{"id":12492,"date":"2010-09-23T10:18:45","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T08:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=12492"},"modified":"2010-09-24T00:27:12","modified_gmt":"2010-09-23T22:27:12","slug":"bloggers-should-not-blog-about-themselves-bloggers-told","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/bloggers-should-not-blog-about-themselves-bloggers-told\/","title":{"rendered":"Bloggers should not blog about themselves, bloggers told!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The fifth Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meeting was a lively one, held at the Salt Vodka Bar, with a most entertaining Dax Villanueva of Relax-with-Dax blog, and a most informative Hein Koegelenberg of La Motte, writing the Hein on Wine blog, sharing their views on the importance of social media marketing.\u00a0\u00a0 In talking about blog content, Hein advised bloggers to not write about themselves, but to\u00a0focus on\u00a0their blog topics instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hein introduced the La Motte Sauvignon Blanc, and Shiraz Viognier from the Pierneef Collection, and his role at La Motte over the past eleven years.\u00a0 In winemaking, he said distribution and the intellectual property of the brand are key.\u00a0\u00a0The goal of La Motte is to focus on making excellent Sauvignon Blanc and Shiraz wines, and wants the brand to be one of the Top 10 South African wine brands.\u00a0\u00a0 The estate\u00a0created a vision to meet this goal, called La Motte Redefined, which consisted of a number of elements, all working in unison to create a WOW La Motte experience: a new Tasting Room, which has a combination of wood, brickwork and glass to make it more welcoming and less intimidating;\u00a0a restaurant striving to be of\u00a0a top 50 international restaurant standard, focusing on traditional South African food, with a demonstration kitchen and\u00a0TV cooking; to offer a “plaaswinkel”, which sells items no other farm shop does, including five styles of breads,\u00a0one of them even including 2 % shiraz;\u00a0 to establish a gallery to present the collection of 44 Pierneef artworks which they bought from Pierneef’s daughter and brought back to South Africa from the UK;\u00a0a museum in honour of Dr Anton Rupert;\u00a0and to honour his wife Hanli’s\u00a0musical career in a second gallery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hein recognises that social media marketing is the new marketing platform, and he started blogging just over a year ago.\u00a0 He realised that the world faces information overload, with no one having the time to go beyond the first page of Google when doing a search.\u00a0 This is why one must use blogs and Twitter to package one’s information in a way that meets the target market’s need.\u00a0 In the past the wine industry was at the mercy of the evaluation by Parker and Platter – now winemakers can talk to their market, explain the making of the wines and proactively provide information which empowers\u00a0wine drinkers to drink their wines with greater knowledge about the brand and the particular variety.\u00a0 Hein says that we are still not using blogging to its fullest extent, and over time many blogs will fall away, and new ones will commence.\u00a0\u00a0 He sees the decline of You Tube and videos, due to the time it takes to download them, and the increase in the use of Twitter.\u00a0 La Motte publishes a new blog post every 2 -3 days, and tweets 2 -3 times per day.\u00a0 Hein says that if one sets a frequency of communication, one must stick to this, as one’s readers expect it as one does a newspaper,\u00a0because it becomes a habit for the reader.\u00a0\u00a0 This was\u00a0mentioned by Dax too.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Cape Winelands Cuisine, which is the focus of Pierneef\u00a0\u00c3\u00a0 La Motte<\/a>, <\/strong>will be brought into the blog in future.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hein follows the late Dr Rupert’s communication mantra: simple, sincere and repetitive.\u00a0\u00a0 This applies to social media too.\u00a0\u00a0 Hein recognises the power of the Chinese market, and La Motte has\u00a0made R 8 million in sales in its first year.\u00a0 Hein is\u00a0now learning Mandarin, commendable for a very busy wine businessperson.