Ep. 1179 Amanda McCrossin | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

The Italian Wine podcast is introducing a new donation drive this month. It's called y m I f fan. We are encouraging anyone who tunes in on a regular basis to send us your ten second video on why you are a fan of our podcast network or a specific show. We will then share your thoughts with the world, with the goal of garnering support for our donation drive Italian wine podcast is a publicly funded sponsor driven enterprise that needs you in order to continue to receive awesome free wine edutainment. Seven days a week, we are asking our listeners to donate to the Italian wine podcast by clicking either the go fund me link or the Patreon link found on Italian wine podcast dot com. Remember, if you sign up as a monthly donor on our Patreon, we will send you a free IWP shirt and a copy of the wine democracy book, the newest mama jumbo shrimp publication. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, this is voices. Every Wednesday, I will be sharing conversations with international wine industry professionals discussing issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion through their personal experiences working in the field of wine. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your pods. Hello. This is Cynthia Chaplin, and today I am very pleased to sit down with Amanda McCrosson, a certified sommelier, a combined personality, and TikTok Instagram and YouTube creator. Former, Amanda was a sommelian wine director at press restaurant in Napa Valley. And she worked with the world's biggest restaurant collection of all in Napa Valley wines, and her award winning wine program thrived while she was there. She was named a wine enthusiast nominee for Smolia of the year. And she's a Napa Valley resident, creating content every day for some Vivant, her popular TikTok Instagram and YouTube channel. So thank you so much for coming and taking time out of wine to wine to be with me today. I really appreciate it. Oh, it's a great pleasure. I'm really happy to be here and excited to be in Corona for wine to wine. It's fun. And we we are blessed with lovely happy weather today too. So we do not ask for better weather. I hope everyone listening is enjoying the same weather, but Good. Good. Well, let's just get down to talking about TikTok because TikTok is a pretty crazy phenomenon these days. It went from nonexistent to, like, this massive explosion. Mhmm. So what attracted you to the platform? What when did you get going with it? Why did it feel? Yeah. At TikTok, I think, has sort of taken the world by storm over the last few years, but really only caught my eye in the last year and a half. I had a few friends in other industries, specifically an entertainment who sort of saw what I was doing on Instagram and on YouTube and said, I think that you could really have some fun on TikTok. And at that time, you know, TikTok seemed like the ab for kids. Right? Well, that's great. It was. You keep sliding down downstairs, banisters and doing dances and, you know, fun churning sounds. And I said, you know, I just don't really see how I can make an impact there. And so but she's, you know, this this one particular friend was very insistent. She said, I really think you should try. So I did. And I spent the first few months to sort of hang around, trying to get you into the app. At that point, this is a very critical thing that happened. At that point, they had up to the time limit from fifteen seconds to sixty seconds. And then huge it's a huge increase, and then they tripled that in November. And that's really what started moving my ability from very limited to a very wide opportunity to create great content around wine, but still have to create a constraint of a bean short form. Exactly. So so now, what's the limit ninety seconds? Or So, technically, the limit is three minutes if you created an in app. But if you upload a video, meaning if you were to record it outside of the app and edit it yourself, that limit is actually ten minutes. Oh, wow. Okay. So much bigger than even five o'clock. Yeah. No. It's midges every day, so it's hard to keep up. Well, you've clearly been making the most of TikTok. You know, you went from zero to a hundred and fifty thousand followers in just one year, which is pretty amazing. Less than that, actually. It has six months. Yeah. In six months. Yes. And it's all in niche wine. Yep. It's all in in sort of the the wine market. And originally, everybody thought, as you said, the platform was for kids. So how do you think it evolved into this sort of billion dollar marketing tool, fifty percent of the users now are over the age of thirty. So it was not just for kids anymore. Mhmm. What happened? Well, I think the time increase was big because it allowed people from other industries to really showcase their knowledge. And so it became a place not only for entertainment, but it also became a place to learn things. So learn top is as important as the dance videos. Because that'll say learn top. Yeah. These are these are all things. I mean, I think people people go to the entertainment, but they also know that they're gonna learn something in the process. So, really, when that time change happened, that opened up the the ability for creators to put forward content that was less voyeuristic and entertaining and more so that Vutra in. And I think that has that has represented a huge increase in, not only the popularity, but also how important it's become as a searchability function for people who are looking to vacation or, go to places where learn about wine and things like that. Exactly. So now with TikTok, what are you doing with your business? Sir, what's your aim with