Twitter to Save SA Food & Wine PR?

With many Cape Town restaurants teetering on the edge of financial oblivion (one leading foodie claimed that “fine dining is dead in Cape Town” last night at the garden birthday party of Riebeek Kasteel culinary koning Mynhardt Joubert over a bowl of delicious Pho Bo) and with wine marketing budgets cut to the quick, the Cape’s resilient PR community has come up with a sure-fire money spinner. Invite a flock of tweeters to your event and charge on a per tweet and even re-tweet basis for exposure. Of course that the main followers of food and wine tweeters are other food and wine tweeters confirms the phenomenon as a replay of the well known circle jerk from low budget porno movies.

Societi owner Peter Weetman in waiter mode yesterday

Societi owner Peter Weetman in waiter mode yesterday

Bloggers are not much better. As the wine marketer told me over chilled minestrone soup at Societi Bistro yesterday “I write the press release and all the bloggers post it. Why am I paying a PR company?”

Since very few food & wine social media spinners buy their own wine or dine out for their own account, exactly what does this achieve in terms of sales? Wine functions compound the problem by gifting product in goodie bags. Bottles that the more desperate spinners have been known to sell off on their sites.