\u00a0\u00a0 La Motte wines sold 2800 cases 11 years ago – this has grown to 100 000 cases sold\u00a0in 40 countries, whilst the economy\u00a0brand Leopard’s Leap sells 600 000 cases annually.\u00a0\u00a0 The distribution company Meridian Wines, founded by Hein too, delivers wines from 28 cellars to restaurants in temperature-controlled vehicles.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The fellow Twitterers smiled in understanding when Hein said that he ends his day and starts the next with his iPhone, to read what has happened in the world.\u00a0 It is the most time-efficient way for him to stay in touch, he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Hein’s talk was followed by a presentation and tasting of the first South African vodka, called Primitiv, made in Wellington by Jorgensen’s Distillery.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is handcrafted, using artisanal methods,\u00a0from barley and spelt, giving the vodka its unusual taste of peppery spice, floral and anise touches over a creamy grain base, with a masculine finish.<\/p>\n

Dax impressed with his natural talent of speaking about a topic that is clearly close to his heart, and included tap dancing and being really funny, a side to him that he does not often reveal.\u00a0 Dax said that the frequency of blogging will influence the quality of one’s posts, and therefore the\u00a0traffic to one’s blog.\u00a0\u00a0 He advised that one’s blogging frequency should stay the same, to meet the readers’ need for consistency.\u00a0\u00a0 In terms of content, he advised that one pace oneself, and not write all one’s content on one day, to ensure that one’s audience comes back.\u00a0 Writing comments on other bloggers’ blogs is important, he said, as it shows collegiality, and helps build traffic.\u00a0 The timing of one’s Tweets\u00a0is important too, and should be when one’s followers are on Twitter.\u00a0 Little reading of Tweets is done at night, so tweeting then is wasteful.\u00a0 Hootsuite, and similar scheduling tools, allows Dax to pre-schedule 4 – 5 Tweets per day, at intervals of one hour.\u00a0 He advises Tweeting between 9h00 – 15h00.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dax writes about food and wine, events in Cape Town, green issues, artisanal beers and the Cape Town lifestyle.\u00a0 He has been blogging for 7 years already, one of the pioneers.\u00a0 His blog evolved from a newsletter he created, sharing with others\u00a0what wonderful\u00a0things he had discovered in Cape Town, after moving here from PE, via Durban.\u00a0\u00a0 Helping provide advice to others about where to celebrate a special event makes Dax feel good, he says.\u00a0\u00a0 The 2010 SA Blog Awards, and its poor organisation this year compared to 2009, was discussed.\u00a0 In the main the comments, also from the bloggers present,\u00a0were disparaging, and Dax concluded that the SA Blog Awards has devalued blogging due to the controversy associated with it, even though it was meant to achieve the opposite.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The next meeting of the Food & Wine Bloggers’\u00a0Club is on Wednesday\u00a020 October<\/span> , from 6 – 8 pm, at the Rainbow Room in Mandela Rhodes Place.\u00a0 Simon Back from Backsberg will introduce his wines and the use of social media in making his family wine estate one of the most environmentally-friendly in the country, and Tom Robbins from Eat Cape Town will talk about Restaurant Reviewing and Blogger Ethics.\u00a0 Contact Chris at info@whalecottage.com<\/a>\u00a0to book.<\/p>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fifth Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meeting was a lively one, held at the Salt Vodka Bar, with a most entertaining Dax Villanueva of Relax-with-Dax blog, and a most informative Hein Koegelenberg of La Motte, writing the Hein on Wine blog, sharing their views on the importance of social media marketing.\u00a0\u00a0 In talking about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[4795,3,124,21,19],"tags":[7562,7561,3160,7555,7567,3638,2285,32366,7009,32378,6386,3144,7545,7539,7205,7565,4766,4571,7559,7552,7547,7560,4508,7165,7548,7540,7570,1540,7542,7537,7553,2038,7549,7013,6611,7538,7546,387,7554,7563,4820,252,7566,4444,4511,2630,7556,2689,7558,7564,7541,7543,7544,7557,7215,1588,1587,7551,32385,32373,7550],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t