it? Because it's moved on as you said from being complete entertainment. You're doing some education, presumably sales, influencing and fun, all of these things together. Our producers reaching out to you. You know, what's what's the interaction between you and the industry and your content and how's it being driven? Yeah. It's an interesting question because I think the one thing that we do have to talk about with regard to TikTok is the community guidelines, which do very clearly say that you cannot sell alcohol, and you certainly can't market it to minors, which for TikTok is a little bit of a challenge because you don't have gatekeeping, you know, keep the hostage people out of the line TikTok. Exactly. So my content is really educational driven. So you'll barely see me actually drink wine on any of my videos, but I'm always trying to make it situational and educational for people. So in terms of working with producers, I haven't taken a a check from a producer for a TikTok content, because I think that sort of pushes the limits of maybe what's okay and not okay Yes. For a TikTok. This is where we're kind of, like, in the wild west day, you know, navigating. We're just trying not to get TikTok to ban us. So I but I, you know, I will I will, accept samples, and I, you know, have gotten trips, things like that to really help to, you know, create great content. But in terms of my day to day, how I structured my business, a lot of that stuff, that I'll do for Instagram specifically, and then TikToks, perhaps an added benefit. But also, you know, TikTok has really exploded my presence as a media personality. So that's sort of helps me to get other things like rubber tastings and speaking gigs, and then I put out a wine course. So it's all sort of I I think if TikTok is more of a marketing vehicle that I think of it as a place to make actual money. That's so interesting. And I I think people do look at talking in different ways, you know, these days. It's not it's not viewed in the same way as, you know, even YouTube was No. It's the reason they're very different. So how would you suggest people who are new to TikTok make use of the platform in context of wine, you know, if you're a consumer or if you're a producer or if you're in sales. So we can't drink wine on a TikTok. We can't really sell one in a TikTok. Kids might be watching. Mhmm. How how should people in the wine sector make use of TikTok? And and either as a consumer or as an influencer or as a producer. Yeah. I mean, I think if if you're a winery, for example, wine is usually grown in very beautiful places. And usually so true. Usually places, people wanna go visit So I think there's a storytelling aspect that can be told around the winery without actually direct selling in wine. I think for some wineries, especially in Napa, a lot of them will use, you know, guides to Napa. These are our, you know, these are our winery's favorite places to go when you're visiting us here. For others, it's educational, getting out into the vineyard, showing what budbreak looks like, showing what harvest looks like. I think all of those things are really important as long as you contextualize it for people. So you can't meaning you can't just put up a a cool video of people picking grapes and putting them to bins without explaining and making it relevant to the end consumer, which is gonna be the viewer. So in terms of the type of content, I think it really depends on what your marketing strategy is in whatever particular business you have, but just knowing that, making it interesting, relatable, and the hook is very important. The hook is so key. So let's talk about this for a second. When we talk about the hook and the storytelling, in TikTok, we how do you how do you find your hook? The hook is really challenging. The hook is me, you know, what I would consider the wide week here. How is this going to alleviate a pain point that I maybe knew I had or subconsciously knew I had or didn't even know existed for me. So for me, I'm always looking at things like, you know, if I'm in a restaurant and I don't know how to navigate the wine list, what are some things that I can give people as examples and and what to do. So my hope for that is literally a situational experience where I've sort of acted my way through these first ten seconds as both the guest and the Psalm. To to put the the viewer in the position of being in that moment where they feel a little uncomfortable and they can feel that relationship be a little bit screened and then give them the resolve of the And so that hope is those first few seconds of showing the pain point, putting that in text on the actual screen, which is important, and then resolving it in a way that's very concise and clear and still entertaining. And relatable. I mean Yeah. That's a normal situation for a lot of people, you know, especially in a lot of restaurants nowadays, you know, you're confronted with a wine list. It's like the size of a pie. Well, exactly. And that was I mean, that's the joke. Right? So that's that's the TikTok Betty that I did is I I grew the the huge wine book on the table and I said, have that. I know you don't speak, you know, all of these languages, or maybe you don't speak all these languages. But here you go, I'll see you in ten minutes. Exactly. Exactly. This is so interesting because there there are a lot of people out there who are doing things with wine on TikTok. That don't really have any real wine experience or real wine technical background like you do or I do, or educational background, and they're just having a really good time, which is fine. And it is total entertainment. But what what's the what's the point here, in terms of people having fun with wine and, you