What New Instagram Feed Filtering Means for your Brewery’s Content
Episode Overview
New year, new podcast… Well, sort of.
It’s not really a new podcast, per se. It’s more of a new format, intended to keep you on the edge of what’s happening in the craft beverage marketing universe.
During these episodes, we’ll share and discuss relevant news from the craft beverage AND marketing industry.
Here’s what we’re talking about this week:
- Drinkers might be less price sensitive than we thought
- Instagram reveals new feed filtering controls
- The Twitter rival you've never heard of
- AI and retail inventory tech
Episode Transcript
(AI-Generated, please forgive any typos)
What is up? This is the Get Optimized podcast. I am your host, Chris Overlay, and welcome back to the podcast. We took a bit of a. I say we, but it's me. I took a break, uh, throughout the holidays. Why? Because I got married, uh, in November and then we went on our honeymoon and, you know, with everything going on, it was like, all right, we gotta pull back a little bit.
Plus it's the holidays, Christmas and New Year's and all those things. But we are back and we've got a slightly different style of a podcast. in store for you. I wanted to change things up for a couple of reasons. One is, you know, I've spent the last year doing this podcast and learning a lot about what I like to do, what I think works and uh, what I think is relevant to you, the listener, and to the industry.
So I've made some updates to our process a little bit, which I'll get into. Um, but uh, also I wanna change new subcu. It's fun, right? We wanna do different things. . And, um, also because I wanna drink beer during this podcast. , funny enough, you know, when I was doing this last year, it was like, you know, uh, we were doing interviews, doing 'em whenever I could.
Right? Whenever I can get them scheduled. And a lot of times it was like, you know, Wednesday at 10:00 AM or, or something like that. It's like, I'm not about to crack a beard Wednesday at 10:00 AM I got too much work to do. But now I'm going to, I have time set aside. We're gonna do this on Fridays. And on Fridays we could have.
Right. We can, uh, we can do some of that stuff. Um, and that is very fun. So right now I'm, uh, actually, and I'll tell you what I'm drinking every single Friday, so I just cracked open a, uh, vanilla Oak CRE mail from Huddle Brewing Company. Um, if you don't know what huddle is, they're in Las Vegas. I am in Las Vegas, so I tend to try to drink the local stuff, but I drink all kinds of different things.
But huddle is amazing, uh, and uh, this vanilla oak is one of their, best, one of my favorites, I think. Um, uh, it's very, very tasty. But anyways, let's talk about the podcast. So here's what we're doing. So last year we did a lot of interviews and I love doing the interviews. Those are not gonna go away.
Today's episode is not an interview episode. It's in the new format, but interviews are not going away. In fact, I want to do, uh, more interviews that are very relevant to the industry. So if you've been listening to the podcast for a little, Early on we were doing interviews with marketers, and that stuff was amazing.
That's some really, really smart people coming on, uh, the show and helping us shine a light in different marketing concepts. And I don't think that will go away completely. There's of course, a space for that. But some of my favorite interviews from last year were the ones where we interviewed, uh, you know, brewery marketing people or people in the industry and, uh, really dove deep into certain little caverns and.
Alleyways, so to speak, within the craft beer industry. And I wanna do more of that, right? So, uh, you'll often hear me say, moving forward like, Hey, if you know somebody that is interested in sharing their story about something they're doing in the craft beer, craft, beverage cider, alternative bed, beverage, seltzer, whatever, RTD space labeling, whatever, let's uh, send 'em my way.
I'd love to interview them. I'd love to have them on the. And to chat with them, uh, about whatever it is they're doing. So, uh, interviews will be, will be happening in the future, which I'm very excited about. But what we're also going to do is, you know, what I wanted to try to bring to the podcast, so it's a bit more relevancy, uh, you know, on a, on a week to week basis.
And relevancy, I think really is, you know, great ways to do that is with, with news, right? So, um, I think that I'd like to start sourcing some articles for you, some news and some updates from two areas. Okay. So area number one is beer related news. Okay. Or craft beverage related news, things like that. The other area is marketing related news, right?
