Wine brands need to get on top of Facebook, warns social media campaigner at Wine Vision

By Gemma McKenna

Published: 19 November, 2014

Brands should "just be honest and sell their gear" on Facebook and other social media as forcing likes and comments turns off consumers.

That's according to Jon Morter, the man responsible for pipping the X-Factor winner to the post with a social-media campaign to get Rage Against the Machine to number one at Christmas in 2009.

Jon Morter, social media 'Hell raiser'

Dubbed a "social media hellraiser" by the New York Times, Morter compiled a list of things brands should avoid doing on Facebook for yesterday's Wine Vision conference.

He advised firms not to post content if "they've got nothing to say". To learn more about how good the wine trade is at using social media, Morter created a Twitter account @sommelierexpert which uses automatic feeds to re-post news. He set it up two weeks ago and attracted more than 300 followers from the trade, although the 'expert' said nothing original in that time.

Morter also created a fake corporate brand page on Twitter to "be ironic" which soon found a following, after becoming exasperated with brands asking him to interact on Facebook. People soon started sending him faux pas that real brands had committed, which he shared with the audience. He attracted a following of 70,000 fans to the fake page, and the news was picked up by the New York Times, Mashable and the Guardian.

He says brands should not:

8. Talk to me as if I'm five-years old

7. Use made-up national holidays

6. Use fictional characters to post tweets from

5. Use keep calm and carry on slogans

4. Post because 'yay, it's Friday'

3. Command users to interact

2. Use inappropriate posts - often based getting plugs for their brands around current news events

1. Be desperate

To follow what's going on at Wine Vision, keep an eye on Twitter via @HarpersWine and #winevision.

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