much irrelevant garbage, especially the self-promotion from annoying things like user submitted photos of people drinking a can of their beer in some distant place. Who the F cares? (this is just one example of many irrelevant items that can appear regularly on some of these FB pages).

 

I don't mind if social media is the primary means of communication, but it shouldn't be the only means.

I think social media is great to discuss releases, current news items, and generally engage their fans/customers regularly. Most people aren't going to to out of their way to try to access the websites of multiple breweries to keep up on current happenings of every brewery they might buy ever beer from. Social media brings the brewer's news right to the consumer...win/win. Yeah, you could join an email distribution list, but I get enough spam mail as it is and it's not the 90's anymore.

That said, social media still isn't a substitute for a decent website to hold relatively constant information, like distribution, release schedule, beer listing and info, brewery/pub location, contact information, etc. When I've seen companies (brewers or otherwise) try to completely replace a website with awkward Facebook/Twitter profiles it's always a huge fail.

 

Yes. How many start up breweries have extra cash to pay for a domain and someone to make a decent website? FB and Twitter are free and are an economical and good way to reach a new customer base. Once the brewery has a good following an cash flow, I can see putting up a nice website that is properly maintained.

 

Voted "no." I've no desire to become a marketing research statistic nor to have my privacy regularly violated by folks with better software technology than I'm willing to afford. But I'd also suggest it’s not a good business model to put your primary emphasis on catering mostly to the 20 somethings when there are lots of other folks with cash in their pockets who are looking for a good beer and a congenial place to drink it and who are not part of the facebook/social media demographic.