Cause this is a podcast. Craft beer, craft, beverage, and marketing. So what what I'm kind of done is it's gone through and find articles that I read throughout the week. They get sent to me that pop up in my feeds. I flag them and say, okay, this is interesting. We should talk about that on the podcast for you where this value is.
Is you get the low down, right? Like I'm sourcing this stuff that I think is gonna be valuable to you. And, uh, you get that update. So that's what we're gonna do today, is I've found some stuff that I think is pretty cool and I want to share with you. Um, and I will go through that starting with. , the beer stuff.
So the first article I have to share, okay, comes from the New York Post. All right? And I know New York Post is a weird thing, okay? But it came up when doing some research on beer news and, uh, I think it's really hilarious. And there's a lesson in here for, for marketers too. So apparently, Um, there are some, some Buddhist that are not happy with, uh, Ang uh, the brewery, uh, I think out of New York.
Yeah. So, uh, they have put out a beer called Nirvana. It's a Nirvana, pale Label's. Cool man. It's got like a meditating person on there. Some hops. You can tell that Oga putting some real effort into this, but apparently they were getting sued. , there's a lawsuit from a, uh, some like Hindu. Saying that calling the beer, calling an alcoholic beverage, something related to a, a very spiritual term is not cool
So they are, uh, not very happy with it. Uh, so kind of interesting, right? Like, uh, it's a weird one coming out of there. You think that Nirvana, there's so many things that are called that, and we use it as a, you know, in commonplace here in the States, uh, as just a word of like enlightenment. Cool. Really good.
You know, you could probably sub it in for really good. I think there is a lesson in here like, you know, be careful with what you're naming your stuff. Uh, especially if you're a large enough organization for someone to come after you, right? I think that probably what happened here is. , you know, they made this beer, um, you know, these, this religious group is upset and they probably have, you know, reason to do, to, to be upset.
I mean, it's a religious thing for them. And, uh, a lawyer gets involved and like, well, you know, this, this brewer's probably got some money, let's go after 'em. So it's kind of a trifecta of things that happen in that scenario. Uh, but even still, I think, you know, keep that in mind. I think also, like even if there wasn't.
A, you know, lawsuit involved with this. You know, I think there's a lesson in here to be, you know, thoughtful, um, and have some forethought into, you know, what you're doing gaming wise, what you're doing design-wise, uh, especially in the world today where, you know, people are, uh, very conscious of these things.
Uh, you just have to be aware of them, um, and, uh, approach them with, with care and thoughtfulness. Uh, you know, I'm not saying o. didn't have thoughtfulness in here, and I don't know anything really more than what this, this article is saying about the case. Maybe they did, you know, and they've, they've uh, they've have every reason to, to call every this, this, uh, Nirvana beer.
But the lesson here is keep it in mind, cuz you never know when there's a lawyer coming your way. Okay? So, uh, The next thing I heard about or read about is, uh, this, um, kind of idea that, you know, beer prices are rising okay, but beer drinkers are remaining loyal. Okay? So this, this article came from, uh, The drinks business.com.
And by the way, I'll share these articles in the, uh, link. So actually they're not really conducive to share in the podcast notes. Um, it's better if you go to our website and go to our blog. We'll list them there because the podcast notes, like when you get on these platforms, they don't necessarily push those links very well.
So we'll put 'em on the. so that you can link to them if you wanna read some of these things. But, um, the drink, the drinks business.com put out this article saying, you know, as prices rise, us beer drinkers remain brand loyal. And like, you know, there's some stuff in here that I think we all kind of know, like, you know, the average price for a case of beer is up, you know, according to some, uh, information, they derived stuff like seven to eight per seven to.
Percent. Okay. But the nuanced bit of this is, is that the data they're referencing is saying that although you're, uh, you know, what's going on is that beer sales, um, have showed moderate gains, like not tons of gain here, but volume has declined. So although sales, I think they're referring to sales revenue here is remained relatively flat, there's just less beer.
sold volume wise and their inference is that, um, you know, people are being more choosy with the beers that they're drinking. And this is kind of interesting cuz I've had conversations with different folks in the industry and there is also the idea that, um, you know, to. Cheaper beer, right? It's cheaper ingredients, a little bit.