know, twirling wine around in one glass near swimming pool with fun music on, which is always fun to watch. But compared to building a content and and doing some story and giving a takeaway like you were saying resolving an issue. How do those sort of I I hate to use the word peer reverend, but, you know, sort of less serious. TikTok things about wine? How does that affect what you're doing? Or do they can they be friends? Or is this I think they'd also be friends. You know, I I think I think there's room for all types of creators within every segment, certainly within the wine segment. For I've always been a believer of whatever gets people in the door and drinking wine. That's such a good point. Bring them to the table. Bring them exactly. So so maybe maybe you caught a really great video of, a wine influencer in Tuscany, swirling a glass of wine, and and you imagine yourself in that place. And I think that's that's really key, right, because I think half the battle is imagining yourself in that situation where you're drinking wine. A lot of us didn't work with wine in the table. So putting yourself in that position to even believe that that's possible is key before even getting to where I am, which is teaching you more about it. So we have to get them interested. And it's aspirational. If you wanna go on vacation again, they wanna go places they haven't seen. Yeah. We're coming out of COVID. They can suddenly travel. It's a dream, isn't it? It's Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp. For fascinating videos covering Stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond, meeting winemakers, eating local food, and taking in the scenery. Now, back to the show. It's absolutely the dream, and I think for the influencers that are showcasing that dream and not maybe adding value beyond that. That's exactly what it is. Get them in the door, create keep creating that content. I'll take it from here. We can work together. I think it's okay. Yeah. If you get them in the door, I'll take it from here. It's all very dramatic. So you're changing my opinion. Alright. So what's your advice where somebody new who wants to start up TikTok? So, you know, you've never done TikTok. You I mean, let's say someone like me. So I have technical background. I am very good communicator. I love to talk about one. I'm fairly knowledgeable. I like to go to places and do things. How do I start? Yeah. I'm talking. Great. Great question. I went through the same thing myself. So my I'll just I'll tell you what I did, and I thought it was It was very effective for me, which was I spent about a month on the platform just watching. I take, you know, twenty to thirty minutes out of my day, which is actually not a lot. You'd consider how much time I'd probably spend on a demo. But I I I would take thirty minutes out of my day, and I just scroll through because, you know, ultimately, we've got the four u page, which is suggesting new videos constantly. So it's sort of trying to figure out what it is you're interested in. So as I would scroll through, I would watch and I would I would I would pay attention to the videos that had lasting impressions, or maybe I watched longer than I would have expected. Right? Why did I watch sixty seconds of a video that really didn't affect me in any way other than I was engaged I wanted to know the outcome of whatever it is they were talking about. And so when they would do that, I would write myself little notes, and I'd say, I tried to dissect each of the videos to figure out what made that compelling? Did they switch angles in each of the shots? Did they move their voice up in town? Did they add text on screen? Did they use a particular sound underneath of it that I thought was really engaging? And so I started to try to put all of those pieces together to really start to understand the app I also follow people that were experts in the app. So there's lots of TikTok experts that will give you tips and tricks, and I think those are really great because ultimately this is a new platform, but it's also a very intuitive platform. You know, these these platforms are designed to get you in and to stay put. So navigating it, you know, you don't need to watch a YouTube video to figure it out. You should let yourself have a little bit of fun. And then after that month is up, you know, start to put some of those, those things together, those ideas, I took ideas from other sectors, like beauty influencers or fashion influencers to say, you know, what really works? And I just started creating content. For the first few months, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't consistent about it, which was a mistake. And then I decided you weren't consistent housing in, in the amount that I was posting. Right. So I wasn't consistently posting every day, which was a problem. Because the algorithm really needs to figure out what your niche is and therefore what the audience that is around that niche should be. Right. So the more consistent you are about posting, the more quickly you can iterate and the algorithm can iterate to make sure you're honing in on exactly what the audience wants to see. And so when I did start posting consistently, a couple things happened. One, I started doing some of the trends, which I I highly recommend trending sounds, trending audios, things that you're seeing over and over and repeat don't ignore them because, you know, they look silly. They actually bring a lot of people into it. Sure. That's trending for a reason, exactly, but make it relatable to whatever it is you're talking about. The second thing is is the consistency is key because eventually it will start getting comments, and I started replying to those comments with videos. And