It's truly astonishing the kinds of things that come out to play when a new technology takes off, and blogging is no different. Russ over at Winehiker has tagged me before but I didn't come out to play. (I think he thinks I don't have enough work to do. Why would he think that?) I've mulled this one over for a few days, however, and I think I could actually play with this one!
The "tag" (or "meme" as some call it, but I do not think that word means what they think it means...) Russ whacked me with is "Why Do You Blog?" I've been doing EBT for almost a year now (!) - the reasons that any business should blog seem so incredibly obvious to me. On the other hand, how many wineries actually blog? Not many...
Fundamentally, I write (really, produce) El Bloggo Torcido because then I get to take pictures of hot women doing weird things with rubber chickens to communicate with a potentially large audience about my winery. What more do I want?
Back before I started this, I was poking around looking for ways to kick start ecommerce on the Twisted Oak Winery web site. I wasn't having a lot of luck; there just weren't many low-cost ecommerce solutions out that could correctly calculate a mixed case discount. So, I'm poking and poking and drinking wine I don't quite remember how, but I stumbled into the Small Business Blog of the Day and the Winery Web Site Report. At the time the SBBD was doing a week long special on Winery Blogs, and I was 1) blown away by all the attention these wineries were getting; and 2) wishing Twisted Oak could get some of that action!
(I was going to save this for the anniversary post in a couple weeks... but both SBBD and WWSR have been huge sources of guidance to me in the past year. El Bloggo Torcido would not be what it is today without what I learned from those two blogs. Thanks Brian and Mike!)
The blog platform itself is a plus too. I could design a traditional web site and display pictures and tell stories - but the blog makes it so easy, allowing me to focus on the words and less on "<p>". And then there's the comments...!
So it's basically about the babes getting attention for your business. And we have gotten some great attention and made some great friends - some of whom we even got to meet. Some of these new friendships have started out kind of rocky (I have pretty much forgiven Marshall for pushing me off a cliff at Pinotblogger's winery in Second Life - pretty much) but they have sometimes led to some fun events and interesting relationships - er, between businesses of course.
At this point I'm turning in my homework so late that I probably should pass on trying to find a wine blogger who hasn't yet been tagged - but if you haven't and you WANT to get shagged be tagged, drop me a note or comment!
(UPDATE: I woke up this morning (da DAA da dum) and got with the program - see next post!)
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