You’re trying to stay connected to your winery’s fans, customers and club members during this difficult time. You’ve done countless virtual tastings, video winemaker interviews, IG Lives, Facebook Lives, and private Zoom events for your wine club members. You might have done some vineyard tours, bottling day videos, and virtual winery tours. Are your fans, months into the pandemic, getting a little bored perhaps?
Have you looked at your engagement statistics (where possible) from all those events? Have you increased curbside pickup sales, or website sales of your wines? Have you gained followers on your Facebook and Instagram pages?
Are you burning out on virtual tastings, suspect your fans are tired of video winery tours and new wine release videos?
Try something new – just for fun – with wine-themed interactive games and fun events for your customers, wine industry friends, Facebook and Instagram fans. (This applies to wine bloggers too, not just wineries!) There’s an article at EliteDaily with some ideas for playing wine-themed games online with friends, too.
Caveat: Not every winery’s audience will be up for this, and not every wine brand should do something “light” and “floofy” like this. If your social media presence has been full of lighthearted fun and a bit goofy here and there, this could be a good fit. If your tone has been professional and serious, virtual game night probably isn’t the way to go.
Once you’ve decided to host a game event, it’s important to find the “sweet spot” for your event length. I can’t recommend using an entire hour for a game or virtual wine event – people’s attention spans flag, they want to go to the bathroom, grab a snack, or they have another virtual event to go to shortly. We already know that video views drop off sharply after the two minute mark.
Decide if you want to have just one person on camera, or multiple people on camera (via Streamyard perhaps?) playing the trivia game, or if you want customers/fans/wine club members to be able to interact and answer trivia questions in the comments of the event.
Be sure to create a Facebook Event for your virtual event, so fans get reminded, plus subscribe and share the event.
We don’t recommend playing virtual drinking games on your public social media presences (such as “Never Have I Ever.”) It goes against wine advertising and wine blogger ethics standards, and doesn’t encourage healthy consumption by your fans. That said, VinePair sure has a great article on drinking games for virtual happy hours. (Play them with friends and family in private Facebook Rooms!)
Wine Bingo –
This game takes quite a bit of setup, but I’ve had great success and enthusiasm from Page fans when I did this.
I created an Event on Facebook about 8 days before the event (10 days is too long, and people’s plans change). I asked attendees to email me for a Bingo card (and promised them I wouldn’t add them to a mailing list).
I created a Word document with my wine bingo terms (names of local wineries, winemakers, types of wine, etc) in a fairly big font so I could see them easily while on camera later. Once the document was printed out, I carefully cut each word and tossed it into a hat I kept next to the computer.
Each person who emailed got their own individually created Bingo card custom made for them (using Photoshop and a PDF creator). I emailed them their bingo cards in PDF and in Word doc format so they’d have options. Don’t miss the opportunity to brand your bingo card with your website address! The fans printed out their cards, loaded up wine and watched the livestream to play.
The first people to say Bingo in the video comments won some minor prizes (note that you can’t give away alcohol in these things). Also, be sure you understand Facebook’s promotions and giveaways rules for Pages.
The Alphabet Game –
The game starts with the letter A – You name something wine related (a wine varietal, a winemaker’s first or last name, or a winery’s name in your city) that starts with the letter A, and the next participant names a wine varietal, winemaker, winery etc. starting with the letter B. and so on. You might have to agree to skip difficult letters like X and Z!
Twenty Questions –
Especially great for wine country cities with lots of wineries (Napa, Woodinville, Walla Walla, Willamette Valley, Temecula, Sonoma, etc)
Here are the rules to 20 questions. I would actually skip the traditional “animal, mineral, vegetable” and give a clue or hint right in the first sentence of what you’re thinking of, just to speed along the game. I’d also recommend doing no more than ten rounds (a couple more are ok, so long as your viewers are still eagerly playing) so the game doesn’t get boring for people.
“I’m thinking of a red wine” (Varietals answers)
“I’m thinking of a winery started by twin sisters”
“I’m thinking of a winery specializing in Italian style wines”
“I’m thinking of a winery staring with the letter A” etc.
“I’m thinking of a winemaker” etc.
Wine Movie Night –
Use Netflix Party to watch wine-related movies with your fans simultaneously (everyone needs to have their own Netflix account). Currently available: “Wine Country,” “Sour Grapes,” and “Uncorked.”
Wine Trivia Games –
If you create your own trivia questions about your winery, it’s great for branding and for educating viewers who might be new to your winery. However, the questions might be too easy for your established fans and long-time club members. They’ll answer them too fast and your game will be over unexpectedly soon.
We have been using WineIQ Trivia (via Amazon; affiliate link) for our online wine trivia nights.
Wine Board Games –
In the fall and winter, if we’re all still huddled down isolating at home under quarantine, I’d love to see someone host a virtual online game of Viticulture (via Amazon; affiliate link).
The game can be played by up to six people, but I doubt you’d know five other people with a copy of the game. Instead, scan and copy cards and email them to people, or play an informal game where you draw the cards for your guests and read them the content.
People play board games online virtually using a two camera setup so you have one camera showing your face and another aimed at the game board at all times. You’d have to do any dice rolling, marker moving, coin distribution, yourself on behalf of your guests. (Check out this article on how to play Virtual CATAN for some setup ideas).
Terroir Virtual Winery Game Online –
If your fans are game geeks, they might enjoy participating in watching you play Terroir: The Winemaking Tycoon Game virtual winery building game online (via Twitch). You could solicit their input on your in-game choices and actions via the chat section.
Here’s an example of someone playing Terroir online in front of fans on Twitch.
Have you played any online games with your fans? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
-Carrie
Woodinville Wine Blog
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