It took about 12 years of being in this artisanal spirits importing and wholesaling game to discover that we should provide content to the good people who have had our back, given us their trust, and purchased products from us over the years.
To date, we kinda did the social media thing, thinking we "had to," and knowing we were neither really equipped for it nor tech-savvy enough.
Note 1: "We" is mostly me. Sometimes it describes the PM team, but often it's just me Just that I am naturally uncomfortable with using the first person. No sign of cockiness here, no "royal we"; just some stuff that one should probably have therapy over.
Note 2: We/I am French - born and raised - moved to NYC in '04. I have been working on my flow via rap lyrics and stand-up comedy, but despite my best efforts, I just cannot manage to sound nor write natively. This text is bound to read funny.
PM got into some sort of flow 10+ years into it where the business has some sort of organization, where we kinda defined who does what within our team, and it doesn't totally feel like a startup on its 3rd day.
We are by many metrics very much still a startup. But with the ambition to one day be a real business while not losing our soul/ethos.
And it is on this day of September 21st, 2023, comfortably seated in 12D (a few rows short of the extra legroom of the emergency exit seats), that things seem to point toward now as the time to think about what sort of legit, non-stale, non-boring, minimally salesy content PM could provide.
IG outreach from no later than yesterday gave great insights as to the direction that shall be ours (which honestly should have been obvious to us but wasn't) - more videos of people, producers, explanations about why we think a distillate PM decides to work with is special, have the PM team come on and talk about their interest, give some glimpses of our behind-the-scenes, show how the stuff is made, hear from the people who make it, possibly let one know how/where a specific product can be purchased, tools for the trade such as how to use the damn weird eau-de-vie in a cocktail and how do other bartenders manage to utilize these non-inexpensive products. As well as points of view about what makes something artisanal, brands vs. non-brands, additives, and the ethos behind doing what we do.
Today, Tim H came up with the thought that doing long-form video was probably a key element: using YouTube to create videos, interviews, and such, which could hopefully be of interest to some and provide us with some bits of content we could use for other platforms.
So here we are: PM has a FB, IG, X/Twitter, TikTok, and Snapchat accounts. So do I. And a YouTube channel. And a LinkedIn account.
What are we gonna do with them? No clue.
All I know is that each platform is its own thing, caters to different people in different ways/formats, and has been created with different aims, so it is up to us to learn, try, and be consistent in our efforts.
Here starts PM's attempt to become more relevant using 21st-century means…