The Wine Bloggers Conference has taken on the new name of Wine Media Conference, with a new URL at www.WineMediaConference.org.
Panel Discussion at the 2018 Conference
At the 2018 Wine Bloggers Conference in Walla Walla, we had a panel discussion titled Wine Bloggers, Wine Writers, and Wine Influencers. Our three insightful panelists (Tom Wark of Fermentation, one of the original wine bloggers; Michael Wangbickler of Balzac Communications, who went from wine blogger to PR pro; and James Forsyth of the Delectable Wine App) provided an hour’s worth of thoughts for the audience to digest.
One of the last questions presented to the panel by moderator Thaddeus Biggs was “Is the Wine Bloggers Conference appropriately named?” Tom Wark took this head on and declared “The Wine Bloggers Conference is not appropriately named, nor has it been for several years.”
Rather than being the motivation for the name change, Tom’s comment can more correctly be seen as the capstone of a movement that brought this about. We at Zephyr Conferences have discussed this with our Advisory Board for years and conducted surveys of our attendees on this subject in 2015 and again this year.
More Accurate and Inclusive Name
Blogging is simply one form of communication and the reality is almost all blogger attendees at the conference also engage in social media. Many also do other forms of wine writing, either for print magazines, online magazines, or wineries. Wine Media Conference more accurately reflects what our attendees do.
Just as importantly, the change to Wine Media Conference is designed to be more welcoming to those who do not blog but do communicate about wine. This includes social media influencers, non-blogging wine writers, and those who work in communications in the wine industry.
The content of the Wine Media Conference has accurately reflected the diversity of interests of its attendees for years. Now, with this change, so does the conference title and URL.