Not cheap ingredients, but more affordable ingredients that can be therefore translated into a more affordable beer on the shelves to try to compete with stuff that's cheaper, right? And this data seems to suggest that, hey, you know, maybe cheaper. Doesn't necessarily matter. You know, people are down for a good beer, they're just down to buy a little bit less of it.
So they're a little bit more choosy about quality. Okay. And it's interesting, these things, pricing is such a weird one when it comes to marketing because on one hand you have like, well, I want to compete and be low priced, you know, and sell more volume. On the other hand, it's like, well, can I position my price in a way that, you know, uh, indicates that we are a higher.
brand, right? We're more quality, we have higher quality, and therefore it's worth spending the extra dollars on it. I look at this and the first thing I thought was like, well, uh, you know, in thinking about my own beliefs, when I go to the store, I'm like, well, you know, if I'm gonna spend 12 bucks on a fourt pack, uh, you know, I wanna get bang for that buck.
So I'm looking at like, alcohol percentage, . I'm like, all right, if I'm gonna give four of 'em and I'm gonna spend the. The dollars on this four of us, the other four alcohol percentage is, is a factor for me. Right. And I think K craft beer tends to, tends to be the higher alcohol stuff. And the same time though, like there's an age demographic piece with this too.
I think, as I was just sharing some, uh, I don't have the article in front of me right now, but I was just sharing some information with a client of mine about how as, uh, people age as beer drinkers and really, you know, craft beverage drinkers age, they reach for a step that has less alcohol in it. Okay. So there is, I think that trend is absolutely valid too.
So you've got these different competing ideologies out here. I think really what, you know, gleam from this is like, okay, you, this comes back to a very basic marketing concept of know that customer, right? Know who your customer is and what, what's gonna be valuable to them. Understand your. and understand what's really out there, you know, uh, in this zone.
You know, if you've got an opportunity to produce a, you know, more moderately, uh, you know, alcohol content, I, I don't know how to phrase that. You know, there's, uh, less alcohol in the beer and it seems to fit with your market, and there seems to be a hole in the market for that. Okay. Win, win, win. I don't think it would be, you know, I would caution against.
Hey, let's just make one to make one because everyone else is making, like, what if you're one of 10 now that are on a shelf or one of a dozen or more, right, that are now on the shelf, that now you're kind of lost in the noise. There's just so many different things to consider with this. But I thought the article here, to bring this back to the bit of news, it was interesting that, um, their inference was that, you know, volumes of decline, but revenue is relatively flat, so there is a, a kind of choosiness going on.
Consumers. Um, so, and that's across the country, right? Uh, so not just one zone. Okay. More beer news. Uh, maybe you've heard of this one. I hadn't heard about this until this week, but Fat Tire changed their recipe. . Okay. And we think craft beer, fat tire, I think it's probably focused, oh, it's kind of big new, Belgians big and uh, but I think you probably still creep them into some version of craft here in some way.
But they've changed their recipe. It is a crisp beer version. They seem to use that word a lot in their pr. Uh, this is a, by the way, an article I found on Gear Patrol. So when I sourced, although there was lots of people talking about. New recipe, but Gear Patrol is gonna get our back link. Um, but, uh, you know, fat Tire, their PR piece on this is, you know, that it's, you know, people, the fat tire drinkers are still gonna recognize it.
Um, it's just a different recipe. And their reasoning behind this is a, is apparently fat Tire is big on, you know, environmental protection. They want to, uh, brew beer. In fact, uh, according to this article, and they probably sourced it from somewhere else too. That fat tire was like the first, you know, , uh, brewery to be like neutral, like environ, like I guess carbon neutral or waste neutral with the, with their brewing process versus, you know, with the environmental, environmental impact they have versus what they're saving and recycling and, and not putting out their environment.
