It has been said that it takes a large fortune to make a small fortune in the wine business. That statement has never been more salient in today's difficult economy, especially for small to medium wineries who may have more recently invested as a new startup or perhaps in upgrading operations following several years of solid growth in the wine industry.

Following a substantial global downturn, many wineries are being squeezed by increased competition, costs of operations as well as issues in distribution, marketing and sales. Often budgets are tight and expenditures must be carefully made. These issues are well documented in recent whitepapers from VinTank and Silicon National Bank.

So it comes as no surprise that many wineries are either experimenting with or becoming fully committed to social media, where investment is less about financial budgets and more about investment in time, good content, and connecting with current and prospective customers.

The landscape in social media is extensive and continues to grow unabated.

There is no shortage of choice and with choice there is always increased complexity. (For a brief view of the landscape, visit Viralvines.com)

So to keep things simple this article focuses on only one piece of the landscape: social networks. It then further limits that category to only one social network: facebook.

Lastly, one of the characteristics of social media, whether it pertains to social networks or microblogs, is that nothing stands still for very long. Updates and change occur not only on a monthly, weekly or daily basis, but often, in a matter of seconds.

Because of the degree and speed of change, it is often not possible to accurately measure many aspects of what is happening except to acknowledge data in a particular point in time.

So to simplify things one step further, the data presented is relegated to that collected on one particular day: June 23, 2009.

So unfamiliar with facebook?

According to wikipedia.org, Facebook is "a free-access social networking website ...where users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. ....the website's name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community ..... A February 2009 study has ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace."

According to data available directly on facebook in regards to general growth in 2009, there are:

• More than 200 million active users - where:
• More than 100 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day - of which:
• More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college - with:
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older

So a very substantial number of drinking age active users on a single platform.

Here are some additional data that should be of interest to wineries based on a study by Isstrategylabs:

1) The 35-54 year old demo(graphic) is growing fastest, with a 276.4% growth rate in over the approximate 6 months since we last produced this report

2) The 55+ demo is not far behind with a 194.3% growth rate

3) The 25-34 year population on Facebook is doubling every 6 months

4) For those interested in advertising alcohol on Facebook, there are 27,912,480 users 21+, representing 66.3% of all users

5) Miami is the fastest growing metropolitan area (88.5%) and Atlanta (6.4%) is the slowest

6) There are more females (55.7%) than males (42.2%) on Facebook - 2.2% are of unknown gender.

7) The largest demographic concentration remains the college crowd of 18-24 year olds (40.8%) which is down from (53.8%) six months ago.

Sound like a viable platform for wineries to converse with current and / or prospective customers? Let's take a closer look!

As of June 23, 2009, at least 500 wineries have determined that it is to their advantage to build a special page on facebook. Moreover, 66% or 33 of the first 50 largest pages also invested in building groups or individual pages as well.

Here are some additional data regarding winery presence on facebook:

• Of the slightly over 500 wineries that have a page on facebook, 35 of those have in excess of 500 fans.
• Taking into account the largest 250 winery pages, the average number of fans is 290 and the lowest number of fans of any page is 72
• Of the first 50 pages, the average number of fans is 750 with the lowest number of fans on any one page is 379
• The winery with the largest fan base is Duplin Winery (oldest winery in North Carolina) with a whopping 3613 fans. The second (The Round Barn Winery) had 1505, the third (Murphy-Goode Winery) had 1273, the fourth (Palminia Winery) had 1208, and the fifth (Laetitia Vineyard & Winery) had 1140 fans.
• 98% of the first 50 wineries are located in the United States (one is in South Africa).
• Of the first 50, 62% are located in California, 8% each from Michigan and Washington State, 4% each from Georgia, Missouri, and North Carolina, and finally 2% each from New York, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia
• 66% of the first 50 had additional groups and/or employees with a presence on facebook
• Again, focusing on the first 50, 40% of the pages had been updated within 48 hours or less, 42% had been updated within the last two weeks, and 8% had been updated within the last month. Only 10% had not updated their page in June.
• In terms of applications, 86% shared photos, 16% shared favorites, 70% shared events, 20% shared notes, 38% shared links, and 22% shared videos. (These do not add up to 100% since most wineries share multiple applications.)
• Regarding applications, 10% shared one application, 24% shared two, 40% shared three applications, and 16% shared at least 4.
• The oldest winery with a facebook page was established in 1858 and the newest in 2006.
• Finally, in terms of the page activity, on 16% of the pages the activity was driven solely by the winery, on 14% the winery drove most of the activity, on 6% the fans drove most of the activity, and on 64% the page activity was equally driven by the winery and the fans.

So what conclusions can be determined from this brief research?

1. At least 500 wineries have determined that it is to their advantage to build a special page on facebook. Now, that needs to be qualified a bit. For instance, some pages are very new with only 1 or no fans as of yet. Only time will tell if the effort will in fact provide benefit to those wineries. In addition, some pages that have a substantial amount of fans have not been updated in quite some time. Without speaking with the winery there is no way of knowing whether the inactivity is due to a belief that the effort is not worthwhile, or simply due to time limitation or a lack of knowledge.
2. Adding up the number of fans for each winery (up to the first 250), there are 37,524 fans for the first 50 wineries, the number jumps to 52,135 fans for the first 100, and finally, 72,742 following the first 250 wineries. Even with some of these fans on multiple pages, these numbers are significant, and I would venture to guess beneficial to the wineries interacting with them.  Considering an average 120 connections per fan on facebook, there is a potential today for these winereries to reach in excess of 8 million fans.
3. With 64% of the pages being driven equally by the winery and the fans, one could conclude that an active dialogue is going on. That dialogue may be talking about a recent event, a new award, the next harvest, the wine club, the tasting room, the weather, an anticipated trip to the winery, or a recent meal paired with one of the wines. Regardless of the dialogue, the fans are engaged and I have to suspect that this can only help to increase business as well as loyalty for the winery.

At a time when small and medium wineries face stiff competition, a challenging distribution environment, increasing costs, and a tough economy, social media and networking can help to reach new customers and increase profitability, if it is done as part of an overall marketing strategy, and with a sincere desire to open a dialogue with current and prospective customers.