Sopexa Wine Social Media Data

The most recent findings from Social Flavor

SOPEXA is a worldwide and integrated network of 26 agencies with a unique knowledge of both local market dynamics and the food & wine sectors and has just released a telling report – social media data and business opportunities in the USA, and it’s aptly named Social Flavor.

They looked across multiple data sources—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more—to identify opportunities gained and lost by food brands. They are quick to point out that “there is a difference between an algorithm and an insight, and there is an even greater divide between big data and a big idea. As the amount of food and beverage content goes up, so does the importance of human judgment”.

So what can we learn?

When it comes to wine, they propose that everyone is now a wine critic with more than half of social media followers participating in conversations about wine. An important learning, as today there are over 260 million Internet users in the US, and around 60% use Facebook.

They also point to an upcoming trend surge in sparkling wine. In full disclosure this report was given with and possibly funded by Moet Chandon.

They report that consumption of sparkling wines is growing twice as fast as still wines, and they estimate growth thru 2018 to be at 15%. Why? In studying 6,333 US wine websites, more than one-third have mentioned sparkling wines – compare that to consumption that only accounts for five percent of all wine sales. And the winning conversation? It seems to have moved away from Prosecco (with 15% of posts) to Champagne with 44%.

The report adds some interesting nuances to just how to influence Millennials and how language should be used. The topline is that Champagne seems to have been awakened by the celebrity endorsements of Prosecco and will be fighting back.