So they're carbon neutral, net neutral, uh, which is, so I didn't realize that, that Fati has, you know, this environmental piece is climate advocacy piece of their, their brand, and that is what they. Using as their core for this recipe decision. Looking at the beer, it is definitely different. Okay. Like, got a totally new can for this thing.
Um, it is a lighter beer. In fact, when you look at, you know, the, I, I jumped on untapped to see if I could see some trends in reviews. I really wanna see if their reviews are, are changing and, and Untapped just doesn't have that data for me. Uh, fatty probably has that data. You know, they're, they're recent reviews.
I wonder how folks are responding. The updating the beer, but it's definitely, it looks like a different beer. I have not had it yet. I will have to try it, but it is a lighter beer. Um, it no longer says, at least in the photos that I'm seeing, it no longer says that it is an amber ale. It is more like, according to this article on Gear Patrol is more like a blonde, uh, You know, ale with some character and taste to it.
So, uh, they have updated their recipe. Now, when I read this article too, the first thing that I thought was like, well, they're changing their recipe. It's also, you know, in line with all these things going on with inflation and the rising cost of materials. And I'm like, hmm, is there, is there, uh, you know, some it does cost have to do with something on this.
And of course there's nothing like that in these articles, but I am curious. If that is part of it. If it's a good beer, who cares, right? Um, if they've made it for a little less money and then everyone likes it, awesome. But I thought that that was interesting. Um, and would give some justification to other breweries, uh, that are thinking, Hey, maybe we can make a, uh, a more affordable beer and save some cost and still, uh, you know, make our margins.
So I'm curious if that's the case. Uh, but, uh, you know, if you're listening to this and you have tried to let me know, um, I will look for it on the shelve. Where I am at, um, and see if I can find it. Cause I'm interested in trying it. Okay. So, uh, moving on to marketing news here. So I've got a few things for you, uh, that I think are interesting and relevant to, uh, craft beard this week.
Okay. Um, first is some news from Instagram. Okay. They have, uh, made changes to the way that people can manage stuff in their feeds. Part of this is related to like, like parental controls and like minor controls, like for teens. They got into some hot water, if you knew this or not. Maybe you've read some news, like they got into some trouble with, with teens, like being overserved content and ads and, and really recommended reels, recommended posts, recommended accounts.
About like diet and like really like negative things like, you know, uh, eating disorder level stuff. So they got into hot water with it. This is definitely a response to that cuz the materials they're, they're saying is like, yeah, you can actually block, um, basically, so here, here's what the deal is. So apparently what you can do is you can go through and select certain keywords and say, I don't want recommendations.
On those keywords. So you do this from your explorer page, but they're saying that if you do this in your explorer section, it will translate into the rest of your feed. And you probably see this all the time on Instagram. You get recommended stuff all the time. I swear I watched like one golf video on Instagram and for the next week I am just served nothing but golf stuff,
I'm like, all right guys, I'd like the one. I'm not saying I'm ready to go pro on this thing, but anyways, their recommended pushes. Uh, now you have a little bit of control with that, which as a user, I think is helpful. It's like, look, if you don't want to see some of these things, you don't, you can put it as a, a negative, uh, keyword.
Almost just kind of like with Google, you can put negative keywords into your search ads. I won't go down that tangent right now, but the point is, you have more controls here Now. What does this mean to us as marketers and, and to you and your brand? Well, I think. Um, where you could see this negatively impact things is in your organic results.
Like if some, let me back up a couple steps. Here's why I think that this could negatively impact you is because historically speaking, anytime Meta now, Instagram, Facebook. . They do things at an algorithmic level, and that's what this is. It's an algorithmic change. Their algorithm has to make certain assumptions on what people mean, right?
Like there's a certain version of this that's like keyword, but like it has to make inferences based on like slightly different variations of that keyword. Like if you use the word diet, for example, , does that mean that just, that that word is pulled or is like really all content related to diets? And if we're gonna include diets into there, are we talking about like, um, you know, exercise equipment or fitness routines?
