The Social Media Brief, some initial thoughts but only partly completed. By writing a brief I’m forcing myself to set some objectives and specific measures of success. Here are some sections of the brief (I tried to, and still intend to, write): Background, Business Objective, Social Media Objective(s), Target Audience, Success Metrics or KPIs, Deliverables, Budget, Mandatories. Some of this is easy and some needs some more work.

An initial list of the top 28 wine blogs for a US wine retailer to be associated with. Used Google Blog Search, PostRank and Yahoo Directory plus some medium authority blog search engines to come up with an initial list for further research. Full list is included here in a Google Doc spreadsheet with all the rankings.

The first step in coming up with the top wine bloggers is to compile an initial list. I want this to be objective and transparent, not subjective or using hidden algorithms. The first attempt at finding sources of these lists include: Google Blog Search, Yahoo Directory, Alexa, Wine Blog Awards ’10 and ’09, Cellarer, Top Wine Blogs, Food & Wine, Ala Wine, Wikio, blogs.com, BlogBridge, Blogged Directory, and Technorati. Here’s the initial results. In short more work needed.

I’ve been looking into what wine blogs would be best for a wine retailer to be associated with. “Associated with” could mean anything from advertising in their website sidebar to commenting on their posts. I’ve outlined the start of the criteria. It outlines a target audience, initial thoughts on the process and some restrictions.

I’ve been looking into what blogs would be best for a wine retailer to be associated with. “Associated with” could mean anything from advertising, commenting, linking to, inviting to guest post on your own blog (probably paid as many seem to be journalists). Here’s some initial thoughts including the industry’s Wine Blogger Awards.