Brewbound Frontlines: What a Shift in Social Media Engagement Means for Breweries, ft. Leaders From Revolution, CANarchy & KC Bier Co.

Jul. 11, 2022 at 4:15 PM

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Social media has been a non-negotiable item in breweries’ marketing toolkits for well over a decade. With so much invested in the discipline, what do marketers need to know about changes to social platforms?

Four experts discussed social media strategy on the most recent episode of Brewbound Frontlines:

Katie Camlin, digital and social media coordinator at Kansas City Bier Company;
Chris Jones, brand director at CANarchy, which includes Oskar Blues, Cigar City, Deep Ellum, Wasatch, Squatters and Perrin;
Chad Melis, founder of Turn It Up Marketing;
and Doug Veliky, chief strategy officer of Revolution Brewing.
The conversation covers how audiences interact with brands, how to develop a content strategy that plays to team members’ strengths and how to adapt when engagement shifts on certain platforms.

Recently, Veliky noticed Instagram metrics had changed for Revolution and other breweries, which he attributed to the platform’s wide-ranging, bolt-on strategy for its services and likened the Meta-owned app to a craft brewery that dabbles in every trend, rather than attempting to master a handful of curated styles.

“TikTok and Snapchat, those are social mediums that have a very specific focus and are trying to do, in general, one thing really well, and there’s breweries like that too, like Athletic with non-alcoholic beer or like Montucky Cold Snacks focusing on one key brand,” he said. “There are social mediums that do the same. And then there’s Instagram, which to me is like the brewery that’s trying to compete in every category possible – they have a low-cal IPA, a triple IPA, they have hard seltzers, they have RTDs there, they have a sour, barrel-aged beers – where they’re trying to do everything, and as a result, Instagram is left looking like Frankenstein right now.

“It’s tried to compete with YouTube with IGTV. It’s trying to compete with Snapchat with Stories… and most recently, it’s trying to be TikTok with the introduction of Reels last year. Instagram seems very reactive, and as a result people don’t know how to interact with the platform,” Veliky continued. “Creators aren’t seeing the traction; they’re not seeing their followings grow, so in general, a lot of the creativity and content is moving away from Instagram.”