so it sort of started to push this algorithm out a little bit. If you picture, like, a Venn diagram of people with multiple different interests, it starts to push it out and expand that Venn diagram to include more people that maybe aren't just interested in wine, which I think is the key difference between TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. TikTok is the one platform where I found that I'm not just talking to wine drinkers that are obsessed with wine or wine curious. I'm talking to people that were maybe just a touch interested in wine and interested in other things, but because of these videos and because they were suggested to them, they became more interested. So it's been really fascinating to see all those different things kind of work together to really expand my audience and then also, you know, in turn, expand the amount of of wine education we're getting out to people. Exactly. And that's I mean, this is a whole different world of wine education. It's immediate. It's, you know, definitely targeted to your specific audience. As you said, you know, as you're growing your Venn diagram and your audience is expanding out Yeah. You're you're educating a broader sector of people than you would be in other ways. And even probably broader than you anticipated. I'm guessing. We broader. Oh, it's really it's really cool because I think people don't understand their people shy away from starting these things. Maybe I need somebody to hold the camera for me. Maybe I need this or that. But you are doing this on your own. Completely on my own, I, you know, I have a little tripod. Everything that I do is filmed on my iPhone. Most of the time, I do film in the app, but I do edit in the app. I do think it's also really important if you're starting out to get yourself familiar with the app and to use the text that's provided. One of the things that TikTok is really great about that, you know, Instagram has traditionally not been, but YouTube has, and they sort of dominated this, was SEO. Of course. So, you know, Google, YouTube, everyone knows that relationship, TikTok, interestingly actually has really great SEO. And so it's becoming a search platform for people for when they're researching things. So making sure that you're using the test in app to make sure that that SEO captures exactly what you're saying so that people who are searching for that related topic can actually find the video. The other thing that, that it has that that I found Instagram really does not is long tail. So content that, you know, maybe does really well in the first forty eight hours, maybe it'll have a lull, but then a week, two weeks later it picks back up. And so it can have this sort of evergreen effect that YouTube has that Instagram really never Of course. And it's and it stays where your story disappears, TikTok. Exactly. So it remains and it remains searchable and, you know, as people continue to use TikTok and audiences' team to make it older, those videos will continue to be recommended to them because still relevant. That's so interesting. These are really these are like the best insider to take in for your while. So do you think TikTok's gonna last? I mean, you know, is it going to become monetizable, is it gonna grow or slow? What do you think what's happening? Well, they're they're definitely, I mean, as a company, ByteDance is the parent company in in the United States' ByteDance. It's definitely iterating and changing. I mean, I don't think I've I've seen a week go by where there isn't something new on the platform. It does feel like a lot of platforms are borrowing or stealing from each other as of late. So I think that's just an organism, but it's an organism that functions that. Exactly. But, you know, I think I think, are they here to last I think so. It doesn't seem fleeting. It seems very powerful. The trajectory has been up and to the right, which is a great sign. It really doesn't show any signs of slowing. And the other thing as far as monetization is concerned, I mean, the plat form has been a little bit more slow to adapt, or adopt these monetization strategies like YouTube and Instagram has, but I do know that it's coming, and I do know that they are definitely trying to take back that market share. As well as get creators, a marketplace to get them to actually sell their goods. Of course. So it makes sense because they don't wanna lose their creators exactly. And and COVID's over. People aren't sitting at home. Yeah. Things for free anymore. What other kinds of social media platforms do you think are gonna be as powerful for wine in the next couple of years? And do you have a sense of consumers or buyers moving towards any one particular kind of engagement or a different one? No. I mean, I think they all they all do different things. I mean, if you look at, you know, I'll talk about Instagram and the the Instagram YouTube and TikTok, they all serve different demographics. For example, YouTube tends to be much more male dominated. They also tend to favor more long form content and also content that's more highly produced. So the barriers to entry as a creator is much higher but you're also serving a different demographic. When it comes to Instagram, Instagram is still trying to figure themselves out. Right? Like, they were, I think, they were one thing, you know, they're multiple different things, and I think they're still having a sort of identity crisis. But they still are capturing a big part of the market share. So I don't think it's going anywhere, but it does serve that that, more of a social niche. So when you think about those three Instagram TikTok and YouTube, you have to think about their primary purpose. Which is YouTube is entertainment. There