As some of my friends know, I started blogging in French a few months ago. I decided to give it a try just before my French book got published. In spite of being located in France, I feel and work mostly like an Anglo-Saxon: I always get mildly irritated by the French way of doing business, their slowness in understanding social media and Web 2.0 strategies. But I must admit things are improving a bit and I look forward to confirming this impression during the European Wine Bloggers Conference held in Vienna from October 22nd to 24th. Why is that? I was checking the list of attendees today and I saw much more people from France than last year. There are also many Europeans attending, coming from UK, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Sweden. But the most striking thing is the number of people coming from outside Europe : China, USA, Thailand, India, Brazil, Australia, Mexico and even Mauritius.
What does it mean ? Just that the EWBC is becoming a recognized event among the international blogging community. It also means the blogging community recognizes the need to gather regularly to discuss issues, strategies, new tools and maybe just meet up. I am looking forward to meeting people in real life I’ve been in contact with for months, sometimes years to put a face and a voice on this blog URL and name on Twitter.
Blogging has now been the topic of various studies. We all know the outstanding study conducted by Prof. Liz Thach on 222 wine blogs in English as well as her article on : “Do Wine Blogs Impact Your Brand?” in WineBusiness.com. There is also a very recent one conducted by a young French marketer, Jean-David Camus, on French blogs and bloggers. It shows that 80% of French bloggers write about wine when Dr Thach’s study showed 9 major blog types.
English-speaking wine bloggers are less focused on tasting notes than their French counterparts. Is this trend true for all European countries? This is one of the points I’ll try to find an answer to while in Vienna, because I’m convinced that the blogging world has undergone tremendous changes in only one year. See you in Vienna, Austria?
writing a blog about wine in French and a second one in German (my mother-tongue), I’m quite familiar with the two blogosphères, aswe say in French. There are “cultural” differences between these two spheres, some of the features are easy to discover, by looking at blog lists: much more wine blogging women in French, than in German, more blogging winemakers in France than in Germany – up till now more disputes and status fights among German wine bloggers (especially the professional ones, like publicists and marketeers for whom “ranking” is important, if they will be able to monetise their blogs via advertisements), than in France, where Networking works better – and where “ranking” was no subject till this summer and especially since wikio started their wineblog ranking last week.
Private wine-bloggers in Germany publish a lot of tasting notes, French ones talk more often about vineyard visits, especially in Summer, when oenotourisme rimes with visiting wine regions and favourite winemakers. You can find some good examples on the last Vendredis du Vin edition (Frances WineblogingWednesday). The facebook groupe of this monthly blog-event has won more than 300 members in a few months. The German equivalent “Weinrallye” works on the same principle, but is less active in social networks like facebook and twitter. But if you go to Vienna, you can talk to Thomas Lippert (Winzerblogger) about the German wineblog scene – he is something like the “father” of wineblog Networking and also the founder of “Genussblog.net” a daily aggregation of wineblog news.
Thank you so much for such a thoughtful explanation. I am not familiar with the German “blogosphere” and will be very interested in talking to Thomas Lippert in Vienna next month. I was aware of the first French winery bloggers’ meeting in Bordeaux during Vinexpo 2009 and couldn’t attend.
I hope ranking won’t become a major issue among French or European wine bloggers. It is important for those of us who want to monetize their blog but shouldn’t become the only criteria: content, interaction with readers or other bloggers, are also important issues.
Let’s keep talking about it in Vienna!
I think, it’s a great idea, that all those students from “more exotic” countries than old Europe and USA comme from France as a group with their teachers – great opportunity to learn and spread the news!
Previous post: BYOB or Wine By the Glass, what is best for the consumer?