A brief thought on user-generated content

How do you gain the trust of your ideal audience? By sharing and engaging with the content your brand has been tagged in.

I read a blog post a month or two ago entitled: “Instagram, Millennials, and Your Winery”, which you can read here. This post was written in 2015, which was a shock because the subject matter is extremely relevant. One quote, in particular, stuck with me and it is something I hope will stick with you as well,

“We don’t trust your brand, we trust other people’s opinions of your brand”

The author of this article goes on to show two screenshots with the captions:

• “This is what you're showing” (with an image of Veuve Clicquot’s Instagram grid);
• “But, this is what I’m looking at” (with an image of the posts Veuve Clicquot has been tagged in).

In short, what your fans are tagging you in? That is what they want to see more of, and is one of the ways in which you will gain their trust. Sharing their posts on your stories (or as a repost to your feed) and actively engaging with those posts will grow that know-like-trust factor that is SO crucial these days, especially in the wine & beer industries.

Of course, you should still be creating your own original content, but even here, your posts can be guided by what your fans tag you in:

• Get a lot of tagged posts about your Cabernet Franc?--Give a brief history on the variety or talk about general characteristics of wine made from the grape.
• Are you noticing these people are also tagging your neighbors in posts? Create a post about local attractions for their next visit.
• Did they tag you in a post with their dog?--Talk about how you are dog friendly or show a video of you giving doggy visitors milk-bones.