Social Media for The Craft Brews!

Online marketing is key for craft breweries. They do not have the capitol to compete in other channels with the big three (Budweiser, Coors, and Miller). They have to go a cheaper way than buy TV spots. There answer is online marketing. They have been leading the way in creating online presence in the beer community. They utilize all the social media sites and much more. This has helped them gain some market share from the big three over the years and increased sales in the craft beers.

Facebook and Twitter

Breweries like DogfishHead and Stone Brewery are leading the craft breweries in social media. They have a presence on every platform from Facebook to YouTube. Not only do they have a presence, but they stay in contact with their followers and update their sites on a daily bases. They talk to their customers and ask them what they want from their company. They take ideas from people and use them in their companies. This is key for relationship building for the craft breweries. They are able to connect personally with customers, unlike the big three.

With the use of Facebook and twitter, Craft breweries are able to build a community that enjoys there beers. This allows them to give promotions and news to their target market. Having a presence on these sites allow companies to give there targeted group special promotions, new and updates, coupons, and other information or incentives that the followers will want to receive. They have already opted into getting this information and let companies know that they want the information by friending or following them.

The craft breweries have a great following and that’s because they update the sites regularly. To market on these social media sites, the one thing companies need to know is that just having a site does not mean you are reaching people. The sites have to be constantly updated and you must respond back to people. That is what craft breweries have done great. Companies like Dogfish Head have even created beers from people’s ideas that they have posted on twitter and Facebook.

The utilization of Facebook and Twitter is key to craft brews success at gaining an online presence. It is very cheap to do and it allows for a more personal connection with people. They can reach a huge market and even get ideas from the customers. This is what has separated Craft Brews from the big three in social media.

Where is the big three’s online presence?

Marketing in the beer industry is big business. Companies like Budweiser spend around $134 million dollars annually. This is a huge amount to spend on advertising. Beer companies in the US are unique from the rest of the world. The beer market is dominated by three major companies; Budweiser, Coors, and Miller. The big three own more than 90% of the markets share, while the micro brews and craft breweries share the rest. This has put the big three in an ideal position. They have so much money that they are able to spend so much more on advertising that the small companies can’t compete. Most of the spending on advertising for the big three goes to TV ads. Out of the $134 million that Budweiser spent, only $3.9 million was spent online. That to me is astonishing. To have so much power in the industry and brand recognition, I believe they are falling behind in online presence compared to the small craft breweries. Breweries target market, especially the cheaper less tasting major breweries, is younger males. This target market has a huge presence online and should not be left alone. With this lack of using online marketing techniques, the big three can start to lose some of that market share that they have built so great.

The big three have always been in a prime position and they have had very good success with creating brand awareness and recognition. They have pretty much turned a shoulder on online advertising, but I think that will change soon enough. Micro brews and craft breweries have been on a rise in America. People have started to shell out more money for stronger and better tasting beer. The reason smaller breweries are becoming more known is because of their presence online. These small time breweries can’t compete with the big three in other communication channels because they do not have the capitol to do so. They focus mainly online and have had great success from it. The big three won’t let this go on forever though. They have started to get the picture of how important online presence is. Budweiser has started to created viral videos, social media content, and have even started online games and social reality shows. They are starting behind and it will be interesting to see how long it will take them to catch up. What will the craft breweries do once that happens?

The Online Battle of the Mico-Brews

Micro-brews are taking over America. In the past decade the beer competition has become crowded. With the three major beer companies (Budweiser, Miller, and Coors) owning 96% of the market in beer sales, it’s harder for smaller breweries to compete. Micro-breweries are not afraid though. They have started to take the market share by delivering a variety of exquisite brews to people that are sick of the bland corporate beer. Micro-breweries have chosen a different path to connect with customers then spend millions of dollars (which they don’t have) on advertising. They heavily rely on making amazing beers and try to connect and communicate with the customers as much as they can. Online marketing is probably the only way micro-brews market their product and today we are going to find out who is dominating the online battle between Dogfish Head and Stone Brewery.

Social Media Impact

Dogfish Head has 214,608 “likes” on Facebook and 3,949 people talking about them. Stone Brewery has 133,815 “likes” on Facebook and 3,573 people talking about them. Dogfish Head has 80,282 followers on Twitter and 20,634 tweets, whereas Stone has 47,426 followers on Twitter and 3,265 tweets. Looking at Facebook and Twitter, we can clearly see Dogfish Head as having a bigger impact. They obviously tweet a lot more than Stone, which creates more people that want to follow them. They interact on Facebook very often and have the updated timeline page, where Stone still has the old format. Where Dogfish Head really excels in the social media, is YouTube. They have 2,617 subscribers and 722,457 views on YouTube, whereas Stone has only 1,031 subscribers and 176,221 views on YouTube. Dogfish Head does a really good job of utilizing YouTube. They create segments of every one of the different beers they make and tell a little about it. Customers love the interaction that Dogfish Head gives on YouTube.They also post all these videos on their website.

Winner: Dogfish Head

SEO and Inbound Links

Next we are going to look at the SEO and Inbound Links. I used Marketing Grader to compare the two websites. This shows how they rank in search engines. This can help them have their links show up higher when people search for them on Google. Dogfish Head has 4,990 pages indexed on search engines and has 3,861 inbound links. Stone has 8,960 pages indexed on search engines and 2,865 inbound links. Clearly Stone Brewery has done a better job at search engine optimization. They link to more sites which helps the climb to the top of results and have more indexed pages which shows they are creating new stuff more often.

Winner: Stone Brewery

Engagement

Engagement in these sites are both really high. They both have an average of 1.5 visits a month per person, length of stay per visit is greater than three minutes, and the people average 2-6 page views per visit. They both have very interactive websites including blogs, bios, videos, picture galleries, social media, and directories. These sites do everything and allow people to really get engaged. To break the tie I will have to give Dogfish Head the upper hand. They have created bios for every beer, but have also included video with most of them. This allows visitors to really get engaged with the product and allows interaction.

Winner: Dogfish Head

Google Search and Marketing Grader

The final comparison of the two Micro-Brews will be how they rank on Google search and Marketing Grader. I typed “beer” into Google Search and found that Dogfish Head was ranked really high. They came up as the second brewery right behind Sam Adams. They were ahead of everyone including Budweiser, Miller, and Coors. Stone wasn’t even on the first five pages. Next I looked at Marketing Grader. Dogfish Head received an overall score of a 69 on their total online marketing efforts. Stone received an overall score of 48 on their total online marketing efforts. Dogfish Head uses online marketing better and more efficiently.

Winner: Dogfish Head

Summary

After comparing these two websites it seems that Dogfish Head has done a better job at online marketing. The race was closer than it seemed though.  Micro-Brews really need to utilize online marketing to differentiate themselves from their competitors. They  can’t compete money-wise with the big time players. Dogfish Head won because they used more media on their website which encourage more engagement for visitors. Stone Brewery has a great website, but they could take a page out of Dogfish Heads book and create more media to connect with customers.