South Beach Food & Wine Festival SWOT Analysis

By: Sadisleidy Alvarez,Yousef Alyami,Marc Boulos, Janelis Camejo, & Robert Salcines

Background/Company Culture SOBE Food & Wine Festival

started began in 1997 as the Florida Extravaganza, which was held at the FIU Biscayne Bay campus.

Although a lot has changed since then the festival still showcased wines from international wineries, and food from local restaurants.

This year they are celebrating their 15 year anniversary as the SOBE Food & Wine Festival and are projected to attract more than 60,000 guests.

Strengths

It is backed by the Food Network, which has 6.1M fans on Facebook, 3.7M followers on Twitter and 1.7M on Instagram.

Backed by the cooking channel which has 1.35M Facebook fans, 165K on Instagram, and 345K on Twitter

Robust Female audience which comprises 73% of their Facebook fans

Large network of celebrities and that promote the event using their social media channels, namely celebrity chefs.

Great content. Professional images of the amazing food and images from past food festivals.

Weaknesses They don’t have an actual Twitter account, the

account the use is the CEO’s. Twitter has the largest penetration of all the social media sites, which would be a useful tool for them to promote the event.  

Twitter has approximately 560 million active users and Instagram has 300 million active users, so having their own accounts would be ideal.

Their Instagram page that we found is only the one for volunteers. Whenever you click the Instagram icon on their site, it leads to a Iconosquare, which simply shows posts with their hashtag.

They are not very active on their social media platforms, need to come up with more creative posts

Opportunities They should make an official

Twitter account to make it easier for the public to get information about the event

They should advertise more to men considering they advertise specifically more to woman

Promote more networking in the products that they sell to create partnerships

Through social media platforms, have the opportunity to find out what the people like and dislike and use that information to their benefit.

Threats Risk of potential visitors getting less interested by the

festival due to the lack of attractive posts on social media

Possible loss of visitor due to lack of detailed information about the attending chefs on their social media pages leave people wondering who will be present (Facebook comments)

Tickets sales are not advertised in an attractive way (similar every year) that might disappoint visitors  

Being absent from Pinterest will not help the organization to expand the number of visitors as Pinterest is becoming a powerful social media platform    

42,063

21,000

#SOBEWFF 1546 followers on volunteer

page

Their best use for social media is spreading the word about the event and selling tickets. They can accomplish this several ways by: Using pictures from past events with a link to purchase Promoting videos from the celebrity chefs and other

celebrities talking about the event Publishing Infographics showing the different types of food

and wine that will be there by country The spread of information during the event such as

Live broadcasts of cooking demonstrations for those that cannot make it

Last minute changes to any schedules Traffic and parking information for those commuting to the

event

Social Media Strategy Analysis

Target Group Based on data collected from audience insights on Facebook,

73% of all their fans are women, with the majority falling between the age range of 25-50. So the target group would be men.

They can appeal more to men by advertising things men are more interested in such as Barbecue and grilling showcases, and celebrity chefs such as Guy Fieri and Bobby Flay who specialize in barbecue and comfort food.

Men typically use social media more for sharing content and not as much as a means to express themselves For example men are less likely to post a selfie compared

to women They can be reached through engaging/shareable content

such as ads depicting a steak fresh off the grill or a funny video related to the event

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights Continued

Analysis of Social Media ToolsTools Advantage Disadvantage

Allows them to advertise to their target market with up to 90% accuracy and post any kind of content about their

event.

Facebook is not used by its users as a source

for instantaneous information.

Should be used for beautiful pictures from the event with a

focus on the food because everyone loves food.

You can only post pictures and 15 second

videos

Live broadcast demonstrations and shows for those who cannot attend or may be on the other

side of the festival and still want to see what’s going on.

All you can do it Livestream and record video and it does not have an advertising

platform yet.

Analysis of Social Media ToolsTools Advantage Disadvantage

Should be used for short updates such as changes in time or location of an event, breaking news

related to the event, and to engage with patrons

before, during, and after the festival.

Tweets can be no longer than 140 characters

SnapchatShould be used to post

stories from the event from start to finish

• They are only 10 seconds long. If you

want them to be longer you must record another

ten second video.• Snapchat does have an

ad platform however it is very expensive.

What is the organization doing right?

Constantly informing their followers on Facebook about tickets and the different ways to purchase.

Good content from past festivals

What to improve on social media Hire someone who is extremely proficient in social

media marketing and content curation to run their accounts and unify their business under one handle.o All the usernames for every account should be

the same (@SoBeWFF or @SoBeWFFMiami) to make it easy for them to be discovered online no matter which platform they’re being searched for on.

By keeping up to date with the latest apps and trends they will be able to reach completely new markets that are just a few keyboard taps away.

Utilize the ad platforms of Facebook and Twitter to sell tickets to the event.

References

2016 SOBEWFF | FEB 24-28, 2016. (n.d.). Retrieved October 27, 2015.DeMers, J. (n.d.). 100 Killer Ideas For Your Social Media Content. Retrieved

October 27, 2015.Facebook Ads. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2015.

Facebook for Business. (n.d.). Retrieved October 25, 2015.Food Network & Cooking Channel South Beach Wine & Food Festival presented

by FOOD & WINE Miami Beach - Art Deco District/South Beach. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2015.

South Beach Wine & Food Festival | Miami News, Food, Culture and Events | Miami New Times. (n.d.). Retrieved October 27, 2015.

Twitter: Number of monthly active users 2015 | Statistic. (n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2015.