Um, like where, where does the algorithm, where does its borders on what it's inf. End. Right. Uh, that is a very valid question. Only the folks at Meta really know, and, and I'd venture that they probably don't know . You know, their machine does what the machine does. Now, back to the question of what does this mean for you?
I think that folks are going to put stuff into their filters, and those filters are going to, um, reduce all sorts of promotional level content. You know, like, why not? If you don't wanna see ads, or you don't wanna see business content on there. Why not put words like business, ad promotion, sale, those type of things.
And you're just gonna see your, your content filter go wild. That's my, that's what I'm thinking on it. So, uh, you know, your organic content might see some changes here in the future with Instagram, you might see some reduction in, um, Uh, like reach, I guess, organic reach. What would be really cool is if you could put keywords in there for stuff that you did want to see.
Right. I would, I would rather have that and be like, yeah, you know, actually I'm getting ready to, we just did a remodel on our hou or a remodel on our bathroom downstairs. It would've been awesome to put it some keywords and say, Hey, look, for the next couple of weeks, I'd love to get some content about, you know, uh, fixtures or shelving or, you know, whatever that has to do with the bathroom.
You know, home Depot knows that , I'm doing a bathroom, they serve me content all the time. But, uh, that, I think that is a cool way to go about it. I would be interested to see if, if interested to see if Instagram goes that way. Anyways, tangent, back to the point here, um, what I think this also means for you as a business is like, yeah, I've said this many times.
I think your, your reliance on organic reach is now in like another blow another. On your, on your, you know, organic reach. Ultimately it's taken another shot out of it, another chunk out of it. Another thing is going to interrupt that. Uh, so your reliance on paid has to be there, right? I am always about that and I'm like, yo, just pay for some pushes.
Cuz I don't think that this is going to limit the ads that are served. Okay? This is going to be for what is suggest. Right. Uh, not necessarily what ads are there. And with your ads, you can push things into feeds. Um, it's just a continued, you know, emphasis on, you know, uh, or more fuel for the fire burning with me to say, Hey, look, just reliance on ads.
Rely on paid not for everything, but you know, if you're trying to get a message out about an event, about a new beer, about a new thing going on, paid, paid, paid, okay. That's what's going on with Instagram. Let's jump over to. The garbage fire that is Twitter. Okay. And, um, I'm not necessarily gonna talk about Twitter directly here, but there's an article, um, really a bunch of articles out about, um, Mastodon Okay.
And how advertisers are kind of taking a look at Mastodon. Um, the article that I'm referencing that I think is interesting here and is something that I think we just make a mental note in right now. I'm not. Make any moves. I'm definitely not making any moves when I'm making a mental note about what's going on at, with, uh, Macedon.
What, what, what the news is, is that Buffer, uh, has added Macedon to their. social media management platform. What Buffer is, is there kind of like a hoot suite or a social media content calendar planning software? You can pay them. You can now, you can like schedule posts to go out on all your social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever they've added, mask it on.
And if you're saying, what the heck is Macedon? I've never heard of this before. You're not alone, right? Mastodons? I didn't even hear about it until, you know, I don't know, a couple months ago. And I'm in the industry, right? Mastodon is kind of like, Twitter ish thing. From what I hear about it, it's kind of interesting.
If you're on Reddit, imagine like a Reddit Twitter hybrid. Basically, you can create, I guess people can create these different environments, these different communities. On Macon, it operates like Twitter, but you can subscribe and com, uh, you know, be part of these different. , I'll use the word subreddit for the Reddit users that are out there.
But from what I understand, that's kind of how it operates, which I like at service value. I'm like, yeah, you know, at service value. Excuse me. I like that because it's like, well, yeah, you can subscribe to what you want to care about, you know, and get content about that. Contribute to the community. I really like that aspect of Reddit.
Um, but. , uh, it's yet to see, I mean, there's no advertisers on Macedon from what I understand. Right now. It's just organic content. But the mental note is like, okay, buffer is checking it out. These social media planning platforms as they start jumping on board, and if we continue to see problems go on with Twitter, maybe Macedon becomes something to.