really is no social interaction. Meaning, yes, people are commenting, but you're not socializing in the way that you want an Instagram. Instagram is a bit more of a hybrid where it's social and entertainment. Yeah. It took it took over where Facebook left off. Exactly. Exactly. And it's sort of expected that, you know, as a, you know, anyone on there will have posted pictures or videos or whatever. Maybe you can make it private. Maybe you don't have to. But it does have that sort of hybrid social entertainment crossover. Tiktok's a little bit interesting in that it's still a crossover, but it's definitely entertainment first. It is not a social platform for us, which traditionally Instagram and Facebook were. So if you think about an even even deeper hybrid model, where entertainment is at the top and socials at the bottom. The reason I say socials at the bottom is, you know, I'm still engaging with people in the comments, and I'm replying to their their comments with other comments and videos. But the exchange in the DM is a little bit more different. So they serve different purposes, and then I'll also say, you know, because it did mention YouTube is more male dominated. TikTok is more female dominated. That's so interesting. So fifty four percent is what they say, is is good, is dominated by female versus male when it comes to TikTok, but if you look at one specific demographics, it's actually seventy five percent female to twenty five percent male. Wow. That's huge. Huge different scores. And yes. And the age range, you know, hard hard to tell that analytics are not great yet. Well, analytics for age are great. You know, I can see where they're coming from. I can see that obviously most as US and US based, I speak English, Canada, UK, Australia are also big markets. But I can say anecdotally. It's a much wider age range that I think people realize. And I I know that for a few reasons, I think one, if I when I when I talk about minds with age, specifically, like, fifty to sixty years of age and I mentioned that they're old, I definitely hear from My favorite is for a shot. It's great. How dare you say this is old? So, I mean, I think clearly we're working in a certain demographic or age bracket if we're getting upset about calling. It's just real. And I'm sure young people are, like, didn't know why to be my exact exactly. Exactly. So you really kind of like hear the chatter in the comments. The second thing that I think is really interesting, and another sort of anecdotal story is one of the videos that I had recommended to wind in was a particular winemaker, and she said she called me, always knew, and she said I had the funniest thing happen. I was deliver delivering a case of wine because this woman lived to the county over and I happened to be over there. And so I delivered the wine, and the woman that answered the door was in her sixties. And it was a case of, you know, case of various kinds of one hundred and twenty five dollars a bottle, twelve bottles that she purchased. And so she delivers it, and she said, how did you hear about us? And she said, you know, sheepishly, she replied TikTok. So so not only is, you know, is this demographic there. They're also buying very expensive wine. Yeah. So they're they're watching, but they're also spending money, which is a really interesting thing that going in, you mentioned earlier, some of the surprises that I've seen a broader demographic than I had realized. They're spending much more on wine than I had ever anticipated. I think going into TikTok, I had assumed now renewing incorrectly that it was gonna be much more of these fifteen to twenty dollar wines, things that you can find in grocery stores, Sure. And sure people still ask me for those recommendations all the time. It fits different pockets totally, but I have no problem talking about wines and getting people excited about wines that are thirty five to three hundred dollars a bottle. Which is amazing. That's especially when as you said, we talked about what the original, perceived demographic of TikTok was for kids. Exactly. And, you know, if you've got listeners in an audience that are even writing to you about, you know, three hundred dollar bottles wine. Yes. We've really pushed the boundaries. We definitely pushed the boundaries, and they're excited. They're excited to drink wine. They're excited to buy wine. They're excited to learn all the different facets of buying wine including wine auctions. Secondary market, buying them at restaurants, market at restaurants. There's just so much about wine that people don't understand and understandably don't understand that has been really interesting to learn about from my side and and remember that none of us really came out that we're building a new stop. Just so we're on the way. So to to be able to impart that information, I think it's been really fun for me. Well, and it's it's really cool to know that there's enough there's still know, wine isn't endless thing every year it's different. It never gets boring. No two vintages are the same. No two grapes are the same. So there's still a lot more, content you can be putting out. It's a bottomless pit. I can't keep up with the amount of questions and comments that I get for. That's so great. Requested content. Well, thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate you. My pleasure. Thank you for listening. And remember to tune in next Wednesday. I'll be chatting with another fascinating guest. Italian wine podcast is among the leading wine podcast in the world, and the only one with a daily show. Tune in every day and discover all our different shows. You can find us at Italian wine podcast dot com SoundCloud, Spotify, Himalaya, or wherever you get your pods.