What's new with D4TH?

It's been a week since I last updated, so my apologies for the gap between posts. There's more posts trickling in following attendees of the Beer Bloggers Conference, Harry Potter is in theatres tonight and needed a cocktail recipe, and Thanksgiving is knocking on the door.

There's just so much to write and not enough time to write it all down. But because you took the time to come here and I respect and appreciate that, here's a video of a Rube Goldberg beer pouring machine.



You're welcome. :)
SJ

Mandarine Napoleón TDN Drinks...or close enough!

Edit: We have received some awesome feedback to the video so far, including a nod that we should do this feature every week (Seriously?! You want to hear my voice that often?!). Chuck Taggart chimed in, too, with his suggestions to our tweaks of the Lillet Tomlin and offered the following tips:

• If you don't have orange bitters, just leave them out. Angostura's flavor profile is enough to make a completely different drink.
• Don't have access to Regan's (or any kind of) orange bitters? Chuck offers Cocktail Kingdom and KegWorks as suggestions to purchase online. Happy Hunting!
  

Two weeks ago, Mandarine Napoleón sponsored an evening of conversation and cocktail-conspiring in the Mixoloseum chat room. We saw some great drink ideas emerge from a group of the craftiest spirits and cocktails writers around - if you missed out, you're in luck!

Here is your chance to see some of the great cocktails developed during the evening, coupled with the hilarity of Samantha and myself trying to recreate two of the evening's submitted recipes. We attempt to make Chuck Taggart's Lillet Tomlin and SeanMike Whipkey's Mandarine Cooler. Let the critique of my technique begin (don't be too harsh now, please)!




You can watch the video again by logging on to our Brand Action Team YouTube channel.

Cheers!
Stephanie

Defining Social Media Marketing

More and more clients are coming to us for Social Media Marketing Services, and I've found there's a lot of misunderstanding on just what Social Media is, and how to categorize and define the components.

Simply stated, Social Media are online places where conversations take place among people with similar interests. And those conversations can in the form of words, images, video and audio. Social Media Marketing (Other names for it include Word of Mouth Marketing, 1 to 1 Marketing, Consumer or User Generated Content, etc.) is really just a subset of marketing...marketing that takes place in digital form over the Internet within social media.

We recognize five flavors of SMM and I've highlighted the key points that differentiate them:

1. Blogs: Blogs are essentially a diary with the point of view of one person and reflect their interest, bias and "voice"...Less of a conversation, more of a monolog. Examples include CocktailNerd and Fermentation.

2. Sites, Forums, Wikis: These are sort of like a sister to Blogs...they are conversations that are moderated and usually without a bias or point of view. On the spirits side, recipes drive the category, on the wine side it's ratings, reviews and food and wine pairings. Examples include Cocktails.About.com and Wine Library TV Forum.

3. Social Networks: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Wine 2.0 are examples. The conversation on social networks is not moderated and it takes place between and among like minded individuals who link to each other as "friends" and through "groups".

4. Search: Finding information online based on other people's searches. In our world search is conducted on general sites such as Google or vertical sites such as Wine-searcher.com.

5. E-Commerce: ...buying and selling stuff online. OK, it's not really SMM, but it is a critical digital marketing strategy and commerce is conversation. It applies to consumer sites such as BevMax as well as trade sites like BevAccess

It's that simple.