Uh, fold in undetermined at this point. Okay. I got one more for you and then I will let you get back to whatever it is that you're doing, but this one is super interesting. Okay. What is going on? Uh, is that Google, Google Cloud apparently has rolled out an AI driven bit of inventory technology. Okay. Let's, let's at least.
The folks over@retaildive.com have put it, okay? But essentially what it's, I'm gonna try to explain it. What it does is imagine Google Maps. Okay? Imagine the, the car that drives around and takes Google Map pictures, like, you know, like street view. Imagine that inside of your grocery store in the roof that can actively scan shelves.
interpret data based on what's on those shelves. Okay. I'm gonna quote something from the article cause I think it, it helps summarize this. So Google announced the product recognition technology alongside other additions to a range of AI-based services. It offers to the merchants, apparently to at some kind of tech conference or something like that.
Earlier this year, early last year. The improvements include. , a new personalized search capability for websites, a browse feature for digital storefronts and upgrades that allow websites to dynamically determine which products to recommend to shoppers. Okay. There's a lot more in this article, but that is a good summary because what they're talking about, this technology going towards like eventually getting to.
You know, at least what I'm understanding is that you're gonna be able to jump online and see what's on their store right now. You could do your shopping, you could like walk around the store shelves and pick stuff out and see what's there. There's obviously a benefit to the retailer, right? Like they can in real time see what's moving off the shelves, what's not.
They could probably make AI based inferences on shelf placement. I would be very interested with, you know, things like color shape. There's like really cool things that can come from this from a craft beer perspective in a marketing perspective. I'm curious to see what this does for like retail spots, right?
Like what can we learn about where beer is place on shelves, the sizing of, you know, product, you know, 12 ounce versus 60 ounces. What can we learn about, uh, step, what I would call like step conversions? Like in a digital world, you would look at a step conversion. Okay. They, they came to the website, they clicked through three pages, and maybe they initiated a cart, uh, or, or like a cart.
They, they added stuff to their cart. Those are all like step conversions. Those give us indication that somebody was interested in buying. What can we learn about step conversions in, uh, in the retail space? Like, are people picking stuff up? Are they looking at certain things? Are they picking something off the shelf?
Looking at it, putting it back? Why do they do that? What, what can we learn about that? Uh, , it'll be cool to see this, you know, uh, become available if it ever does to, uh, us as business folks, right? Which maybe does, maybe it doesn't. Maybe this is really for the distribution folks. So if you're dis in the distribution world, uh, and you're listening to this, I would keep my ears perked up about this like Google AI thing for retail and how this might help you, uh, improve your business and sell more.
and, uh, help communicate back to your suppliers. You know, maybe you can learn things and share with them, at least I would hope so. That's the idea, right? And it's help everybody, but a very interesting bit of news there for you. So, okay. That's it, right? That is, that is the update. I think I went a little bit long here, but hopefully you found this entertaining.
Uh, I will try to improve this as we move along. Um, couple of requests for you. So, , if you would like to be on the podcast, you know, either jumping on and getting interviewed or you wanna jump on and go through some of these articles with us and chat about them, I'm totally down to have you on Shoot us a message.
You can just go to get optimized.com, go over to the podcast page or a contact page and drop us a line. Uh, so that is request number one. Request number two is if you have some news that's out there and we didn't catch it, or you would like us to feature it, shoot it our way. I'm happy to take a. Consider it for the next episode.
We're gonna try to do this every week moving forward, barring any holidays or vacations or whatever the case is. So that will be happening finally. Uh, if you like this episode and you think somebody else will get some value from it, please share it. You know, we've got the blog posts up, we've got it up on Spotify, on Apple, we've got on Amazon, all of.
Share the link with somebody you care about , you know, and, uh, would, would benefit from the content here. Uh, and uh, I would very, very much appreciate that. Okay. I will let you go. Thank you very much for tuning in. We'll catch you next time. Audio.