Cento Vigne Italia has found the secret to wine e-commerce: tell stories, focus on customers, and educate them on multiple social channels. Gian Piero Staffa, based out of the Italian city of Bologna, could be described as a wine-seller—but that would be telling only a fraction of the story. After a long and lucrative career in marketing and communications, he has created Cento Vigne Italia, a successful e-commerce site that ships wine around the world. And a large part of this success came from his own evolution from traditional sales tactics to building an online community via social media.

1. SUCCESS STORY: CENTO VIGNE ITALIA
SuccessStory:
CentoVigne
Italia
Adapting New World Social Marketing Strategies to
Find Success in Wine Sales
Cento Vigne Italia has found the secret to wine e-commerce: tell stories,
focus on customers, and educate them on multiple social channels. Gian
Piero Staffa, based out of the Italian city of Bologna, could be described as
a wine-seller—but that would be telling only a fraction of the story. After a
long and lucrative career in marketing and communications, he has created
Cento Vigne Italia, a successful e-commerce site that ships wine around the
world. And a large part of this success came from his own evolution from
traditional sales tactics to building an online community via social media.
Active in a total
of 50 social
media groups
Twitter followers
jumped from
3,500 to 15,000
in first 4 months
Only one hour
available for social
media per day
Participates
in 40 LinkedIn
groups
9:35 am pm

2. SUCCESS STORY: CENTO VIGNE ITALIA
How a traditional marketing professional went
beyond the telex and embraced social media for
business
Cento Vigne Italia was created as a B2B platform that would connect
smaller European wine producers to wine professionals around the
world. Gian Piero had already been actively publishing industry-related
content on two English-language blogs meant to introduce these wines
to an international audience: Italy Fine Wines and France Fine Wines
(they have since been turned into digital wine guides).
Even though he wasn’t tech-savvy in the beginning, Gian Piero knew
that social media would change how marketers would connect their
products and services to an interested—and international—audience.
His modus operandi had always focused on adapting, and he
recognised the tremendous potential to reach limitless numbers of
people using
social media.
Gian Piero realised early on that visual content was an essential
component of his social media strategy. He started prominently
featuring bright, interactive infographics (created in-house) and tailored
the content based off the interests of his followers on each account.
This infographic is a great example of how he connects with his B2B
audience with information presented in a highly visual way, no overt
selling tactics required.
“I learned early on in my
social efforts, specifically
on Twitter, that people
don’t respond well to the
‘sell, sell, sell’ approach
that I was accustomed to
using. I started listening
and having conversations
with my audience, and
then the social channels
quickly began to grow.
Using Hootsuite to listen
in on what my followers
were saying really worked.”
Gian Piero Staffa, Cento Vigne Italia

3. SUCCESS STORY: CENTO VIGNE ITALIA
Three unique sites; one busy entrepreneur:
How Hootsuite helps Gian Piero stay organised
The wines that Gian Piero features on his sites are not necessarily
readily available in regular stores, so his goal is to educate, inform, and
entertain to build up an engaged client base. With the widest selection
of artisan wines on the market, Cento Vigne is not only an e-commerce
site, but a hub of information about different kinds of wine, the
wineries themselves, different wine production areas in Europe, as
well as their history and culture. Gian Piero has become the master of
reaching that wider, international audience through social media—and
Hootsuite is an integral part of that success.
“We wanted to
communicate certain
data about wine
production and to
describe geographical
areas and appellations
for our audience. In a
world with a lot of written
information, people take
notice of visual content—
it’s easier to look at and to
remember.”
Gian Piero Staffa, Cento Vigne Italia

4. SUCCESS STORY: CENTO VIGNE ITALIA
Gian Piero uses Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Slideshare,
LinkedIn, and YouTube channels to drive traffic back to the rich content
on each of the three sites he manages—that means three completely
different audiences—which is a tremendous group of tasks. He also
manages and participates in over 40 LinkedIn groups, so altogether
he is active in 50 social media groups. With only one hour available for
social media per day, Gian Piero relies on Hootsuite to stay organized
and aware of what his audience is saying. Before he started using
Hootsuite, he was logging into each of his social media accounts for
each of his websites—a great deal of time wasted every day. Now,
he can spend more time actually creating the content his followers
respond to, and conversing with them.
When he first started on Twitter (for Italy Fine Wines specifically), he
built up a follower count of 3,500 followers within eight months. But
that initial success skyrocketed once he began using Hootsuite—within
only four months, his follower count jumped by over 400% to 15,000.
Multi-tasking made easier
When Gian Piero first created his two original blogs, the scope of his
work was much smaller and he was able to juggle all the tasks without
external assistance. As his sites grew more popular, however, he needed
to get organised so he could continue creating engaging content.
One of the first steps he took was creating tabs to separate all of his
social channels, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.
Now he monitors each channel within the tab using Streams—for
example, he has three Twitter accounts (one for each site).
Tip: To learn more about organizing Tabs and Streams to your
dashboard, take a look at this Hootsuite Tip.

5. SUCCESS STORY: CENTO VIGNE ITALIA
Scheduling and planning has also changed the way Gian Piero works—
for the better. Because he spends a lot of time in meetings, he is able
to synchronize his social media efforts with the times his audience
is most active, which tends to be during the busiest part of his work
day. Scheduling allows him to send out his posts at those peak hours
without affecting his regular meeting times.
And, once he started collaborating with another contributor on the
France Fine Wines site, Gian Piero started to use Hootsuite Teams. The
Teams features allowed them to both post content to the appropriate
channels quickly and seamlessly from different physical locations. This
kind of close collaboration and efficiency would have been much more
difficult, if not impossible, if Gian Piero was still connecting to each
social channel individually.
Integrating personal and professional
development for social marketing success
Gian Piero has always been open to innovation and new trends, which
is how he went from traditional marketer to tech-savvy international
communicator. Starting with email campaigns to reach new customers,
then embracing new media with the help of Hootsuite, he has
mastered the art of social marketing. He now teaches courses on social
media marketing, and is an influencer in his field. The YouTube app on
Hootsuite has impacted his international reputation in positive ways,
too. By uploading videos of his appearances at speaking engagements
and events, his brand—both professionally and as a social marketing
innovator—has become a worldwide success.
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