Le Vieux Pin has struggled to build a social media brand that is distinct from its sister winery, LaStella, and not only helps to sell wine but also to connect to its audience. Through social media, Le Vieux Pin wants to sell more than wine. They want to sell a lifestyle and values that connect to their audience whilst capturing the essence of French winemaking with fruit and a touch of the New World through powerful photography.

At the highest level, to improve Le Vieux Pin's social media branding, there were 3 main problems:

• Incohesive feed • Lack of variety in social media posts and engagement • Social media captions were too long, lacked focus & format, and did not have appropriate hashtags

To get this project to the finish line, I: • Created a brand guideline and content calendar for social media. This ensured that our feed was cohesive and included a variety of social media posts that entertained our audience and drove engagement. • Established an engagement strategy to share user-generated content, and reply to comments and messages as promptly as possible to drive engagement and build a community. Le Vieux Pin's goal was to stand out on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. • Planned and discussed goals of the month with different stakeholders to come up with effective and concise copy that varied. Some posts were more sales-centric and others were more lifestyle-centric. We kept track of this in the content calendar too.

I worked on template designs for social media posts, collaborated and edited with freelance photographers to make sure the photography was excellent and abided by brand guidelines, and ensured to stay on top of Instagram trends like reels to achieve a cohesive feed as shown below.

Diversifying our posts and adding templates helped Le Vieux Pin save time on designing social media posts without losing the values of a small business and a family-run winery. By creating topic clusters (accolades, celebrations, deals of the month, etc.) in our content strategy and putting it all on a content calendar, we were able to create and distribute content quickly and efficiently. All these efforts helped to build a social media brand that stands out and connects to its community.

Increased followers by 1500 over 8 months.

Increased sales by 12% through social media campaigns and social media ad campaigns.

Stayed in touch with customers throughout the pandemic and engagement rate rose by 30% in 4 months.

Rasoul Salehi Director of Sales and Marketing

Being in direct communication with important stakeholders and establishing a proper line of communication was important in building a good social media brand during this freelance opportunity. Keeping up with the seasons and content trends in the wine industry was also essential to ensure our social media was in sync with what was happening in the winery, region, and the world.