Analyzing German winery adoption of Web 2.0 and social media

The purpose of this research study was to analyze the adoption of Web 2.0 and social media by German wineries, as well as to determine the impact of winery size on the use of social media and response time to consumer emails. The methodology involved a content analysis of 208 German winery websites and a statistical analysis of how German wineries respond to customer email requests. Results show a relatively low adoption of Web 2.0 (27%) by German wineries with larger wineries adopting more components than smaller wineries, though smaller wineries responded more quickly to customer email requests for wine information. Implications suggest that there is more opportunity for German wineries to integrate social media in their wine marketing strategy.