Blue Lobster Wine Company, Meet Facebook



The Portland, Maine-based Blue Lobster Wine Company (BLWC) is a new entrant to the wine industry with a focus on selling wine in aluminum cans.  During a recent visit to a local market, I noticed cans of BLWC displayed next to a competing canned wine product named The Infinite Monkey Theorem (TIMT).  By exploring each of the firm’s Facebook pages and using the Facebook Graph API crawler tool we can explore how BLWC and TIMT compare when in utilizing social media to promote their business.

BLWC is new to the wine industry and brand new to social media.  The company was founded in 2017 and is still just getting off the ground.  BLWC’s Facebook page was established in September 2017 and there are 161 people who like their page, and 169 people who follow the page.  BLWC has made 21 posts to date with an average total reaction of 10.7.   The largest percentage of posts were photos, followed by status updates such as announcements on where to purchase the wine.  A much smaller percentage of posts were videos or links to other sites such as news articles. Of the 21 total posts, 17 were from September 3 were from October, and there has been only one post in November.  This is trend indicates that BLWC may have been excited about Facebook when they launched, but may lack the interest, understanding, or aptitude to continue to maintain an active social media presence.



By contrast, TIMT is a Colorado-based winery founded in 2008 with locations in CO and TX.  Their Facebook Page has a following of 17,202 people and 17,542 who like the page.  Looking at these numbers alone, it is easy to see that TIMT has a leg up on BLWC with more than 100-times the Facebook activity! TIMT has more than 100 posts in the past 2-months alone.  The average total reaction for these posts is 13.4 which is up slightly from BLWC, but this may be due to the sheer volume of posts coming from TIMT which may serve to water down the significance of each post. Like BLWC, the largest percentage of TIMT posts is dedicated to photos.   Unlike, BLWC the Colorado firm does not make status update postings, and instead posts about upcoming events.  This may seem like a minor difference, but posting an event may be seen as an invitation to followers to share, where as a status update may be interpreted as basic information.  In all, it is hard to argue that TIMT is doing a much better job than BLWC at engaging potential customers through its Facebook page.


My recommendation for BLWC is simply this: use Facebook more.  This form of social media is free, user-friendly, and offers the potential of reaching some of Facebook’s more than 2-billion users.  Additionally, many of BLWC’s competitors including TIMT are using Facebook to their promote their brands so BLWC may be left behind if they choose to ignore this type of marketing.  It remains to be seen if BLWC’s target consumers actually use or are influenced by Facebook (a question we hope to answer with our project survey), or if Facebook expertise equates to greater sales.  But for now, it would certainly not hurt for BLWC to invest a few hours each week to improve their social media presence. 

Screenshots from Facebook Graph API and JSON:









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