Friday, January 23, 2015

Cork'd comments

Issue : Cork'd as a wine social media network is facing a challenge because of constrained finances and the need to hire more developers to continue managing its growing user base.
Background : Till now the social media strategy of Cork'd has been two pronged. On the one hand it has provided individual users to interact with other users, upload profiles, review and rate wines, share their experiences and comment on wines on Facebook,Yelp and Twitter. It has allowed them to choose other similar minded users and form  'drinking buddies', further the users can purchase wines through linked third party websites which provide some revenue to Cork'd .Teaching about wines is the main theme, the users can also create wine shopping lists. On the other hand the wineries are registered for an annual fee of $999 which allows them to manage and maintain their own profile pages with direct links to their own websites. The wineries have an opportunity to interact directly with the users and learn about their feedback along with a possibility of making direct sales. The wineries are graded as 'verified' and are included in the weekly newsletter along with a listing in the wine tasting events.
Environment : The competition is very strong Snooth.com has a higher reach given their efficient shopping options, and the CellarTracker.com is focusing on the personalised inventory management and professional wine reviews . Cork'd is perceived as a startup with a focus on entry level customer and therefore is struggling with the low traffic and revenue figures.
Options :

  1. Cork'd can focus on increasing its individual user base which requires capital, since more developers and support would be required to manage the increased traffic and requirements of the site. This capital can come from the promoters or by adding more wineries.
  2. It could focus on enlisting more and more wineries in its fold. But this requires selling the concept to the wineries. The wineries would only come on board when they see a large and active user network.
Both the alternatives are somehow interlinked and it seems that Cork'd would have to generate some funds as a loan or investment by the promoter or market since  revenue from the wineries will not be forthcoming easily in the near future failing this  it is doomed given the fierce competition in the market.

1 comment:

  1. The relaunch had great many important featiures. Broad PR campaign, grand unveiling of the site, star value of Vaynerchuk, new recruited wineries, reach out to old faithfuls, extensive use of Twitter and Wine Library TV to add more recruits, newbie badge, contest to make max reviews and free trip to NYC and be Vaynerchuk, fresh content and new articles to bring repeat users to site and launching of an App.

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