Beer, it's a social thing.

We live in an era of social media and instant access, but is that a good thing for the beer community?

As with everything, there are two sides to every story. The consumer side and the business side. So let's look at the consumer side first and let's face it the more positive side. By positive I mean the pros vastly outweigh the cons.

So what do you get in this digital age? You know what is on in the bar (or growler system) before you arrive courtesy of TapLister, so you can choose your beer on the way or decide you have better beer in the house. Through Twitter you get a constant stream of up to date information on what is in your local bottle shop, send them a query about stock or ask if they are getting the latest releases in. You can do this through Facebook, but to be honest, Twitter is where it is at. You can see what everyone else is drinking through Untappd while detailing your own journey into casual alcoholism. Now for a personal bugbear of mine, unlink this from your twitter as you will be duplicating content and spamming people who follow you on both. You will have people reaching for that mute option! All in all, you can engage with your beer providers 24/7, be that the bar, bottle shop or brewery. But beware, you can also become an asshole fairly easily. Complaining about a service on Twitter is an easy thing to do, you are cloaked in an internet version of yourself and don't have business to lose. Have the common courtesy to deal with bad service with the business directly, if they don't respond positively then get your keyboard warrior hat on but don't be surprised if you get ignored. Is all this healthy though? Time will tell about the pros and cons of being constantly connected, but when you look around your local and everyone is simply staring at their phone updating whatever, think, are we actually removing the social aspect of beer, by being more social?

Be social in the bar, not social!

Now to the dark side, the one fraught with danger at every turn! The business end, in every sense of the word. You guys have a lot to lose and in my day to day I have seen some of the worst uses of social media, and I am surprised some of these businesses survive. Most businesses who set up a Twitter or Facebook profile do not understand the overhead of doing it properly. People have an expectation to get answers, and those answers better be quick! The social media crowd are a demanding one, even being seconds behind your competitor can cost a sale. One rude reply can cause a backlash that can last weeks and damage reputation for some time after that. Remember, this is your business account, not your personal one. Retweeting something you have a vested interest in, isn't always the best thing for your business. You can unwittingly give your businesses support to a cause that can be misread or lead to requests for support from others miffed that you didn't support them in the first place. Retweeting should be used sparingly, it isn't the favourite button and is duplicating content rather than creating it. So are there a set of rules for engagement? Well rather than reinvent the wheel I found a great piece on this written by the Digital Cabinet Office and I would recommend anyone read it who takes part in social media, especially businesses. It is their Social Media Playbook, a social media how-to if you will. Obviously, government has little to nothing to do with beer (bar dreaming up some wacky laws) but it is chock full of good advice that can be applied to any business.

For me the main headliners are, don't feed the trolls and don't be a dick. Be part of the community, be respectful and don't air your dirty laundry.

I will leave the bloggers out of this, we are like assholes with opinions and everyone has one.... or something like that.

My name is Bruce!

Photo Credit