I made a deal with Kirrihill Wines a week or so ago.
We didn’t sign any contracts or even shake hands. I haven’t met anyone from the company, I’ve never been to see their grapes growing, in fact I haven’t even been to the region.
The deal we’ve made isn’t written down on paper, in fact it hasn’t even been spoken about. What we have is a social media marketing pact. They’ve engaged me in an online dialogue and we’ve made an exchange.
The exchange was as follows:
- As an ‘influencer’ I get: a dozen bottles of wine
- As a wine manufacturer they get: a conversation
Zakazukha Zoo isn’t a blog about wine. I’m not an influential wine critic. While I’m under no obligation to blog about their product, if I like it, statistics show that the chance of me recommending it to my friends is greater than 50%. They are presuming I will at least like the wine and they are hoping I will love it. They have confidence in their product and as someone with some social media reach, they think my dialogue is worth investing in.
Here’s why…
The reason they chose to send me 12 bottles, as opposed to one bottle, or a gift voucher, or a nice comment on my blog, is because the following information is public knowledge about my reach as an influencer:
- I have a blog which is regularly read by at least 30 people (they don’t know the actual stats, but that’s the number of regular commenters)
- I blog mostly about social media, Google and Facebook, but I also mention wine from time to time and I have blogged specifically about Kirrihill Wine.
- I have 177 friends on Facebook
- I have 34 Twitter followers
- I have 30 connections on LinkedIn
I’m going to presume they have this information stored in a database somewhere and while I’m clearly not James Halliday, I’m also not a hermit. I’m not a hugely powerful wine influencer, but I’m someone they think would be handy to have on their side. In their database I will probably look something like this:
- Name: Matt Granfield
- Property: http://www.e-cbd.com/zakazukhazoo/
- Industry Authority Score: 1/10 (I have very little influence in the wine industry)
- Social Authority: 6/10 (My Facebook and LinkedIn connections are bang on the median, but I have a larger blog following than your average Australian)
- Industry Reach: 0 (I have no obvious wine industry connections)
- Social Reach: 271 (the total number of social media connections I have)
If I like the wine, their stats will tell them that following is likely to happen:
- I will buy 3 bottles each year for the next five years
- Based on my social authority, I will influence 5% of my social reach into buying one bottle each
- Based on my industry authority, I will influence 5% of my industry reach into buying one bottle each
So, presuming the average price of a bottle of wine is $15, and they’ve already sent me 12 of them, you can use the following equation to figure out the value (ROI) of the social media pact I’ve made with Kirrihill:
ROI = 3 x 5 x $15 + 271 x 5 ÷ 100 x $15 + 0 x 5 ÷ 100 x $15 - $15 x 12
ROI = $248.25
So, Kirrihill Wines will make about $248.25 from me this year. That’s not too bad really. Obviously the figures I’ve used are examples, but they’re probably not far off the mark. I’ll report back in 12 months time and let you know if I’m right!
P.S. It’s good to see Kirrihill Wines have taken my advice and put a tear-off tag on the back of their bottles so you can remember what wine you drank. I’m claiming full credit for that one, even if I find out the labels were printed before I mentioned it.
P.P.S I love the packaging, and it’s nice to see they are launching a range of wines called ‘companions’ with a social media marketing campaign. Bloody marvellous work and full credit to Network PR.
